Leadership Problems In Uber: Causes, Solutions - An Essay.

The Beginning of Uber

Question:

Discuss about the Collaboration And Growth Of the Knowledge.

Uber is one of the success stories which is basically a ride sharing and multinational company and it has severe leadership problems. It is also an entrepreneurial company which was responsible for transforming the existent taxi industry and it always fought to get its hold on the market share. It is believed that the company failed and several issues where created due to the leadership issues. The heads of the company failed to understand that the theory of winning at any cost and its culture was not the way in which a company could be run. Despite providing several solutions to the customers, the issues which Uber had caused for itself led to its downfall.

The Uber Company was found in the year 2009. It was founded by Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick. It is based on San Francisco and it was originally a private car service for executives. The procedure of communication was conducted through emails and codes. The company started growing in the year 2010. Technology was utilized to bring passengers and drivers together for the successful completion of the Company’s vision. Uber was regarded as the smartest way to get around. In case a person books a car it comes directly to that person and the payment is also completely cashless.

The company targeted as specific segment of the customers. It was aimed at including those people who did not own a car. It also included those people who did not drive themselves to any party or function of any sort. There are certain people who like to travel in style and they also want to be treated as VIP’s.  They also need a cost efficient and suitable cab at their doorsteps. The relationship with the customers is built on the basis of the social media, which is a result of technological advancement. The customer support is a huge feature of this particular system. It also relies on the customer rating and the system of feedback. The sharing economy of the company is also an important aspect which was responsible for determining the economy of the company. The Uber drivers are responsible for the feedback and the sustainability of their service. It has been seen that the Uber drivers are drawn to the service by its simple and appealing prospects. The ability of the company to control the supply to the drivers and also the exact number of rides which are demanded in pa particular area help them in optimizing the costs which are beneficial to them. The message of requirements is relayed to all the drivers in a particular locality. In several cases it has been seen that the influx of drivers in a particular locality is much more in comparison to the customers (Arendt 2017).

The Uber drivers opine that since a long period of time, the Uber drivers have been neglected by the company. This is due to the reason that the company focuses mostly on the establishment of customer relations and much importance is not given to the drivers. Often the drivers have to suffer due to problems the company faces due to the customers. There have also been management issues in the Company (Rogers 2015). This is because of the lack of senior executives to help the company run in a proper manner. The most important strategy for the company is to make a suitable service facility such that the company is able to make money to overcome the costs and the cash which it has retrieved from capital investors. The Company cannot afford to hurt its business due to the problems it has encountered with its CEO. Therefore a proper effort needs to be given to improve the business (Leighton 2016).  

Uber's Relationship with Customers and Drivers

Another issue is that the company employees are trying to bring the previous CEO back instead of focussing on the betterment of the company and collection of its revenues. Another enemy of Uber in this particular case is the time. The advent of driverless cars is expected to pose a huge threat to the company. The venture of the company in China had failed and therefore it was necessary for the organisation to be cautious for its future attempts. There were several leadership problems which were plaguing the company and these were responsible for the losses and problems to the business. There also were ego problems in the management and the founding teams.  The people who had founded the company wrongly felt that they needed to have control over every operation of the company (Rutsch 2015).

The main issue which the Uber Company has faced till now is that of a sort of autocratic leadership. There have been several issues reported where there has been a sort of force of the upper management authorities applied to the Uber workers and employees which is not the ideal scenario in which a company should work.

There have been several reports where the drivers have been found to be behave rudely or in a disrespectful manner with their customers or their riders. There have been reports where it has been mentioned that drivers have raped or molested their passengers or in certain cases have not helped them reach their proper destinations (Rogers 2015).

Due to the absence of the tipping services and the absence of any sort of materialistic rewards there has been a sense of dissatisfaction and irritation of the drivers. This has led to the change in their attitudes and the lowering of the quality of the Uber experience (Rogers 2015).

Despite the problems which has been faced by Uber, it is still considered to be safer than most rides and taxi services and it has also created an efficient system for the ride sharing which is existent even now.

The solution to the leadership problems of the company is by appointing new and suitable leaders for the important managerial posts. The company heads need to realize that the structure and the conditions of the organisation are every changing the requirements are not bound to be the same.

In order to restore the public image, the company needs to correct the issues it has been facing. The company needs to focus on the goodwill marketing. This will help the company capable enough of reacting well in all sorts of tricky situations. The company needs to make a conscious effort to offer free rides at the times of crisis to help the customers and help them get out of any sort of harm (Cramer and Krueger 2016).

It is better to allow the riders to control their own data. This will help them understand and trust the company due to the level of privacy which they are provided with. The company can also ensure that private rides are given by the company so that information is not shared with the company.

Issues with Leadership and Management

The most important change which the company needs to make is regarding the business issues which have been mentioned by the company. The leadership issues of Travis Kalanick and his responses only to social posts are not the only methods to solve a particular problem. The company needs to appoint leaders who are genuine and they have to stop the disruptive culture of the company. There should not be any sort of internal conflicts and in every possible situation the autocratic approach of leadership cannot be applied. There needs to be a participative style in order to ensure that the opinions of all the people involved are taken into consideration (Denning 2015). The style of leadership where the people are bound to follow only the orders from the higher management cannot be suitable as it puts forward the fact that the company does not care for the claims and considerations of the stakeholders.

In case the solutions stated are not implemented the image of the Uber company is going to suffer more and their needs to be a conscious attempt to stop that. In case the image of the company suffers there is bound to be the beginning of a blame game which is bound to make matters worse for the company.

On the other hand if the issues such as the dissatisfaction of the drivers, the introduction of the tipping system, provision for rewards are incorporated, the drivers will be happy and in turn provide proper services as employees of the company.

Uber is a company which is powered by machine learning, collecting data on the requested rides and driver locations. It is utilized to optimize all aspects of the business.

The driver relationship needs to be maintained and the company needs to take it upon themselves to maintain it. In case the drivers are likely to lose money they need to be left in a low driver requested area the rider needs to pay a higher fare. The pricing system needs to be maintained and the consideration needs to be applied to these types of rides in order to compensate a driver for the significant costs. The costs which are incurred in the way of picking up a driver needs to be kept in mind.

There needs to be a proper knowledge regarding the rating system which affects the drivers’ overall rating. Therefore it is desirable for Uber to switch to a binary rating system as the present situation of rating affects the overall rating of the drivers. On the other hand a binary system would decisively differentiate the rides. The proper description of the ride needs to be mentioned to benefit the drivers. In case an option is given, there is an opportunity for the riders to report any situation they face to the Uber Company. The issue can be solved in case certain changes are made according to the problems which have been faced (Drahozal 2015).

The drivers also need to be given either materialistic or monetary rewards in order to appreciate their efforts so that the desire to remain with the company remains. In case a reward system is introduced it can be ensured that the workers have some motivation towards which they all can work. In case they know that they will receive tangible rewards in case they achieve a certain amount of success they can work towards it and ensure that their goals for achievement are met.

The tipping service which had been excluded from the Uber App needs to be included for better nature of service. This facility will benefit the drivers and the overall Uber system as a whole. In case the riders are pleased with the service they get or particularly with the drivers they can not only rate their ride but also tip the drivers to make their satisfaction known to them

References:

Arendt, H., 2017. Über die Revolution. Piper ebooks.

Cramer, J. and Krueger, A.B., 2016. Disruptive change in the taxi business: The case of Uber. American Economic Review, 106(5), pp.177-82.

Denning, S., 2015. New lessons for leaders about continuous innovation. Strategy & Leadership, 43(1), pp.11-15.

Drahozal, C.R., 2015. Commercial Arbitration: Cases and Problems.

Glöss, M., McGregor, M. and Brown, B., 2016, May. Designing for labour: Uber and the on-demand mobile workforce. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 1632-1643). ACM.

Leighton, P., 2016. Professional self-employment, new power and the sharing economy: Some cautionary tales from Uber. Journal of Management & Organization, 22(6), pp.859-874.

Rogers, B., 2015. The social costs of Uber. U. Chi. L. Rev. Dialogue, 82, p.85.

Rutsch, A., 2015. Growth leadership as practice: Leadership, collaboration and growth of knowledge-based organizations.