Abstract
The paper investigates and discusses the background of Steve Jobs ranging from him being left out as a child by his parents for adaptation to later leave his college and then establishing himself as one of the most popular leader the world has known. The study also looks at Steve Jobs leadership skills as per the five practices of exemplary leadership as suggested by Kouzes and Posner like Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act and Encourage the Heart. It further looked at evaluating the credibility of Jobs along with the areas where he fell behind and had rooms for improvement. It also included a different angle and projected if he’ll be successful in any other activities like as a politician.
Let’s dive into the content
An American entrepreneur, designer and an inventor, Steven Paul Jobs co-founded Apple Computer and served as chief executive and chairman of the company. During his time with Apple, he revolutionized the tech industry with innovative products like iPod, iPhone and iPad for it’s time. Jobs was born in 1955 and was given up for adaptation by his parents, he was directionless but was very smart. He ultimately dropped out of college and experimented with different ideas before ending up as co-founder of Apple along with Steve Wozniak in 1976. He was ultimately removed from the potion. But he never gave up. He then started another company in Pixar Animation Studios in 1985 which worked as a way for him to get back to Apple once they bought the company around a decade later. Jobs ultimately died of pancreatic cancer in 2011 following a long battle against it. But he left behind a great legacy.
I liked Steve Jobs for his willingness to fail and yet get out strong. It is worth noting that not everything he initiated resulted in success. He even got fired from the company he himself started. The development of Apple III and Lisa both resulted in failure. Regardless of that Jobs still persisted and embraced his mistakes and was always willing to take risk and face the consequences that it yield.
Jobs passion is another thing that I admired in him. He started his own company from the garage, dipping in the creations, and even calling people in the middle of the night for he was still working on some project during those late hours. Jobs was visionary as he believed that if you’re working on something that you value, your vision will drive you forward. He had a vision to develop products that were simple to use with a visually pleasing design, which he delivered with a line of products of Apple.
Steve Jobs clarified the values and set an example to model the way. His actions aligned with his values. He himself worked day and night to make his dream a reality. Starting small from the garage, he kept on going and didn’t ask for anyone to do his task. He didn’t have had to force people to follow on, he had an idea – a vision and a clarity to drive people to follow/rally behind him and his idea. He was able to set an example of himself as a hard working leader who never backed out of the challenge, inspiring all the others to model the way.
Steve loved to imagine, dream and he always had a clear idea of how he wanted the product to be like before starting to work on it. He always wanted to work on new ideas to solve problems by making new products and marketing tactics. He dreamt about a graphical user interface on computers when all the other companies where using command based interface and he actually made that a reality by inspiring all the other team to rally behind him. Not only that but he was also able to inspire ideas like smartphones with applications ending telecommunication monopoly in the smartphone market. The products he imagined and developed as a company revolutionized the current industry like iTunes for music, Apple Store for mobile applications, Safari for browsing the internet and several other products within Apple line.
Steve Jobs used to ask hard questions and encouraged his staffs to do the same as well. He always loved to challenge the process and come out with ideas that no one ever dared to think about let alone implement it. He was willing to take the risk on a new idea. He was equally willing to take the consequence of the failure even if that happens. One of the first campaign Apple in ‘Think Different’ clearly showed his vision for the company. iPad, iPhone and even the apple computers (MacBook) are some of the examples of he being able to challenge the process by thinking differently.
Jobs enabled others to act by making them strong and made them feel more powerful and capable. He always pushed the limit of his employers. He always worked towards making a motivated team. That showed with the determination of the team to make possible a successful launch of the apple computers after it falling behind the schedule and at one stage of development, it looked like it may not succeed. He proved this principle of exemplary leadership by providing his people with the freedom to make their own decisions within the project to get to the finishing line.
Jobs encouraged the heart as he was able to identify and credit the contributions of the individual within organization. Even though he failed to do so in full with Apple initially, he learned from himself and provided that opportunity in his other company in Pixar. He allowed them to be part of the company’s stock filing and also provided appraisals to motivate them to stay with the company. He was also vocal enough to praise for job well done.
Steve Jobs regardless of all the good skills he had, there were areas where he could improve as a leader. His pride was more important to him and this lead to undermining competitors like IBM in the computer business. He also found it difficult to compromise on his own ideas, any ideas that didn’t go his way resulted in confrontation. He also lacked generosity early on which he later conquered to be better with. He barred several key people to Apple’s success away from Apple’s initial public stock opening (IPO) but later improved upon it by allowing such people to apply for IPO for his next company (Pixar).
Would Steve Job excel in other fields?
I believe for his mental strength and composure he held, he would have excelled in other areas as well like in politics. He was an IT genius and was a visionary leader. He was never afraid of taking risk and was always up for challenge. All the traits that a good political leader must have. Jobs popularity among the people and his connectivity to the business and political leader, provided the perfect blend. His ability to inspire masses with his speech also suggests that he would have excelled in politics, if he had chosen this life path.
Steve Jobs exhibited a number of crucial traits holding the leadership by changing the way we live, work and play with the development of some of the revolutionary products. He taught that the ability to follow a vision and focus on it will drive the team to refine the talents and create services and products that are the need of the time. Able to handle abrupt changes, difficult situations, being adaptable are some of the things that we can learn from Steve Job’s career. All those creates a good learning opportunities while helping build confidence in enhancing the creation of the company and the employees. He was a leader worth noting with a lot of lesions to learn from like his willingness to fail while making mistakes and get back up every time to lead to even better results in the future.
References
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