Introduction
Elon Musk has been renowned for several years as an exceptional entrepreneur thriving in the current age of technology. He is famous for founding the electronic payment firm PayPal and the spacecraft company SpaceX. Besides the two, Elon Musk is also renowned for serving an excellent role as the chief executive officer of the electric-car maker Tesla (Khan, 2021). Musk has displayed an impressive ability to convince investors to stake large sums of money on seemingly quixotic and highly risky business propositions. In recent years, Musk has persuaded about 420,000 people to put one thousand dollars down on a car they have not seen yet. Undoubtedly, he believes deeply in his actions, a reason that inspires him to gather such confidence. There are multiple instances where Musk has displayed exceptional persuasion skills in the various businesses he heads and in life events affecting nations. For instance, experts consider his idea of bringing the Ukraine crisis to an end as one of the most powerful techniques in the modern world because Musk presented the first draft in a simple bullet form hence attracting the world’s attention. However, the most successful situation where his persuasion skills bore tremendous results was with Tesla.
Case description
Although Elon Musk has been a persuader in multiple fields in business and life events, the most prominent situation he successfully applied the principles of persuasion for positive results was at Tesla Company. Musk has the ability to persuade people to do anything based on his confidence in his actions (Yauney & Ryan, 2018). For instance, Musk has successfully persuaded about 420,000 people to invest $ 1000 in a car they are yet to see. His persuasion skills make investors see the future of electric vehicles. In this situation, Elon Musk inspired people to imagine a future world free of soul-crushing parking nightmares or traffic jams, where fewer people die due to respiratory diseases or auto accidents. It paints a picture of a dystopian future for investors and makes them want to promote the electric car that will make the world a better place.
Persuasion skill identification and analysis
The most apparent persuasion skill that one can learn from Musk is the art of storytelling. It is a profound skill that he has used to successfully persuade investors to invest at Tesla (Higgins, 2020). According to Elon Musk, it is unlikely for a great idea to become a reality if it is not explained in a way that people can understand. Through the years he has been a leader at Tesla Company, he has been using the storytelling technique using plain language to capture the imagination of his audiences. Stories in negotiations are known to build empathy. Arguably, using stories enables a leader to connect with their customers and audiences on an emotional level (Rocklage, Rucker, & Nordgren, 2018). It supports the leader’s ability to convey critical information in a way that the audience will remember and help them persuade customers to take action, as Elon Musk did at Tesla.
Compelling storytelling can serve anyone in leadership who seeks to persuade others to their point of view. To effectively use storytelling to convince people, a leader needs to know the message and find the right example to drive their point home (Baldoni, 2011). At the same time, one must weave a narrative to fit the audience and the current situation. For instance, one can use real-life examples but close with a benefit pitch. Increasingly, storytelling has become an important tool for business, especially in marketing. It is crucial for leaders to use an elevator pitch about their organization that they can tell in a minute such that their story highlights particular aspects of the leader’s background or the business that is relevant to the audience. For instance, Elon Musk often incorporates his life story that reminds people of what it takes to become a successful leader. Musk left home to undertake a perilous journey to become a wiser and better entrepreneur. His quest for change led him to America to make a dream come true. The structures of his life story evoke more apparent resonances with the Tesla saga. Musk has often employed the rhetorical device that we can build the world if we only have the will.
Further, Elon Musk did not only become successful in persuading investors to Tesla through his speaking style. The entire strategy behind Tesla based on tried and true narrative structure helped him effectively persuade investors (Yauney & Ryan, 2018). Therefore, leaders need to collaborate with other organization members for effective persuasion. Another persuasion skill that Musk possesses is encouraging people to use imagination, although it closely ties in with storytelling. He claims that using imagination to influence followers is an excellent skill that political and business leaders need to learn. For instance, Musk inspires us to imagine a world free from respiratory disease or auto accidents, where humans work together t face the threat of climate change resulting from modern technologies. Using imagination is persuasive.
Conclusion
Through the years, Elon Musk has displayed excellent persuasion skills that leaders can borrow to promote performance within their organizations. His most prominent persuasion skill is using imagination and storytelling. They have effectively persuaded people to invest in an automobile that they had not seen yet. It is imperative for business and political leaders to learn these persuasion skills and apply them appropriately in their practice for success. Other skills leaders can learn from Musk include learning the audience to identify the right message and example to drive a point home, weaving a narrative, and using real-life examples.
References
Baldoni, J. (2011, March 24). Using Stories to Persuade. Retrieved October 11, 2022, from Havard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2011/03/using-stories-as-a-tool-of-per
Higgins, T. (2020, February 17). Elon Musk Has Changed Investors’ Views on the Electric Car. Retrieved October 11, 2022, from The Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-has-changed-investors-views-on-the-electric-car-11581935401
Khan, R. (2021). A critical analysis of Elon Musk’s leadership in Tesla motors. Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research.
Rocklage, M. D., Rucker, D. D., & Nordgren, L. F. (2018). Persuasion, Emotion, and Language: The Intent to Persuade Transforms Language via Emotionality. Psychological Science, 29(5), 749–760. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617744797
Yauney, Ryan H. (2018). “Leadership Development: A Study of Elon Musk,” Marriott Student Review: Vol. 2: Iss. 2, Article 4. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/marriottstudentreview/vol2/iss2/4
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