T-Mobile’s CEO and the Tribal Approach to Management

Current Event Name Institution Affiliation Current Event Article Summary The article “T-Mobile’s CEO and the Tribal Approach to Management” by Sam Walker is about the leadership style of John Legere, A CEO of T-Mobile, one of the largest telecommunication firms in the world. The article indicates that John Legere has an aggressive leadership style that most companies would not tolerate. The CEO has been ruthlessly attacking the company’s arch rivals such as Verizon and AT&T on social media, indicating that they do not offer products that can match the quality of those offered by his company (Walker, 2019). According to the author, Mr. Legere’s leadership style is different from most other CEOs because he often uses profane language. He is an ardent fan of social media with millions of followers and wears clothes that most CEOs would not wear while in office such as motorcycle jacket. Surprisingly, this does not stop his employees and customers from liking him, and he has an internal approval rate of 99% (Walker, 2019). Moreover, despite having this controversial style of leadership, the sales of the company have improved significantly since Mr. Legere took over. The author terms his style of leadership as tribal management. The article goes ahead and labels persons with this style of management as Deuteronomy managers and highlight a few examples and scenarios such as Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, James Mattis, a general in the US Marine Corps, the US president, Donald Trump and Bill Russell, the former captain of the Boston Celtics (Walker, 2019). All these leaders are said to be formidable and ruthless individuals to their opponents but highly liked internally. Mr. Legere is not afraid of publicly pointing out the weaknesses of his rivals and suggests that he is doing this to encourage people to become better and push for innovation...