Background and Job Description

Alan Sugar was born on 24th March 1947 in the east end of London, Hackney, and lived in a council house. Moreover, this may have encouraged him to reach his goal to become a successful leader due to his deprived background. Alan was twelve years younger than his other three siblings and he hardly remembered his brothers and sisters living at home. He states that he never experienced any feelings of closeness or care from his parents (Brown, 2010). Furthermore, this led him to look to his peers for advice and feedback but he then became sensitive to anti-Semitism and snobbery from his friends parents.

A young Lord Sugar dressed as cowboy

He was faced with racism at school and at the age of twelve Alan confessed that he became a recluse for the next two years. He isolated himself in his room and concentrated on his moneymaking ventures, evidently showing that he wished to become a leader and an affluent man from a very young age. Furthermore, Alan left school at the age of sixteen and then got involved in the civil service as a statistician at the Ministry of Education. From a very young age he was always interested in making money as he had several different jobs such as; a milk and paper round and shifts at the baker’s and greengrocer’s, which indicates that he is very hard working and ambitious, which demonstrates leadership skills. He also displayed signs of being a leader and a businessman by selling home-brewed ginger beer to the neighbours and factory discards to the rag and bone man. He also started selling car aerials and electrical goods out of a van that he had brought with his savings of fifty pounds. This demonstrates that from a very young age Alan influenced himself to become successful and also demonstrates strong signs of being ambitious. In addition, it can be said that Alan is a visionary leader whereby he is inspired to achieve a vision to be successful.

Alan is an inspirational character to young children as he left school at the age of sixteen, he believed he was not academic, yet he still managed to create an extraordinary name for himself. It is evident that throughout Alan’s childhood that he has become a leader by himself and hasn't been influenced by his family, especially due to the fact that his father continuously used to undermine him. Furthermore, Alan is also strong will minded as he was not undermined by peers or their families or even his own family members. Therefore, Alan demonstrates signs of being an authoritarian leader whereby he later in life has absolute power over followers, which again can be linked with The Apprentice.

Within leadership there is a big debate about nature vs. nurture; whether leaders are born or made. Johnson et al, 1998, discusses how there are individual differences in personality traits and research has discovered that they are moderately to highly heritable. Therefore suggesting that Alan has inherited personality traits from his parents to become a leader. However this is not evident from his families background as Alan’s father was a tailor in the East End garment industry and his mother had a job in a clothing factory, thus was part of a team rather than a leader. However, there is no strong evidence or research that shows that there is a clear link between inheriting personality traits and becoming a leader.

Alan is an English business magnate, media personality and political advisor. He has an estimated fortune of £770million and is 89th in the Sunday times rich list 2011. Between 1991 to 2001 he was chairman of Tottenham Hotspur and he is also the leader of the BBC TV series The Apprentice which has been aired since 2005.