Ellison - Organisational Behaviour analysis of personality, leadership, team management, motivation

1. 1. Introduction.
Obviously, the best way of studying Organization Behaviour is using the gained knowledge in
practice. That’s why the fundamental purpose of this report is study of a chosen person from the
Organization Behaviour’s point of view.
2. Body part.
2.1.Larry Ellison
Lawrence "Larry" Ellison is an American business person, most famous as co-founder and CEO
of Oracle Corporation. The idea that databases can become an important part of software
industry came to him during 1970s. During his database project for CIA named "Oracle". In
1977 Ellison founded Oracle and started the expansion of a company. Although, there were
difficult periods in his career. For example, in 1990 company struggled to survive, because of the
mistakes in management. Consequently, despite of the mistakes and difficulties in 1990s, Oracle
became stronger and now it is one of the leading software companies. Besides the work sphere,
Ellison known for his fast-lane lifestyle and turbulent private life, he is the owner of the
collection of luxury cars, yachts and jets. He also known as a prominent philanthropist, the
amount of his donations forms more that billion dollars. Because all of this, Lawrence Ellison is
an interesting person for the analysis and report. His discrepant behaviour would be hard, but
fascinating to analyse and understand from OB perspectives.
2.2.Larry Ellison
2.3. Larry Ellison’s Personality
Ellison’s personality was chosen for the analysis due to the importance of this area to the
comprehension of person’s behaviour and characteristics. There is a discussion of the question
whether personality is mostly affected by genetic reason or environment. This issue is usually
called “nature versus nurture”. The majority of psychologists agree with the opinion that
personality is formed by the influence of both heredity and environment. Besides, there is a big
dispute of the possibility that different theories can describe a unique personality. The big
stratum of theories is related to the study of persons’ traits. The most outstanding trait theory is
so-called “Big Five” model, developed by Lewis Goldberg, according to which personality can
be described in terms of five distinctive factors: extroversion, openness to experience,
conscientiousness, agreeableness and emotional stability. For example, the analysis of Ellison’s
biography, speeches and observations of spectators gives us an obvious answer that that he is an
extrovert and intelligent person, though he lacks sometimes of agreeableness and
conscientiousness. Another type of personality's assessment is psychometric questionnaire called
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). It can be considered as a successor of Jung’s theory.
Lawrence and Martin (2010) say that Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a very reliable instrument
in assessing personality. There was a misunderstanding of whether Ellison is ENTP or ENTJ.
Consequently, the forum users of Jelsoft Enterprises (2010) helped to conclude logically that

2. Larry Ellison is ENTP. “Seeing huge potential in something insignificant and putting huge risk
to make it into reality without any contingency plan is not ENTJ”, but ENTP they say.
The Psychodynamic Theory, first developed by Sigmund Freud, offers a different approach to
the analysis of personality and behaviour. According to this theory, there is a rivalry between
irrational motives and impulses and social influence (id versus superego). It is hard to analyses
Ellison from this theory because it requires large knowledge of psychology. But, Maccoby
(2000) make a splendid analysis of Ellison’s narcissism from the point of the Freud Theory. The
famous quote about Ellison ‘The difference between God and Larry is that God does not believe
he is Larry.’ Maccoby points out that Ellison is emotionally isolated and highly distrustful within
himself and this creates difficulties because it is hard to understand where the real Ellison is.
The following four characteristics also form the personality of Larry Ellison: risk-taking, internal
locus of control, high level of self-esteem and Machiavellianism. Lussier (2008, p275) makes an
analysis of Ellison using all four characteristics and conclude, that like most of successful
entrepreneurs, Larry Ellison has an extremely strong internal locus of control. Besides, “he is not
averse to taking risk, even if his key advisers suggest that a move may be unwise. He tends to
have a high level of optimism that his chosen course of action is the right one. He also a high
Mach, believing that the ends justify means. He has been quoted as saying, ‘It's not enough that
we win, all others must lose’.”
2.4. Motivation
Unlike many successful businesspersons, especially billionaires, Larry Ellison does not hide the
fact that money is one of the main motivators for him. Of course, he has the features of both
intrinsically and extrinsically motivated behaviours, but extrinsically one is much more
influential, which is relatively rare for the person enrolled in the Forbes list. For example, he
ranked first positions on CEO Compensation for different years, despite of his wealth. Although,
Accel-Team (2010) notes that according to McClelland Theory the value of money is
overestimated sometimes. Money just helps people to have more power and it is also a good
estimator of achievements. Besides, money also helps to satisfy high-level need according to
other need motive theories, such as Maslow’s Need Hierarchy Theory and Alderfer’s ERG
Theory. Of course, money helps Larry Ellison to realize his full potential via self-development in
both business and hobbies areas. For example, his obsession with sailing racing and luxury cars
requires huge amount of money, as well as different business acquisitions. Besides, money
supports his high self-esteem, which is also important according to these theories. "Whatever I
want, I get," Ellison once said. "That's the beauty of being worth $26 billion. I thoroughly
recommend it.”
Besides the needs themselves, there is a batch of motivation theories that study the process of
making choices, such as expectancy and equity theories, goal-setting theory self-regulation
theory. Vrooms expectancy theory is supported by empirical evidence and one of the more
widely accepted theories of motivation, as QuickMBA (2007) suggests. According to the theory,
motivational force depends on expectancy probability (e.g. if I work harder, will I receive more
benefits), the amount of reward, and the valence of the reward. For example, Ellison will show
up at the meeting of board only if he knows that it enhances the performance of Oracle greatly.
Adams’ Equity theory says that workers are motivated only if the know that their outputs (hard

3. work, skills, etc) will result in valuable benefits. Evidently, Ellison believes that he is fairly
rewarded for his work.
In addition, there are some evidences that psychodynamic theory can also explain Ellison’s
motivation to some degree. He exposed in numerous interviews that his childhood was not
happy. He was abused by his adoptive father; there was a feud between them since his
childhood. He always told him that he would not success in any area. “Oh, it was a powerful
motivation,” Rohrlich (2009) notes Ellison’s quotation written in a book by author Michael
Wilson. “I think my dad had a wonderful effect on me.”, he ironically adds.
2.5. Leadership
Cherry (2010) notes that firstly there were three well-defined leadership styles, which were
described by Kurt Lewin in 1939. Lewin noted authoritarian, participative and delegative
leadership styles. So, authoritarian leaders usually make decisions by themselves, the decision
are made quickly; however it leads to low creativity and dependency on the leader. Participative
or democratic leaders make a creative environment and all the opinions heard there. The leaders
with third style usually make an emphasis on delegation of their duties; it can be inspiring for the
teams, however sometimes it can create a chaos.
Legacee.com (2010) shows that there are many other defined leadership styles, including
transactional, transformational, and paternalistic leadership style. The first one is described as
bureaucratic, “by the book approach” to leadership duties, while transformational leaders are
usually charismatic and make people change. Paternalistic leaders consider their employees as
children and try to teach, help and protect them.
But, Lawrence Ellison is an eminent situational leader he adjusts his leadership style to the
particular situation. That’s why, Ellison can be considered as situational leader, as he shows the
behaviour of authoritarian, delegative, and transformational leader.
2.6. Team and group working skills and decision making
Larry Ellison heavily depends in his team, including Jack Kemp, Garcia-Molina, Charles
Phillips, Naomi Seligman and Jeffrey Henley. Kawamoto (2000) say that Larry Ellison’s success
is owed to the people that surround him, he notes Ray Lane as an example of such a person. He
also notes that Ellison as the manager squeezes all the energy and skills out of his team and then
eventually enjoy the success. Besides this, the success of Oracle Company comes from the smart
and fortunate series acquisitions, such as the famous latter acquisition of Sun Microsystems.
There are evidently economical reasons for such acquisitions, but Ellison also wants the
Company to be in “a good shape”, or, in other words, he wants Oracle not to arrive at the final
stage in group development for temporary groups with the low performance, according to The
Five-Stage Model of Group Development.
Larry Ellison uses the benefits of both individual and group decision. For example, he fully relies
on his team while solving the routine problems. He even often misses the meeting that he
arranges himself. But, if he sees that there will be some new opportunities that are not seen for
the majority of the board he uses his right to make the decisions on his own.

4. 3. Conclusion.
Larry Ellison is a real phenomenon in IT industry. He is nor diligent nor man of genius, he has
not got unknown techniques of management. But, despite of all this, he is one of the richest man
in the world. His fortune comes from his visionary mind and aggressive business tactics. He also
helps to understand that there are always different ways of achieving success.

5. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Accel-Team.,2010. David McClelland's research into achievement motivation. Available:
http://www.accel-team.com/human_relations/hrels_06_mcclelland.html . Last accessed 25
March 2010.
Cherry, K., 2010. Lewin's Leadership Styles. Available:
http://psychology.about.com/od/leadership/a/leadstyles.htm . Last accessed 25 March 2010.
Jelsoft Enterprises., 2010. Famous historical NT's. Available:
http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/nt-rationale/964-famous-historical-nt-s-9.html . Last
accessed 26 March 2010.
Lawrence, G. and Martin, C., 2010. The Reliability and Validity of the Myers-Briggs Type
Indicator® Instrument. Available: http://www.capt.org/mbti-assessment/reliability-validity.htm .
Last accessed 24 March 2010.
Legacee.com., 2010. Types of Leadership Styles. Available:
http://www.legacee.com/Info/Leadership/LeadershipStyles.html . Last accessed 24 March 2010.
Lussier, R. N, 2008. Management Fundamentals: Concepts, Applications, Skill Development.
Cincinnati, Ohio: South-Western College Pub. 275.
Maccoby, M. January-February, 2000 . Narcissistic Leaders: The Incredible Pros, the Inevitable
Cons [internet] The Harvard Business Review . Available at: http://cssp.us/pdf/Maccoby-
Narcism.pdf [Accessed 22 March 2010].
Rohrlich, J., 2009. Rags to Riches CEOs: Larry Ellison . Available:
http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/oracle-ibm-ellison-ampex-sdl-
billionaire/11/18/2009/id/25369 . Last accessed 27 March 2010.
QuickMBA ., 2007. Expectancy Theory. Available:
http://www.quickmba.com/mgmt/expectancy-theory/ . Last accessed 25 March 2010.
Kawamoto D., 2001. Anatomy of a power play: Why Ray Lane left Oracle. Available :
http://news.cnet.com/2009-1001-243126.htm l - Dawn Kawamoto 2000 Last accessed 26 March
2010.

6. APPENDIX 1
Photos
Larry Ellison is a charismatic business leader who enjoys the fortune that came
as the result of his visionary views and obsession with his field of work.

7. APPENDIX 2
The collection of Larry Ellison’s quotes that characterise him:
“I have had all of the disadvantages required for success.”
“When you're the first person whose beliefs are different from what everyone else believes,
you're basically saying, "I'm right, and everyone else is wrong." That's a very unpleasant
position to be in. It's at once exhilarating and at the same time an invitation to be attacked.”
“You have to take a broader view and realize this is an industry like any other-telecom,
railroads. They went through consolidation. Why shouldn't the computer industry be any
different? ”
“I’m also involved with all of the acquisitions and overall strategy. Now it's true, I don't run
operations. But I've never really run operations. I've never had the endurance to run sales. The
whole idea of selling to the customer just isn't my personality. I'm an engineer-- tell me why
something isn't working or is, and I'm curious. ”
“I think about the business all the time. Well, I shouldn't say all the time. I don't think about it
when I'm wakeboarding. But even when I'm on vacation, or on my boat, I'm on e-mail every day.
I'm always prowling around the Internet looking at what our competitors are doing. ”
“In some ways, getting away from headquarters and having a little time to reflect allows you to
find errors in your strategy. You get to rethink things. Often, that helps me correct a mistake
that I made or someone else is about to make. I'd rather be wrong than do something wrong. ”
“We have Monday meetings for all of the product division heads-two meetings on Monday. One
is the field, if you will, and financial. We look at where we are in the quarter. [At the] second
meeting are all of the product guys. I chair that meeting. We review everything that's going on.
Then on Tuesday, we have a product division meeting dedicated to database technology. ”
“I love sailing. I like it more when I'm winning. ”
“Building Oracle is like doing math puzzles as a kid. I was vehemently against acquisitions.
Now, let's buy everything in sight. Well, that's a slight exaggeration. We're a little more strategic
than that. But everything was on sale. ”

8. “I love problem solving. How to make the closet bigger in the house I'm designing. I know, it
sounds funny. SAP is twice as big. Now, there's no growth-what do we do? It's all problem
solving. Designing, building, problem-solving. ”
“Being first is more important to me. I have so much more money. Whatever money is, it's just
a method of keeping score now. I mean, I certainly don't need more money. ”
“If your cash is about to run out you have to cut your cash flow. CEOs have to make those
decisions and live with them however painful they might be. You have to act and act now, and
act in the best interests of the company as a whole, even if that means that some people in the
company who are your friends have to work somewhere else. ”
“The most important aspect of my personality, as far as determining my success goes, has been
my questioning conventional wisdom, doubting the experts and questioning authority. While
that can be very painful in relationships with your parents and teachers, it's enormously useful
in life”
“I think after a certain amount I'm going to give almost everything I have to charity. Because
what else can you do with it? You can't spend it, even if you try. I've been trying.
“I think I'm very goal-oriented. I'd like to win the America's Cup. I'd like Oracle to be the No.
1 software company in the world. I still think it's possible to beat Microsoft, believe it or not, for
us to be a more important company than Microsoft. ”
“It's my job for Oracle -- the number two software in the company in the world -- to become the
number one software company in the world. My job is to build better than the competition, sell
those products in the marketplace, and eventually supplant Microsoft and move from being
number two to number one. ”
“Because software is all about scale. The larger you are, the more profitable you are. If we
sell twice as much as software, it doesn't cost us twice as much to build that software. So the
more customers you have the more scale you have.”
APPENDIX 3
Useful links:

9. http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/oracle-to-buy-sun-larry-ellison-to-become-next-steve-jobs/ -
comparison of Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/12/lead_bestbosses08_Lawrence-J-Ellison_JKEX.html -
Larry Ellison on Forbes
http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/ell0bio-1 - Larry Ellison Biography
http://www.cwhonors.org/archives/histories/ellison.pdf - Transcript of a big interview with
Ellison
APPENDIX 4
Videos:
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/6247 - An interview with Lawrence Ellison (Chrlie
Rose)
http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=152625&cid=12809127 – speech delivered Yale
http://tvnz.co.nz/louis-vuitton-pacific-series-news/one-sport-extra-larry-ellison-interview-
2458633/video - ONE Sport Extra: Larry Ellison interview
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/video?id=7288043 - Larry Ellison on America's Cup
Photo essay.

10. The following photo essay is concerned with illustrating four distinctive organizational cultures
defined by Goffee and Jones. They assert that all the organizations can be described via their two
features: solidarity and sociability. The high degree of sociability means that employees consider
the colleagues as friends or family. On the other hand, high degree of solidarity means that
workers are focused on the performance and high-quality of their work outcomes. All these form
networked, mercenary, fragmented and communal cultural types of an organization.
Firstly, the analysis of organizational culture of State Customs Service was made. It can be seen
that the officers strictly follow the instructions of seniors and will not ever take any liberties with
them. They are focuses on their duties, which are much more important than social aspect.
Therefore, the organizational culture of State Customs Service is mercenary (low on sociability
and high on solidarity).

11. In many services related to the safety the solidarity is more important than sociability. The
assumption that high degree of sociability will increase the production is not often valid in this
field. Moreover, the seniors of such services are not interested in promoting strong social
interactions between the colleagues because of the safety reasons, hence the permanent rotations
within the organization. The service of money collectors is and example of such a situation.
Unlike the organizations related to the providing safety and use of force, the usually companies
try to enhance the sociability in the organizations. Here on the photo the workers of consulting
firm. Usually such companies try to promote high level of sociability because it can lead to the
higher productivity. The common goal here is creating a communal culture, where high degree

12. of sociability accompanied by the high degree of solidarity. But, as it often happens in
organizations, high sociability leads to low solidarity because colleagues consider each other as
friends and shut their eyes to the low performers. So, the organizational culture illustrated on the
photo is networked (high on sociability and low on solidarity).
There is an opinion that the charismatic and strong leader is required for communal
organizational culture. But, the situation depicted on the photo shows that it is not always true,
sometimes motivation substitutes leader. Two cousins and also good friend work as the workers
in the constructing field. The payment for the work does not depend on the time they worked, but
the amount and quality of the results, which will be checked. So, they are interested in high lever
of performance (high solidarity) and do not loose the sense of belongingness (high sociability).
Therefore, this is an example of communal culture.
To sum up, the comments to the photo show that every organization has it own culture that can
be described using this method.