Uber, one of the world’s largest ride-sharing services has not fallen short with its hype and the problems such multinational firms face. One of the biggest problems they face is the fact that management for them is extremely hard as they don’t directly hire the cab drivers most of the times, especially in third world countries where people cannot afford to own their own cars and lent cars by the firm on an installment-based payment system.

But that is not the case I will be talking about. The biggest issue Uber faced recently was when the Chief Executive Officer of the company, Travis Kalanick was recorded yelling at and behaving in an extremely rude manner with a bankrupt driver working for the ride sharing service to earn his daily bread.[1]

My classmate, Johnny Lee spoke in his blog post on the topic[2], speaks about how the actions of the leader of an organization have a direct impact on the employees and daily functions of the firm. I believe that his statement may be partially true, because of the fact that even at the top the hierarchical system, the CEO is not able to directly influence every employee of the firm directly which makes his or her actions outside the workplace somewhat arbitrary to the actual running of the firm. Granted that what Kalanick did has brought a lot of backlash to the firm and has affected employees to a certain extent, the fact that the company is still running smoothly and everything has been contained shows that his leadership may be unethical but somewhat effective as the company is not facing a collapse.

Although, in my opinion, such acts should be contained and CEO’s of such firms should be ethical, whether in the workplace or outside, as they highlight the reputation of the firm and carry the values that are to be followed by its employees.

[1] Watson, Libby. “Billionaire Uber CEO Yells at Bankrupt Driver: ‘Some People Don’t Like to Take Responsibility’ [Update].” Gizmodo. Gizmodo.com, 28 Feb. 2017. Web. 02 Apr. 2017.

[2] https://blogs.ubc.ca/johnnylee98/