Leadership and Steve Jobs - Research Paper Example

Leadership and Steve Jobs Introduction Steve Jobs was an American entrepreneur, inventor, and marketer – who was among the founders of the Apple Company. The career of Steve Jobs at Apple was a turbulent one. The difficulties faced while at Apple included the power struggles that led to his departure in 1985, but he returned to Apple during the 1990s, and was able to revive the almost bankrupt company to profitability by 1998. This paper will assess the leadership model of Steve Jobs and describe his charismatic leadership and its positive and negative impacts on the culture of Apple. The paper will also discuss the advice that I would offer Tim Cook – the current CEO of Apple, so as to continue the legacy left by Steve. Assessment of Steve Jobs as a Leader Steve Jobs strategic storytelling abilities During his stay at Apple, Steve Jobs was praised due to his ability to structure the strategies of the company and its goals into an appealing story. The ability was evident through his ability to structure a coherent and a highly compelling narrative that merged the mission and the values being pursued, which was a key theme as a strategy for Apple. Based on the storytelling abilities of Steve Jobs and the management of the company, the narratives have resulted in the development of highly effective marketing movements and campaigns. One of these marketing campaigns is the “think different” series of advertisements, which offered the company, a platform from which they could distinguish themselves from competing companies (Lashinsky & Burke, 2009). Through the storytelling and idea packaging abilities, Jobs was able to structure the visions of the company, about its products – in ways that different stakeholders could identify with. For example, Jobs projected the vision of developing user-friendly computers that would change the lives of people like the telephone and automobiles had done, which the company realized (Lashinsky & Burke, 2009). Steve Jobs as an opportunity taking leader This characteristic is evidenced by the ability of a leader, to develop meanings around factors, forces and trends that are external to the business, and then utilise the knowledge to develop models and to formulate business strategies that differentiate the business from others. Following Steve Job’s ability to seize available and upcoming opportunities, Steve Jobs was able to align the Apple Company to the external environment of the organization to develop opportunities (Dalrymple, 2009). Following his outlook, Jobs was able to tell that the niche in the personal computing was not large enough for the company to exploit. Following the realization, Jobs was able to foresee the long-term strategy of exploiting industries beyond the industry for personal computers. Following the ability to take advantage of upcoming opportunities, Steve was able to develop technologies like the iPhone and the iPod – mainly because he was proficient at spotting and initiating trends (Dalrymple, 2009). Steve Jobs as a focused leader From the personality and the work of Steve Jobs, his ability to focus on a project, a company or priorities – made him to take advantage of opportunities and to stick with those that had a bright future. One case of Steve Jobs that showed his focused nature was his return to Apple, after he was ousted out of the company by the management at an earlier time. His ability to focus on what was working was evidenced through the strategies he employed after returning to Apple. The main one entailed shifting the focus of the company’s production capacity from many products to only ten products, which he identified as capable of offering the quality that would increase the market share of the company. Due to his ability to focus resources and skills towards the production of a few production that were highly marketable, Steve was able to steer the direction of the company away from the failure it was moving towards. The impacts of Steve’s charismatic leadership on the culture of Apple Following the return of Jobs to Apple, the organization’s culture was affected by his tenacity to advantage from upcoming opportunities to a large extent. For example, after the return, the company shifted from the earlier culture and core capability of developing easy to use and innovative computing items, towards the production of digital lifestyle items that exceeded the imagination of the customers. The impact of Steve’s charismatic leadership was evident from the increased ability of the company, towards leveraging the value chain to cover the development and the sales of operating systems, hardware and software components for computers, as well as MP3s and phones (CNET News Staff, 2011). The downside of the adoption of his charismatic leadership was that the company was unable to project the interconnectivity that would be required by the customer as time went by. The limitation made the company to adopt a market outlook that did not allow the licensing of the operating system of Apple, as well as permit iTunes video and music to be played using different MP3 models. Due to Steve’s ability to keep focus, the culture of the company shifted towards the production of products that the customer may not have envisioned, but which package state of the art technology in a fashionable way. Throughout the operations of the company, it was evident that the development efforts of the company featured an outside towards the inside of the product. Following the influence of Steve, the industrial designers and product architects of the company would design the outside model of the company, which would be succeeded by the designation of the features of the particular product. After the two processes, the engineers of the company would draft the model of the mechanical and the electrical system that would operate the given product. The outlook was directly influenced by Steve’s fashion-designer-like outlook, where the user-friendliness of the products interface would determine the functionality and the features of the product. Steve’s ability to structure the vision and the message of the company was made manifest through the inspiration of the previously successful platform of the Mac into the phone. Prior to the return of Steve to Apple, the company had not imagined the compatibility of a software as complex as the OS X into a phone (CNET News Staff, 2011). The directive that the company had to try the move, to incorporate the OS X into the design of the phone was met with debate, but due to Steve’s ability to project his message in highly conceptualized manner, the teams of the company had to accept the idea, which led to the development of the product that he had envisioned (CNET News Staff, 2011). The ability to conceptualize the message and project it to the staffs was also made manifest through the learning culture adopted by the company after his return. For example, after his return, the company as a whole, expanded its value proposition from the status quo, to the level where the company’s services and the products connected to the imagination of the customers – in ways never anticipated before. The downside of the impact of Steve Jobs on the culture of the company include that the organization changed into one characterized by an authoritarian leadership, which is not likely to foster the creativity of employees. Insights made to Tim Cook, to aid in moving the company ahead to a post Steve era The insights to be advanced to Tim Cook on moving to a post-Steve era, while at the same time preserving the legacy of Steve will entail repackaging the good leadership traits of Steve, which can help move the company ahead, while at the same time avoiding the shortfalls of his era. The first area is the need to improve the CEO’s and the company’s capacity of repackaging the message into a strategic story that can be translated into the course for the future of the company, new product developments and the organizational culture required from the staffs of the company. The second legacy to be kept and preserved should be that of preparing to take advantage of available and upcoming opportunities, which will help the company to take advantage of new business opportunities. For example, from the case of Jobs, the shift towards upcoming opportunities led to the development of the iPhone and the MP3 player. Thirdly, it is necessary for the new CEO to adopt and uphold the focused nature cultivated by Steve Jobs, where the resources and the time of the company should only be channeled towards the production of only profitable and quality products that can push the company ahead. The pitfalls of the culture created by Steve Jobs while at Apple include the traditional outlook of Steve Jobs, where he did not foresee and work towards improving the connectivity of the products of the company with the software and the products of other companies. For example, during Jobs era, Steve did not allow for the licensing of iTune video and music to be played on the music player systems developed by other companies. The second cultural pitfall that the current CEO should eliminate is the highly authoritative leadership developed by Steve, which may limit the creativity of the employees of Apple. Conclusion Steve Jobs was an American entrepreneur and the CEO that shifted the course of Apple from a pending bankruptcy towards financial wellbeing. From the assessment of Steve Jobs – as a leader – Steve Jobs was a strategic story teller, who could fashion their message into a coherent goal or story, which others could buy into. The second positive trait was that he was an opportunity taker, who could sport opportunity and take advantage of it – whether it was a short term or long term opportunity. Thirdly, Steve was a focused leader, who steered the company through channeling its time and resources towards the areas that held the highest potential for success. The impact of Steve Job’s leadership on the culture of Apple was evident from the shift towards the production of a few productions and the production of envisioned inventions. The insights made to the new CEO, include adopting the message repackaging model of Jobs, his opportunity taking, and his focused outlook in running business. References CNET News Staff. (2011). Steve Jobs and his reality distortion field. CNET News. Retrieved from http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20124433-37/steve-jobs-and-his-reality- distortion-field/ Dalrymple, J. (2009). Apple doubles its iPhone market share. Cnet News. Retrieved from: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10245339-37.html Lashinsky, A. & Burke, D. (2009). The Decade of Steve. Fortune International, 160(9), 7-10. Stavros, J. & Hinrichs, G. (2009). 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