Steve Jobs as a Global Leader - Literature review Example

Steve Jobs, Global Leader Introduction When one thinks of leadership historically one tends to think mainly in terms of political or religious leadership - kings such as Charlemagne, popes, war leaders such as Genghis Khan, or in more modern times dictators such Stalin or Chairman Mao, or statesmen and women such as Angela Merkel and Bill Clinton . The British empire, especially in the time of Queen Victoria, once covered huge areas of the globe. None of these people is or was however a true global leader, in that their power and influence did, or does not, extend to every country. Although political and religious leaders still exist, and can of course be very important , modern influences that really affect everyone tend to be rather different. McDonald’s for instance can be found not only in Western countries, but there are several branches in Beijing, a place where neither Alexander the Great, or the British empire to any real extent, was able to reach. There are also branches nestled in amongst the gourmet restaurants of France. So leadership and influence have changed over time. One example is the influence of Apple under Steve Jobs. According to Moisecot (2012) he was ‘the closest thing to a rock star in the world of business’ His is an example of true global leadership. By 2011, the year of his death, Appl , his company, had become the most valuable publicly traded company on the globe with iPhones and other products available right around the world from Brazil to the Ivory Coast and from Switzerland to Singapore. How did all this build up from one small garage workshop and two great minds at a time when computers were around, but they were mostly mainframes, huge, bulky and very expensive? Biography of Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs died in 2011. His obituary said that the world had lost a great man. He was born in 1955 and so died comparatively young from pancreatic cancer. Jobs was not his birth name, but born to unmarried intellectuals, he was adopted soon after birth. The couple went on to marry and have another child. How would that make Jobs feel when he discovered what had happened? It cannot have been a positive in his life. His adopted father was an engineer, and so Steve had an early interest in technology and gadgets of all kinds. While he was still at school, he called William Hewlett co-founder and president of Hewlett-Packard, asking for parts for his school project. This impressed Hewlett, who not only supplied the necessary parts, but also offered an internship at the company Hewlett-Packard. It was while there that Jobs met the future cofounder of Apple, Steve Wozniak, then a young engineer who enjoyed tinkering and gadgets. Steve Jobs co-founded Apple Computers with Steve Wozniak in 1976. With their Apple 1 computer they had little success, but the pair went on to design Apple 2, a much more popular choice. The aim was simple and elegant sophistication, using intuitive methods, but ones based upon well founded empirical data. The duo were a partnership where, to some extent, one balanced the other, and this did not just apply to their technological genius. According to Shontell for instance (2014) when Jobs would not allow early employees stock options in Apple, Wozniack intervened and passed on millions of his own share. In the case of Daniel Kotte he had been a college friend of Jobs and had also travelled to India with him. He considered himself a friend and was the twelfth person taken on, but Jobs would not talk to him about job options but instead would just keep him waiting outside the office for hours on end until Kotte gave up and went away. Jobs was of course working in a field where great changes took place very rapidly, faster perhaps than anyone could have predicted or imagined. Gill ( 2003) argued that any change must not only be well managed, but also requires successful leadership, not only to introduce the changes and to convince others of their viability , but also to sustain them. Hundreds of years earlier, in the 16th century Machiavelli wrote ‘the Prince’ ( 1513). In that work he discusses how difficult it can prove to bring about any change, especially where there is some degree of resistance from those who do not share the same vision. He is quoted by Gill as having said :- There is no more delicate matter to take in hand, nor more dangerous to conduct, nor more doubtful in its success , than to set up as a leader in the innovation of changes. For he who innovates will have for his enemies those who are well off under the existing order of things, and only lukewarm supporters in those who might be better off under the new. And it is true that we have all heard people say ‘But we’ve always done it this way.’ Change can bring resentment. People feel devalued. Machiavelli lived in a very different 16th century world, but unfortunately his words still ring true, in a modern world which is changing faster than he could ever have envisaged. It is also true that it is all but impossible for one person to bring about the kind of changes Jobs envisaged. Jones, Aguirre and Calderone, ( 2004) claim that there are ten principles needed for change management. They go on to say that in industry plans do not create value. That only comes about through the sustained and collective actions of not just a leader or a few managers, but through thorough and sustained hard work by many people, perhaps thousands, or even many thousands, of them. This however only happens when the company’s ethos , its culture and values , as well as its people and their actions are all aligned with a common purpose. A company must be a place where people know that their ideas and work have value and are appreciated. This state is not easy for anyone to achieve on a consistent basis, and that included Jobs, especially when employees are being constantly asked to come up with new ideas and solutions, many of which will soon be discarded in favour of something else, newer, better, brighter. Jobs has been quoted as having said :- We started out to get a computer in the hands of everyday people, and we succeeded beyond our wildest dreams ( Cited by Entrepreneur, 2014). So he can be said to have been successful, and not just in his own estimation. He did what he indeed to do, but that doesn’t mean that all went smoothly and that feathers were never ruffled. Gill ( 2003) paints a picture of the required leadership model, one which exhibits vision, but also values, have a strategy but also empowering others. It was perhaps the latter where Jobs stumbled. Some employees felt strongly that their ideas were not valued, or were soon dismissed as Jobs became more interested in some new idea, another product or possibility before the first one had perhaps properly run its course. For him there was always the next model, the better, more streamlined version. According to the staff writers at Entrepreneur (2014) Jobs' original vision got a little clouded – perhaps because of his huge personal ego – and as a result he was eventually removed from the company that he helped to found. According to Blodget (2013) the company had no choice at the time as he had become incompetent. That must have been very humiliating. According to this article Jobs did cause problems in the process in Apple's growth, because he always wanted things his way. On the other hand once he had gone the company seemed to lose its sense of direction. Sales fell and continued to fall. He came back in 1997. He thought in creative ways – he wanted for instance a computer in his pocket, and so developed the i-pod, a computer which could join up to an Apple computer, and yet was simple so that a manual was not needed. According to Bio (2014) the iPhone and iPad were so innovative that they can be described as dictating the way modern technology is evolving. Soon after leaving school Jobs went off to India on a spiritual search. The ideas he considered at that time led later to his thinking about simple elegance and ease of use. According to Kalla (2012) because he thought in an eastern way in a western company he could focus upon vision rather than reality, and so he could see the way ahead. He envisaged the tablet for instance as an extension of the user’s brain ( Kalla) 2012). Although raised as a Lutheran by his adoptive parents, when he returned to the U.S. it was as a Buddhist, complete with a shaven head and wearing traditional Indian clothes ( James, 2011), he also bought with him a philosophy that may have shaped much of his corporate values. He also met up again with Steve Wozniak. At the time Wozniak was working on building a computer, but this was for him a hobby. It took the wider thinking of Jobs to see the immense potential of the idea. They managed to raise the money needed, only $1350, and set up shop in a garage. The Apple 1 sold in the main to computer hobby geeks, but the sales produced enough cash to allow them to develop Apple II. This was aimed not at geeks, but at computer beginners – the ordinary person, who suddenly had available a personal computer with a keyboard and colour graphics. That was just the beginning. Jobs aimed first of all to simplify. There is for instance no on off button on the ipod. Instead it gradually powers down, and can be revived with just a touch. This involved complex software, but the interface is simple to use. He set new standards, as when he turned mobile phones into miniature computers, but annoyed his competitors by declaring their phones had functions which were incomprehensible. He took responsibility for Apple products from inception onwards. This was no hands off employer, but a very active member of the workforce. Jobs was in control, but at the same time able to motivate thousands in the workforce. He was able to make things more personal. A television viewer with one of his televisions in their home can choose any video available on the web and watch it. He was an innovator, seeing opportunities for new concepts that others had missed , such as when he produced the iTunes store and iTunes software. He ignored what others saw as reality, as when he challenged Wozniak to produce a game ‘Breakout’. Wozniak quite realistically thought it would take several months, but Jobs said it would take only days. It took four days. Jobs was able to deal successfully with ideas that were not quite up to scratch. In the first instance the iPhone was cased in aluminium with only a small area for display. This was changed to Gorilla glass i.e. very strong glass, and the signal was much improved. This however took some strong negotiation with both engineers and with the manufacturers of the glass before they too saw the possibilities. Sometimes Jobs was perhaps just a little too outspoken, what some saw as plain rude, but his employees responded positively. As in his partnership with Steve Wozniak, but also with a lot of other people, Jobs, proved he could collaborate. He wasn’t the only one with ideas and connections which were of value. This wasn’t a dictatorship. But that doesn’t mean that he always allowed others to overrule him either. He believed in his own ideas , but on occasions others did not do so. “Jobs was busy changing the world and minor annoyances like people’s feelings didn’t fit into his plan.” said Coursey ( Cited by the West Orange Chamber of Commerce, 2013). He was even described by Blodget as having ‘out-of-control disruptive behaviour and incompetence as the leader of the Mac division.’ He was only 30 years old at the time,. This is why, at one point, he was forced to leave Apple, having fired by Sculley, a man he had taken on only two years before. Blodget (2013 says that Jobs , then still a young man, lacked both the discipline needed for business, but also emotional maturity. It seems also that he simply did not see what was happening and wasn’t expecting the blow when it came. The Diligent Media Corporation ( 2009) quote him from a speech he made at the time , “Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick.” Yet others were well aware of what was going on and how negative his actions and ideas could be at times. Mackram and Smith are quoted by the Diligent Media Corporation ( 2009) as having said that Jobs ran the Apple company during that first period :- By force of personality, making numerous economies with his ridiculing the ideas of others, his unwillingness to hear views contrary to his own and his outbursts of bad temper. He could definitely rub people up the wrong way, but it seems that the majority were eventually won over, when with maturity, he felt able to deal with criticism and was able to admit his imperfections. In a speech at Stanford in 2005 Jobs explained his feelings at the time he left Apple :- So at 30, I am out. And a very public out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down…I met with David Packard…and tried to apologise for screwing up so badly. Having left Apple Jobs began a new company NeXt, concentrating on software development after an early rough start which resulted in half his employees being laid off. In that same year he also bought Pixar. It was 1985 before NeXt made a real profit ( Diligent Media Corporation, 2009). In the same year it was bought by Apple for $400 million. Pixar of course went on to make the hugely successful film ‘Toy Story’ as well as other innovative films, including some for Disney. So his time away from Apple was definitely not wasted financially, but nor was it in other ways. He had had a huge shock, but he bounced back eventually, better than ever. By the time he returned to Apple 10 years after his exit Jobs had matured and also acquired all the management skills he needed, but at the same time he retained all those positive abilities of being able to innovate, to inspire, and to keep coming up with good ideas and products which led to company success and customer demand. His personality and leadership style had radically changed from what it had been in 1985. “He now seemed more relaxed and open to ideas. In fact, he seemed to relish other people’s ideas.”Beetz, quoted by Diligent Media Corporation, (2009). Barnes, his financial director at NeXt is also quoted as saying that he matured and mellowed year by year. Cage (2013) quotes an example of his leadership style, not the smoothest, but effective:- I'm just calling to tell you I thought you did a good job. I hated the movie, I hated the script, I think if you had spent a little more time and a little more money and maybe a little more attention to detail, you could have had something there. But you were good. So critical, one might even say harsh, yet the positive comes through and is valued. On the other hand he was known to have reduced some employees to tears , and indeed to cry himself over some perceived fault ( Moisecot , 2012). He had vision, but he was also able to see details. Some company leaders are just that - they have a vision and they lead others towards it, but although Jobs was aware that the big picture matters, he also knew that in practice you have to get the details right, whether it be that a smart phone must be small enough to fit into a pocket, or whether it be about availability of parts. Jobs had to change his ideas and leadership style over time as Apple burgeoned from two guys in a garage into first a company with many employees, then a national and finally an international company – globalization. Mintchell (2014) describes how this whole idea of a global company which has to some extent lost its national identity, is a relatively new concept. Despite this wide spread the company still needed central control and one ethos. At the same time the company would have been using resources in many lands. This would require some adaption at times, but this is a quality Jobs had. How else could he move from a garage to be a global leader. Globalization would also require excellent communications back and forth – Apple products do just that. Mintchell (2014) cites Ranic as having identified three aspects necessary for a global leader:- an incredible ability to pay attention to detail and quality: great decision-making ability and having a “never-quit” attitude. Steve Jobs had all three in bucketfuls. He was also capable of changing quickly when a new idea emerged. He could pivot from one idea to another until he came up with what was required. He was willing to quickly discard ideas that didn’t quite work, but soon came up with improvements. His successor Tim Cook was quoted by Yarow (2013) as having said :- He would flip on something so fast that you would forget that he was the one taking the 180 degree polar [opposite] position the day before. Despite sudden changes of direction, he didn’t lose his vision Agrawal is quoted by Ciciora ( 2014 ) as having said of global leaders :- Visioning is an important leadership capability in all countries, but leaders from southeast Asian countries showed visioning more than leaders from a country of the Anglo-cluster, which seems to indicate a greater expectation for this behaviour. Jobs was also a show man. This included his ability to distort reality at times. Software engineer Bud Tribble (quoted by Moisecot, 2012) coined the phrase ‘reality distortion field’ in the early 1980s saying :-: Steve has a reality distortion field. In his presence, reality is malleable. He can convince anyone of practically anything. Before home computing became mainstream Jobs travelled around to promote his products in stage shows known as Keynotes. By the late 90s and the turn of the century these became less necessary as Apple could rely on its stores to promote and sell their products. So Steve was able to cut these shows down to may be four a year. Although he would be the star of the show it wasn’t a one man effort of course. When any product made it to Steve Jobs's list of those to be demonstrated at a keynote, most employees working on it knew they could say goodbye to such things as peaceful nights, free time at weekends or even holidays, no matter how long they had booked. In some cases though products would not be quite ready to be shown, but Steve still wanted them included and he wanted them perfect. This obviously caused tensions and long hours, especially if he was showing products as much as six months before their launch date , as happened with the iPhone prototype , first shown at Mac World, 2007. But he knew what people wanted and he tried his best to give it to them. An old friend , Alan Kay, is quoted by Moisecot (2012) as having said after watching a keynote in 2007, ‘Steve understands desire.’ He did change and soften over time, but basically he remained the same . In 2007 97% of Apple employees approved of him, but Michael Wolff’s description of him was :- There's the mercurialness; the tantrums; the hours-long, dictator-like speeches; the famous, desperate, and transparent hogging of credit; and always the charismatic-leader complex […], through which he has been able to seduce and, subsequently, abandon so many of the people he's worked with. He may be as troubled and unsocialized (and, too, as charismatic) a figure in American business life as anyone since Howard Hughes. ( quoted by Moisecot, 2012). All this makes for a demanding boss, but working for a visionary has costs. Having a vision was part of Steve Jobs psyche, in part at least because of his early search for spiritual meaning in life, a search that may , at least in part, be due to early feelings of rejection and worthlessness. He had to constantly prove himself, and in his case this was often demonstrated through the devices he thought up. Thurman is quoted by James (2011, as saying that while he was not a practising Buddhist, Jobs was :- Creative and generous and went outside the box in the way that he looked to Eastern mental discipline and the Zen vision, which is a compelling one. This never left him, and so he was able to maintain his vision and to pass it onto his workforce, whether it be about simplification of some task or product design or any other aspect of the task, despite the fact that he often seems to have felt that co-workers were thinking in a different way to him. Jobs was no more perfect than the rest of us, but according to Zenger (2013) his ‘strengths were so profound that they completely overshadowed his failings.’ And he did not always get things right. It seems, according to Munarriz ( 2014) that Jobs belittled tablets along with smartphones that were bigger than the earliest iPhone model and not as big as the iPad, yet these are what are selling right now. Apple was forced into production of these middle sized products because other manufacturers such as Samsung and Dell were producing their own versions. Would Jobs have felt the same pressure to go with the crowd – perhaps not, but it wasn’t his decision in the end. No leader lasts forever of course and Steve Jobs has gone on to his eternal reward. Many great leaders have proved to be incapable of leaving an adequate successor - no Alexander the Second Greatest. According to Cave (2013) Jobs did at least leave a legacy. This lies in the fact that the taught Apple employees that if you can demonstrate you know your business others will strive to impress you, and that the more successfully this is done, the more they will be inspired Zenger (2011) says he left us the important lesson that we should concentrate upon developing our strengths, rather than just trying to overcome any weaknesses we feel we have. It is now three years since Steve Jobs died, and Apple has of course continued under the leadership of Tim Cooks. A new leader inevitably brings change. The post – Jobs company have on occasions proved Jobs wrong, as when they bought out the now very popular iPad mini. Jobs believed that any tablet smaller than 10 inches would only provide a negative experience and be difficult to operate. With regard to finance Jobs just let the money from shareholder pile up, whereas now they receive affordable bonuses. As far as charity was concerned Jobs never contributed publically. He was concerned with customers The new Apple now matches the contributions of employees for the benefit of various charities. Things are not perfect, but were they ever? Siri just doesn’t function as it should. Apple maps can be considered as a disaster. Advertising has become a mishmash and, according to Yarow (2013) the public just doesn’t think of Apple as highly as it once did. Yet Apple, although no longer led by such a powerful personality, and no longer the most successful of all, still remains one of the world’s most successful companies – according to Munarriz 2014 they can’t make iPhone 6’s fast enough, as they fly off the shelves, despite having a relatively high price when compared to similar products . This is a success that Job’s had not anticipated, as he thought some of the new products were just too small to use and would merely frustrate customers. Conclusion You can criticise Steve Jobs and his leadership style all you like, but no one can deny both his genius and the fact that he succeeded in doing what he set out to do in making computers available to the ordinary person, something which would have seemed impossible to many in the industry at the time he began. He may not fit easily into a manual about leadership in industry, or fit at all, but perhaps he was too busy to read such books. “Steve Jobs was one of the crazy ones. He believed he could change the world and he did.” ( Zach, 2011). This is one of more than a million tributes on the web site ‘Remembering Steve’. This is true global style of leadership, showing what is possible, even when it seems impossible, or at least improbable, and allowing others to share in what he has created for them and with them. It isn’t necessarily the type of leadership written about in the manuals or taught at business schools, but in the case of Steve Jobs the benefits ultimately outweighed any negative aspects of his personality and leadership style, although perhaps some of those hurt in the process might disagree. Because of him I have a phone, music and the Internet all in my hand!!! THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR VISIONS AND GREATNESS!!!! (anonymous quote from ‘Remembering Steve’, 2011) References Blodget, H. (2013) Let's Get One Thing Straight — Apple Had No Choice But To Oust Steve Jobs, Business Insider, retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-had-no-choice-with-steve- jobs-2013-9#ixzz3EP37HKU3 Cave, K. (2013) Apple: The Legacy of Steve Jobs’ ‘Inspirational’ Leadership IDG Connect, retrieved from http://www.idgconnect.com/blog-abstract/3954/apple-the-legacy-steve-jobs-inspirational-leadership Ciciora, P. (2014), Cultural sensitivity necessary for global business leaders, scholar says, News Bureau , Illinois, retrieved from http://news.illinois.edu/news/14/0121leadership_AnupamAgrawal.html Diligent Media Corporation, (2009) What Steve Jobs did when he was fired from Apple, retrieved from http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report-what-steve-jobs-did-when-he-was-fired- from-apple-1254757 Entrepreneur, (2014) Steve Jobs: An Extraordinary Career, retrieved from http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/197538 Gill, R. ( 2003) Change Management or change leadership? 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