Larry Ellison Leadership Style

When carving our own paths to success, it helps to study the paths of those who have come before us. By observing their leadership styles, taking note of the qualities they possess that make them a notable leader, and examining the steps they took to reach the level of success they currently sit at, you can pick up on a lot of useful tips and tricks to use on your own journey to a successful future.

Better yet, you can look at the choices they made at pivotal turning points in their life, then choose to either follow them or diverge from them when the time comes for you to face similar turning points in your own life.

Larry Ellison is one such leader: As the cofounder and former chief executive officer of one of the most successful tech companies in history, Ellison’s leadership style offers a lot of useful tips and tricks for those looking to be as successful as him one day.

Larry Ellison Biography

Larry Ellison, born Lawrence Joseph on August 17, 1944 in New York City, New York, did not have the easiest upbringing.

His mother was just 19 years old and raising Larry all on her own, and as such, she faced an extremely difficult choice when he contracted pneumonia at just nine months old: Should she continue to care for him on her own, despite being unable to provide completely for him, or should she send him to someone who can give him the proper nurturing he desperately needs? Ultimately, Ellison’s mother sent him to live with her aunt and uncle in Chicago.

While there, Ellison had a great relationship with his mother’s aunt but a difficult one with his mother’s uncle. While she was supportive, he would often tell Larry that he would never amount to anything in life. Even though they had adopted him as their own, the drastic difference in treatment eventually became too much. When his mother got sick during his college years, he saw an opportunity to drop out and head to California to make a name for himself in computer programming.

While working at electronics company Ampex in 1973, Ellison met two key figures: Ed Oates and Bob Miner. While they each went separate paths after leaving Ampex, they eventually reconvened to form their own company in 1977: Software Development Laboratories, or SDL.

Their company did contracted programming work for other companies, but the desire to be bigger and better was ever-present. The trio worked hard to create a new way to store and manage data, eventually resulting in them getting a contract from none other than the Central Intelligence Agency.

Now operating under the name Relational Software, Inc, the trio released Oracle in 1979. It was the first commercial relational database to use Structured Query Language (SQL), resulting in the program growing extremely popular extremely fast.

The newly named Oracle Systems Corporation emerged in 1982, and the rest was history for Ellison. Oracle grew rapidly throughout the remainder of the 1980s, and a decade later in 1992, Ellison had successfully saved the company from an internal financial crisis and kept them from going under through some key restructuring.

From there, Ellison never stopped innovating: He attempted to compete with the personal computer (PC) with his own (cheaper) alternative, the network computer (NC). He embraced the Internet earlier than most, and used it to Oracle’s advantage.

He ruthlessly snatched up other companies and brought them into the Oracle fold. He even bought his own Hawaiian island and won an international yacht sailing competition.

After becoming the sixth richest man and the third richest American in 2012, Ellison stepped down as CEO of Oracle in 2014 — though he continued to serve as executive chairman and chief technology officer.

Different Leadership Styles Explained

In today’s business world, there are four leadership styles:

Autocratic Leadership, which relies on coercion tactics and commands. Autocratic leaders make demands, and they expect compliance from their employees no matter what — some may take input from the team, but that doesn’t mean they’ll make any changes.

Democratic Leadership, which relies on input from the group before instructions are given. Democratic leaders value what employees and team members have to say, even if it slows decisions and results in some being unhappy with the compromise.

Free-Rein Leadership, which grants employees the independence to operate of their own accord (within reason, of course). Free-rein leaders offload much of their responsibilities onto others, existing only to keep up communication between teams and groups.

Paternalistic Leadership, which sees leaders taking on a parental role. They treat the team like a father would treat a child, regardless of the leader’s gender — this involves encouraging teamwork and strong relationships that resemble a family’s, while also being unafraid to be stern or strict if need be.

What Leadership Style Does Larry Ellison Have?

Of these four leadership styles, Larry Ellison’s style is decidedly autocratic. Ellison is known for taking total control of a situation and taking the necessary action, regardless of what the rest of his team or his employees have to say about it.

This has resulted in him being criticized for his controlling, inconsiderate business practices, but it’s almost as if he takes pride in his autocratic ways: Ellison himself has said he models his leadership after samurai principles, and his ruthless tactics and determination to succeed are just part of this samurai-inspired leadership style of his.

What Makes Larry Ellison A Great Leader?

Despite this somewhat controversial approach to leadership that Ellison takes, it’s hard to deny that Larry is a great leader in his own right. Setting aside his cutthroat practices and the lack of voice his team is given, there are qualities that Ellison possesses that make him an undeniably great leader.

For starters, Larry demonstrates a level of passion and commitment that results in him being very competitive. He’ll overcome any challenge, any risk, any difficult task if it means he’ll be the winner. Beyond this, Ellison shows that his decision-making is beyond compare — if someone’s going to be an autocratic leader, they need to be certain that they can handle being the only one who gets to have a say and that their decisions will be best for all involved, not just the leader.

Needless to say, given the success of Oracle, Ellison seems to have this under control. Most of all, Ellison is simply an excellent innovator. He’s always in search of new technological advances to embrace, and even if they aren’t all successful, he succeeds often enough to keep himself and his company at the top.

What Is The Key To Larry Ellison’s Success?

Beyond all of these qualities and traits that Ellison possesses, the Larry Ellison leadership style can be summed up in one single key to success: He knows his industry inside and out.

Every choice he makes, every move he makes, every action he makes, it all circles back to the fact that Ellison is doing what he knows is best for the company, for the industry, and for the technology itself.

Knowing the ins and outs of the industry also includes knowing the consumers and the employees, and Ellison demonstrates this, as well: He hires the best of the best to deliver the best of the best to the consumer. Not only does it work for him, it’s made him a billionaire in the process.

What Type Of Entrepreneur Is Larry Ellison?

Generally speaking, there are nine distinct types of entrepreneurship today: the buyer, the researcher, the imitator, the hustler, the innovator, the social, the startup, the large company, and the small business.

Of all these, Ellison is decidedly the innovator. Larry is described as an eccentric for the way he’s constantly conjuring up new ideas and strategies that defy the conventional norms of the industry.

Innovators are also teeming with passion and motivation, and you already know this describes Larry perfectly. He ranks alongside Steve Jobs and Bill Gates as one of the most innovative entrepreneurs of our current day and age.

Larry Ellison Net Worth

Currently, Larry Ellison’s net worth sits at just above $100 billion. Thanks to his 35% ownership of Oracle and his millions of Tesla shares in addition to his former position as CEO and current position as chairman and CTO, Ellison has managed to amass a truly staggering amount of money since the company’s inception four decades ago.

For a 76-year-old who came from a single teen mother, never finished college, and carved his own path without ever once looking back, Ellison has quite a lot to show for all his hard work.

Larry Ellison Leadership Style: Conclusion

If there’s one final thing to take away from the Larry Ellison leadership style, it’s this: taking extreme risks and assuming complete control doesn’t always pay off, but for some (like Ellison), it pays off beyond belief.

There’s no way to predict what the next great innovation will be, but instead of waiting for it to reveal itself, Ellison took it upon himself to make it happen. This is a lot easier said than done, but this much should be clear: If you have the expertise, the leadership skills, and the determination to be an innovative entrepreneur, there’s no telling what you might be able to achieve.

Let Ellison be the prime example: You can either climb the ladder to success that exists in your respective industry, or you can build your own and then knock it over before anyone else comes up after you. At the end of the day, an unconventional path to success is still a path to success nonetheless.

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The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Financhill has a disclosure policy. This post may contain affiliate links or links from our sponsors.