Steve Jobs - Research Paper Example

Steve Jobs Steve Jobs, the co-founder and CEO of Apple is one of the prominent American business magnates. His major achievements include the production and marketing of personal computers of commercial value, known as Apple II, Macintosh, and other innovations like iPod and iMac. Although Jobs had resigned from Apple due to some managerial problems with the board of directors, later in 1997 he rejoined the Apple Computer Inc, as its CEO. In addition, he is currently serving as one of the members of the Walt Disney Company’s Board of Directors.

What made him a successful business entrepreneur is his outstanding vision and tactical leadership. To illustrate, Steve always used to emphasis on the significance of product design. He is a perfectionist innovator who has the ability to foresee the changes in firm’s technological and environmental trends. It has helped the company to design new products according to the preference and requirement of the changing world. According to his vision, the esthetic appeal of a product is highly significant as it has considerable influence on people.

Perhaps his aggressive and demanding personality is the latent of his leadership quality. His potential has been proven as he contributed reasonable part in the field of music, movies, and technologies while he was not the part of Apple. Jobs, for the first time achieved the concept of full-length animation movies on computer with the support of George Lucas, the film director. Apple iPod is the best example for his innovative ideas which his competitors could never envisage. Jobs always believed that the quality of product is the key factor of business success.

His comment on his resignation from Apple reveals his attitude; “getting fired from Apple was the best thing that ever could have happened to me” (Hughes, Ginnett, Curphy, 52). He also maintains a win-to-win business concept which gives greater importance to collaborative information sharing and problem solving. For instance, Apple with the collaboration of Motorola introduced ITunes phones. The victorious achievement in business has made him the icon of modern entrepreneurship.

It was his leadership quality and positive attitude that led him to be the lead business tycoon among the computer companies. Soon after the invention of Macintosh, he was criticized for his ineffective management and leadership because his contract with Bill Gates had been a failure. His aggressive and demanding nature was a barrier to employee relation. However with his reentry, the Apple witnessed a different manager and leader in Jobs who proved his potential once again with his classic innovation iMac (Weihrich, 365-366).

Moreover, he always used to undertake challenging business experiments which helped him proceed with the innovative industry. Jobs is really an entrepreneur of the era who has very clear conviction about the changing business scenario. As mentioned earlier, he does not believe in cutthroat competition but enhances a win –win business atmosphere which would ensure business sustainability in the long run. Perhaps, that must be his weakness that had been utilized by Gates in his creation of Windows ((Weihrich, 365-366).

In fact, as stated in Maxwell (81), the product iPod is the indication of Job’s leadership vision because he has put his full-fledged involvement in the design of this marvelous product. Jobs, as a leader does not simply wait for result; instead, in addition to innovative vision, he gives strong strategic managerial backup to his company to place it at the frontier of information technology. Works CitedHughes PL, Ginnet P C, Curphy G J. Leadership: Enhancing the Experience.

Tata- McGraw- Hill, 2008. Maxwell J C. The 21st Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Workbook. Ed 10, Thomas Nelson Inc, 2007.Weihrich H. Management: A global and Entrepreneurial Perspective. Edn, 12. Tata- McGraw-Hill, 2007.