This document provides a case study on the leadership of Ruimin Zhang, the CEO of Haier Group. It analyzes Zhang's leadership through the frameworks of born vs made leader traits, and charismatic/transformational leadership. The summary is: 1) Ruimin Zhang transformed Haier Group from a failing company into the 4th largest appliance maker in the world. He displayed both born leader traits like a strong passion for learning, as well as developing skills through experience and education. 2) Zhang exhibited charismatic leadership in assessing problems at Haier, communicating a vision of high quality, and demonstrating commitment through hard work. He also inspired and intellectually stimulated employees. 3) The

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UNIVERSITY of LIMERICK
Ollscoil Luimneach
Kemmy Business School
Programme: Leadership, Influence, and Change
Module Number: PM 6072
Module Coordinator: Michelle Hammond
Group Assignment: Leadership story of Ruimin Zhang
Group 6
Study program Student name Student ID
Masters in International
Entrepreneurship
Management
Andreas Schwarz 15116085
Masters in International
Entrepreneurship
Management
Ding Zhang 15004872
International management
and global business
Wantong Dong 15072487
International management
and global business
James Singh Longjam 15010074
Word Count: 2483 words
Submitted: 18/11/2015

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Abstract
According to “Implicit Leadership Theories” (ILT), everyone has his or her own view or
assumption about what a “good” leader looks like, sounds like, and acts like (Lynn, et al. 1994,
p.44). It is suggested by Judge (2006, p. 203) that leadership is defined as “the process that
involves leaders, followers, and situations to attain a common goal”. Leaders not only have
some innate qualities, but they also can improve themselves through continuing studying, in
order to make themselves more visionary, charismatic and effective.
Keywords: Leadership, RuiminZhang, Haier Group, born or made, transformational leadership
Introduction
Organisations need competent and strong leaders to lead the way (Maktoba and Robert 2006,
p.270). In order to keep pace with the fast changing world and fierce business competition, it
is necessary for organisations to have powerful leaders to ensure long-term success, and a
promising future. This paper starts with an introduction of Haier Group and its leader, Ruimin
Zhang. Then, through deep and thorough analysis of “born or made” traits and
charismatic/transformational leadership, two stories of Zhang are illustrated respectively.
Finally, some recommendations about leadership are presented.
1. The Story of Ruimin Zhang
According to the Academy of Management, Ruimin Zhang was selected as one of the most
influential CEOs’ worldwide in 2013(Elaine and Shan 2013). Based on the information of
Fortune, he was one of the 50 greatest leaders in the world (Zong and Ping 2015, p. 65).
Moreover, Thinkers50, the premier ranking of global business thinkers, announced that Zhang
is the only Chinese entrepreneur nominated for “Ideas into Practice” in 2015 (Haier Group,
2015).
Zhang was born in 1949, founding year of the People’s Republic of China. Zhang grew up in an
ordinary working class family in Shandong, China. Zhang gained experiences in the era of
Cultural Revolution like his peers. Due to the Chinese revolution in 1960s, most of the
universities had been shut down; Zhang was unable to attend university, and instead, he
began his career as a city assistant in Qingdao (Stuart 2012, p.88). Although Zhang’s parents

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had been workers, his family was a little poor, and he did not have too much education, but
he had a voracious appetite for learning.
Zhang was instructed to find a managing director to turn a troubled company around while he
was a city assistant. Not surprisingly, no one was willing to tackle the job, so Zhang took the
position himself (Stuart 2012, p.88). Now, Zhang is the CEO of Haier Group, which is the
predecessor of a company that was on the verge of bankruptcy. Zhang is the founder of Haier
Group, Secretary of the Party Committee of the Haier Group, Chairman of the Board of
Directors, and CEO (John, et al. 2009, p.254).
Haier Group is the world’s 4th largest white goods manufacturer, and it is the world’s fastest-
growing appliance maker (Greert, et al. 2009, p.335). Even the company with the largest
market share in “white goods” worldwide—about 14% with at least seven other major
competitors. (Check 2012, p. 560).
Zhang is not only well known for leading a high-performing multinational company, but also
for organizing the company around a conceptual management framework that guided its
development for years (Lin 2005, p.39). Zhang is famous for smashing refrigerators when he
received customers’ complaints about the poor quality of their products. Furthermore, he
creatively eliminates middle management to make Haier Group more responsive.
2. Leaders - Born or Made
“Most management educators now agree that leadership is both a skill and a
behaviour that exhibits that skill. “
(Doh, 2003, P.54)
As Doh mentioned, leadership combines skills and the behaviour that exhibits that skill. So,
can a leader gain this skills and behaviour through continuously study, or is he/she born with
these skills?

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Olson David A., as a president of one hospital, believes that “Great leaders are born, and then
they are made” (David A., 2009).
2.1 Ruimin Zhang is a ‘Born’ Great Leader.
Debra Sukin maintains that elements such as “passion, vision, quality outcomes, strong
knowledge of industry, thinking critically, perspective, adaptability, and continual learning are
all come from an intense and personal perspective”(Shapiro 2005, p.1). Here are three main
characteristics to confirm Ruimin Zhang as a ‘Born’ great leader.
First of all, Ruimin Zhang is a ‘Born’ great leader who is equipped with powerful passion to
face poor situation and hard learning.
Working hard to establish a global name in consumer appliances, Ruimin spent several years
bicycling an hour back and forth to his company in order to attend in some management
courses (Schafer, 2005). Zhang was born in a working class family in China. He was swept up
in the Cultural Revolution, and he did not have too much education. However, he had a strong
passion for learning when he was working at a factory.
Secondly, focusing on quality and outcomes is one other main element for Ruimin Zhang as a
‘Born’ Great Leader.
He combines western technology and management knowledge to manage the company,
established a completely new way managing Asian companies. He possesses a strong capacity
for strategic thinking and a genuine learning orientation and desire to lead. These two
important characteristics helped him to rescue the company from bankruptcy.
Finally, continual learning is another main element for Ruimin Zhang.
Next to his management courses beside work at the beginning, he earned a
Master’s degree of business administration from the University of Science and
Technology of China in 1995. However, as most of the management educators

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believe that not every students who have learn leadership skills and character and
seek leadership position can become to an effective leader.
(Doh 2003, p. 63)
2.2 Ruimin Zhang is a ‘Made’ Great Leader.
Skill is one of three different factors for leadership education. Many leadership skills can be
taught such as strategic thinking, inspirational communicate and persuasive ideas (Conger
1998, p. 90).
Ruimin Zhang earned an MBA from one of best universities in China in 1994. After that, he
wanted to lead Haier, and he had a long-term managing experience to develop interpersonal
relationships with his staff and his partners, like Liebherr - one of Germany’s white electronic
product companies.
Undoubtedly, Ruimin Zhang is a great man owning ‘born and made’ characteristics. No matter
in which stageof his lifehe kept on working hard, being curious about opportunities and never
stopping to develop himself. All these facts made him to a great leader related with his
congenial strong attributes.
3. The Charismatic and Transformational Leadership of Ruimin Zhang
“Of all the leadership theories in organizational research,
charismatic/transformational leadership has captured scholars’interests most over
the past decades.”
(Judge, et al. 2006, p. 203)
3.1 The Charismatic Leadership of Ruimin Zhang

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The three-stage model of leadershipby Conger and Kanungo is used to identify the charismatic
attributes of Zhang.
The first stage is the evaluation of the “status quo by assessing how resources and constraints
might influence future organizational goals” (Conger, Kanungo 1992, p. 88).
Zhang spent time in quality-obsessed Germany, where he observed that even manhole covers
were precisely made and numbered. He believed that a poor product quality would lead his
enterprise to failure. Just after he came back into the Qingdao Refrigerator Factory, he realised
that "Quality didn't even enter into anybody's mind"(Maktoba and Robert 2006, p. 270). Soon,
after receiving renewed customer’s complaint about the poor quality of their products, he
picked up a sledgehammer and told the workers to smash all of the 76 defective models. He
shouted angrily "There's no A, B, C, and D quality. There's only acceptable and
unacceptable"(Lin 2005, p.39).
He assessed the status quo of his company by comparing it with the status quo of German
companies. He realised that the poor quality is a huge constraint and will influence the future
organizational goals negatively.
He also assessed “the needs and level of satisfaction currently experienced by followers”
(Conger, Kanungo 1992, p. 88), which is the other essential part of the first stage, by
eliminating middle management and organizing the 80,000 employees into 2,000 self-
managed teams that perform many different roles. Each is responsible for profit and loss, and
individuals are paid on performance (Hong and Kequan 2002, p. 701).
Regarding allthis, he showed the main attribute of charismatic leadership related to stageone
by having a “greater desire to change the status quo and a heightened sensitivity to
environmental opportunities and constraints and to follower needs”(Conger, Kanungo 1992,
p. 89) than normal managers.

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The second stage is strongly related to the first one and appears as the “the formulation and
conveyance of appropriate organizational goals” (Conger, Kanungo 1992, p. 89), which he did
by calling out a new quality approach and changing the organization structure.
He showed the ability of articulating his vision of a high quality and individual oriented
organization in an inspirational manner, which distinguishes him from many other leaders.
This is the main attribute related to stage two (Conger, Kanungo 1992, p. 89).
“In the third and final stage the manager builds trust in himself or herself and in the
organization's goals and demonstrates how these goals can be achieved”(Conger, Kanungo
1992, p. 88).
He never had one day of holiday since he started to work. (Hoffbauer 2007) He is a hard
working CEO and demonstrates this attitude to his followers. He also shows the attribute of
charismatic leadership related to stage 3, which is taking personal risk and personal sacrifice
by taking risky decisions like eliminating the middle management and sacrificing all his free
time (Conger, Kanungo 1992, p. 89).
3.2 he Transformational Leadership of Ruimin Zhang
Scholars still disagree about the specification of charismatic and transformational leadership.
Conger and Kanungo (1998) stated that “there is little real difference” (p. 15) between
charismatic and transformational leadership. The transformational leadership of Ruimin
Zhang will be analysed through the work of Bass (1990), who defined charisma as one of the
four main characteristics of transformational leadership. His key attributes for charisma are:
“Provides vision and sense of mission, instils pride, gains respect and trust” (Bass 1990, p. 22).
These attributes are similar to the considered attributes in the analysis of Ruimin Zhang as a
charismatic leader and won´t be analysed in this section. The other three characteristics are
inspiration, intellectual stimulation and individual consideration.
By taking a closer look to the other three characteristics, the similarity related to the key
attributes of charismatic leadership get obvious. All the attributes are already included in the
three-stage model of Conger and Kanungo. Despite the discussion whether charismatic

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leadership is a part of transformational leadership or both theories are similar, it is obvious
that “individuals that score high on one measure type are likely to score high on the other
measure” (Judge, et al. 2006, p. 205).
Ruimin Zhang is a charismatic leader and shows also the three characteristics of inspiration,
intellectual stimulation and individual consideration.
4. Summary and Conclusions
“Leadership is not like breathing------ If you do not focus your efforts and work at it, you won’t
be an effective leader,” (Stuart 2012). Ruimin Zhang is a leader who gives good efforts to
achieve his goals. In this review, we focus on the charismatic and transformational leadership
of Ruimin Zhang through different settings.
According to Jung and Avolio (2000, p.953), different leadership styles lead to different
performance goals. Inspirational motivation and idealized influence provide followers with a
higher goal, which is energizing, exciting and intrinsically motivating (Shamir et al., 1993, p
583). Zhang is a leader who always influences and subordinates his employees all the time for
a better quality. By displaying inspirational motivation, transformational leaders set
expectations for excellence and quality (Podsakoff et al., 1990, p.267). As such, the followers
are motivated to focus on quality. Thus, Zhang Ruimin made big choices in the organisation so
that they could build good quality goods. He was awarded “Inspired Leadership Award” in the
year 2011. With all his ideas of inspirational motivation, Haier is now building an equal
platform to motivate employees and to operate themselves as their own firm.
A leader is admired, becomes the model of behaviour, and raises the commitment of his
followers (Bass & Stogdill, 1990). Vision is one of the main components in the charismatic
leadership style, which has been empirically linked to the attitudes of motivating the
subordinates (Kirkpatrick & Locke 1996, p.42). Zhang Ruimin once said “I already knew that I
wanted to do something very important, to make good product” (Stuart 2012). In this story
we review that Ruimin Zhang has a vision to maintain Haier’s product in a good quality.

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Here, we also imply that leaders can acquire different traits by constructing, developing and
revising their life-stories. Life stories can provide leaders with a meaning system from which
they can act genuinely, that is interpret reality and act in a way that gives their interpretations
and actions a personal meaning (Kegan 1983, p. 220). As a leader, he always encourages to
build trust relations among the employees.
Being a leader, different stories of success and failure typically exaggerate the impact of
management performances, and the styles of leadership (Rosenzweig 2007, p.8). Here, we
focus on the leadership stories of Ruimin Zhang and ignore the stories which did not end in
success. We also favour his contribution to the success of an organisation. A good leader is
always motivated to achievea particular task.He should always be able to transform from one
style to another, according to people and conditions. The influence of a good leadership style
reaches to a greater proportion, as it produces a cumulative influence in the performance
(D.D. Warrick 1981, p.155).
Zhang Ruimin is a leader who holds his focus on building relationships. We can conclude that
Zhang’s leadership style will work better if the company is in a competitive environment, as
his strategies change according to conditions of the surroundings. We also observe that the
leadership of Zhang is more of relational process, rather than subordination and super
ordination.
5. Recommendations
Ruimin Zhang’s leadership style was one of the main reasons for the big success of the Haier
group. There are several attributes which should be adopted by other leaders and managers.
The organisation of his company is unique in the Asian landscapeof companies. Managers and
leaders should assess the status quo of their company by comparing them to market leaders
at their own country or foreign countries. The leader has to be open for changes and
opportunities to adopt managing techniques. Ruimin was always aware of that, and
considered every opportunity he was facing. Especially the motivation and consideration of
the individuals brought the Haier group to its high level of effectiveness. This attributes will
help every leader to achieve goals within the company. Especially Asian leaders should

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consider the charismatic and transformational leadership style of Ruimin Zhang. He proved
that change and innovation provide a perfect opportunity to succeed in the Asian market.
Managers and leaders must take a risk to fail in order to succeed; they need to establish a
vision, which is clearly communicated to their followers, in order to reach the company's goals
as one team driven by the same inspiration.
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