Achievements

The front page of the Daily Mail, published on May 2^nd 2005’s, announces ‘Exclusive new series; ALAN SUGAR – My guide to help YOU become a success’. In the Mirror, he can be found giving financial advice in his regular column, whilst his thoughts on the TV programme appear in the news pages, these just being a few of his achievements as a successful leader and entrepreneur. As with his larger number of broadsheet and tabloid interviews, Sir Alan mentions his working – class background and the importance of hunger and hard work if you’re going to make it to ‘the top’. This demonstrates his leadership skills as he has already made a success out of himself and is a leader which is evident by his achievements. The public look up to him and he is used in the media to give advice - in his newspaper column and in television interviews, he is extremely ambitious and a good role model to future aspiring entrepreneurs.

Alan Sugar is a business leader whose persona has been deployed in order to augment a company brand image. Sugar’s persona suggests that anyone, from any background, can rise to be successful by destroying the competition if only they show the right qualities combined with hard graft. Well known as the founder of Amstrad, and accumulative media publicity surrounding The Apprentice carried Sugar’s persona into far wider realms of celebrity. Already on the Sunday Times Rich list, he had no particular need to generate more publicity for his company, and the TV programme did not make him as much money as his ‘regular work’ (Hutton, 2005). What Sugar’s newfound celebrity primarily provided was the opportunity for wider public recognition beyond the business sector. Whilst watching him on TV in ‘The Apprentice’ the public took a liking to Alan Sugar and his powerful character, the show provided a huge entertainment value as it showed the survival of the fittest week by week as they faced different challenges.  

The Apprentice

The Apprentice offers a dramatic and dynamic vision of business and enterprise in Britain in the 21st century. The programme emphasises him being a leader as it is ultimately Alan Sugar’s programme and he is the boss described as ‘one man with the bottle to start a business from scratch’. He sets the weekly tasks and then has his employees watch the competing contestants whilst they are on the task. They then feedback to him and he ultimately decides who gets fired and who gets hired at the end. The prize is to work alongside Alan Sugar as he is able to provide them with a 'life changing opportunity’ this shows how he is a leader and how hard people will graft to impress him to be hired as his apprentice. Sugar’s attitude on the show perceives him to be stern, he tries not to be too friendly, he shows his intelligence by undermining the contestants with his ruthless attitude. The show uses incidental music to build atmosphere and tension, and at its core it is a programme about conflict and resolution, with heroes and villains. His body language, even down to the way he sits, the way he enters the room, his authority is always shown as a symbol of respect, almost treated as a member of royalty which again demonstrates leadership.

The BBC set about reframing the programme as a business education format, while emphasising its entertainment value. From the outset Sir Alan Sugar, was keen to distance himself from the game show element. For Sir Alan Sugar it was about allowing viewers to get a sense of some of the range of challenges faced by those involved across the business spectrum, and this more educational theme was developed in the book that accompanied the series (Boyle 2008). He tries to teach people, he feels there is a purpose behind the show, it’s an education process to the apprentices that they can learn from and develop from, whilst educating others with his knowledge and leadership skills that he has learnt over the years himself. 

Alan sugar falls under the category of being a ‘Visionary leader’: Vision in business requires that you clearly see where you choose to be in future and formulate the necessary steps to get your organisation there. Creating and sustaining a vision for an organisation calls for discipline and creativity. A business leader must have the passion, strength or will, and necessary knowledge to achieve long-term goals. A focused individual who can inspire his team to reach organisational goals is a visionary business leader (Lavinsky 2013).

We can see transactional leadership taking place in the apprentice. Transactional leadership involves rewarding or punishing the followers dependent upon their performance. The leader views the relationship between managers and subordinates as an exchange - you give me something for something in return. When subordinates perform well, they receive some type of reward (as seen in the show, where the winning team get a treat). When they perform poorly, they will be punished in some way (a team member being sacked). Rules, procedures and standards are essential in transactional leadership. Followers are not encouraged to be creative or to find new solutions to problems (Cherry 2013).

Series one of The Apprentice was broadcast early in 2005 on BBC2 and averaged 2.5 million (11% audience share): by series two, a year later, this had risen to 4.4 million (19%), and when the third series was broadcast in 2007 it had been moved to the mainstream BBC1 and it captured an average audience of 7 million (28%) with two further series being commissioned. It won a television Bafta award in 2006 for best television feature and helped encourage the development of other television shows such as the BBC2 Dragons’ Den (Boyle 2008).

The Apprentice 2012 winner Tom Pellereau went on to launch a safe nail – clipper for babies. The past winner of the show turned his talents to talons once again after previously creating a curved nail file. Pellereau and his business partner Lord Sugar - who gave him his break through the TV series. The new gadget includes a safety spy-hole that allows parents to trim nails safely and includes a file to smooth rough edges. It also comes with a Timmy Tickle Baby app, created in conjunction with child psychologists, to distract youngsters while their nails are trimmed.