Introduction
Effective leadership is an essential parameter to ensure the success of a company. A Chief Executive Officer (CEO) must possess various characteristics and traits to become an influential leader. Further, CEO must possess an ability to learn from their past experiences to attain valuable lessons for the firm’s future. Within CEOs’ context, the firm leaders are expected to possess robust communication skills and an ability to sustain long-term relations with all parties involved. To effectively pursue their goals, they should remain self-assured and considerate to impact the workers to attain organizational objectives. Great chances often come from implementing premeditated and calculated risks. Hence, the CEOs should take such risks to overcome the fear of failure and disappointment. Though most current leaders have acquired all such attributes, Steve Job stands out as a leading light and a leader in the industry. Steve’s career started in the early 1790s when he founded the Apple Computer Company, where he was the magnate entrepreneur, inventor, as well as industrial designer. During his tenure, he registered as a member of the Walt Disney Company. He believed in his capability of owning NeXT Company, which he later merged with Apple, which he co-founded with Wozniak. Further, Steve is perceived as a courageous leader who upholds his moral behavior, resulting in most upcoming leaders looking to him for guidance and ideas. Also, his communication ability was outstanding and facilitated open communication within the company. He motivated numerous young individuals globally, which resulted in his power and influence becoming a prevailing factor.
PART B: Career Overview
Steve’s career
Like any young person, Steve wanted to become successful by improving the lives of numerous individuals internationally. His early interest in electronics and gadgetry equipment facilitated his career in the technology sector. Steve’s career started in high school, with the first step of interacting with Bill Hewlett during his school project, a bold step that resulted in an internship at Hewlett-Packard, where he met Steve Wozniak (Washburne & Sheen, 2016). Later, he registered at Reeds College in Portland; however, he dropped out after a single semester and looked for a casual job designing and developing video games. The main objective of the job was to raise enough funds to facilitate his travel to India to study their religion and culture. However, he did not abandon his vision of engineering and building a computer firm.
Returning from his escapades in India, Steve opted to renew his relationship with Wozniak, who had begun building a computer. Due to his visionary nature, he joined Wozniak and proposed a marketing strategy of making money from the products they created, hence setting up a business as a partner (Paul, 2018). In his journey to becoming the world-renowned CEO, Steve faced several challenges right from setting up the first shop for their business. The first challenge he faced was getting the capital, $1350, that was needed to establish the business, which resulted in Steve selling his Volkswagen Microbus while Wozniak traded his Hewlett-Packard calculator. However, their first product, Apple I, did not generate the high returns they had anticipated though they continued to refine their product design (Kumar, 2020). They later introduced Apple II, the initial PC with color graphics and keyboard features. Compared to the first product, Apple II was successful and ushered in the new era of personal computers, and in merely two years, they had made about $200 million.
Additionally, his vision of designing computers that can be used worldwide sparked his desire to develop highly advanced and portable computers for numerous users. Hence, he is the pioneer of personal computers and the icon of the Apple company. In his advancing career in the 1980s, Apple products, product sales began to decrease because of the emerging competition with reduced sales of the Apple III that had been launched. The swift competition resulted in the company losing almost half its market to IBM. Hence, Steve responded to the competition by creating Apple Mac in 1984, though introducing the new product had little to no effect on sales since most local clients could not afford the high prices attributed to the products. Thus, he redesigned the Apple Mac mainly for business applications without networking abilities and a hard drive. Steve ventured into projections to increase sales but did not attract the needed client base (Yoffie & Cusumano, 2021). The unexpected turn of events in his career led to him losing his job as the CEO of Apple company since he was ousted from the firm he had founded and invested in. After losing control of the firm, Steve opted to sell all his shares and founded another firm, NeXT, to continue his vision of designing computers.
His goal remained the same; however, he was working on designing computers that would make research and education easier for every scientist and student. Due to its capabilities, NeXT computers experienced a lot of progress and advanced innovation. The new designs had high processing abilities and advanced graphics. Although the new invention was established to be exceptional by the market, the high costs attached to the invention attracted a reduced audience. Thus, Steve turned his attention to his other company, Pixar, which he had bought in 1986 to improve its sales. He later changed his focus from designing computers to software computer products, which led to his assignment with Disney to create the first computer-generated animation movie (Ott, 2019). Because of the movie’s success, Steve created the first 3D computer-animated feature movie toy story. He developed it to become a major studio,l attracting a high client base and hitting a sale trading of 80%. After experiencing numerous challenges, he became successful, with the new company reaching a net worth of one billion dollars.
Steve’s Achievements and Highlights
Apple Company lost direction with the absence of Steve, though he did not impede its development. After being operational for about a decade, the firm was close to being declared bankrupt because of its plundering sales; hence the firm turned to its visionary co-founder, Steve, for assistance. Due to his experiences from all the challenges he had gone through, Steve changed various aspects and business strategies of the company that has been considered effective and up-to-date. Hence, he swiftly transformed the company to become successful. Before the resignation of the then Apple CEO and chairperson, Amelio, Steve had acted as his advisor; however, the firm had failed to design modern generation computer operating systems.
Amelia resigned from the CEO position after the company lost about $708 million, resulting in Steve taking the position as an interim CEO. The first step Steve took after taking office was striking a business deal with Microsoft Company, which enabled Microsoft to aid Apple in improving its operational activities and overall productivity. Thus, Microsoft invested roughly $150 million in the company for a non-voting minority stake. Also, Steve took a courageous step in installing a G3 PowerPC. He later engineered the iMac’s development, a more affordable home desktop that met the price demand of the market. This production enabled the company to acquire its initial profitability and glory. In the following decade, the firm produced product series that transformed the world into a market full of possibilities; hence firm’s sales increased, and the market improved, making the company great again by introducing iPod portable audio player, iPhone handset, Apple iTunes, iPad tablet computers, and later an app store. Various users embraced such products globally, thus, facilitating the productivity and profitability of the company. Therefore, his achievement can be summarized in his design of the Apple I, which took the world of a PC by storm, co-designed and manufactured the Apple II, Apple IIc, and Macintosh, and introduced color features to the animation sector. Other achievements include returning to the company to make it a multi-billion organization, aiding the company in producing a sleek portable music player, and being seen as the innovator of online music distribution platform (Kumar, 2020). Finally, he effectively oversaw the firm’s shift from PowerPC processors to Intel’s core and transformed iPhone smartphones.
Steve’s Significant Events
There are various significant events in both the life and career of Steve Jobs. The first significant event in shaping his career occurred in 1968 when he got his initial job working at Hewlett-Packard after speaking to Hewlett directly. In 1969, he met Wozniak, who shared his passion for electronics. Further, in 1972, Wozniak and Steve built and marketed illegal blue boxes that allowed the users to make calls for free. Later, the two show the first board for the Apple I at the Homebrew Computer Club, which Ron Wayne and Wozniak incorporated as the Apple computer, which Ws followed with the production of Apple II. Apple computer entered the market in 1980, which made Steve successful in his career and remarkable wealthy. In 1984, Macintosh was introduced in the Apple design (Isaacson, 2021). However, after being stripped from the company in 1985, he and others from the Apple company board co-founded NeXT company. He purchased the computer animation division of George Lucas’ ILM in 1986 and built the Pixar corporation. Other events include Pixa signing a business deal with Disney, Apple purchasing NeXT, and then releasing the initial iPod. Also, he released iPad and iPhone 4 in 2010, resigned in 2011, and died within the same year.
Steve’s Style of Leadership
Steve’s leadership style was mainly autocratic, which is aligned with his meticulous eye for detail, and like-minded individuals often surrounded him to follow his directives. Further, his creative awareness was the driving force in the success of Apple company. However, the firm’s simplicity, Steve’s brainchild, and artistic flair made it stand out in the world of fast-growing tech organizations. Steve was not merely popular for his artistic perfectionism; he was an individual of his people, a hard worker at heart, and a creative that was highly passionate in his work (Kumar, 2020). Some critical aspects of his leadership style include effective communication, innovation, employee engagement, focus, risk-taking, and passion. From 1977 to 1985, the company had six CEOs, but it failed to acquire the technological zeal and marketing passion necessary for its development. When Steve rejoined the company, he identified the much-required marketing prism and the primary firm’s activities, which would swiftly boost its productivity.
Additionally, Steve’s leadership style was mainly transformational. This can be considered by how he sought to transform his followers to ensure that they performed exceptionally while allocating their responsibilities. Through this type of leadership, Steve impacted positive change in his followers (Baker & Baker, 2017). Also, he used his charismatic nature to motivate workers and excelled in innovating novel products for the firm. Moreover, he was an unconventional leader and did not manage a firm founded on theoretical concepts. Instead, he took a unique and different direction in his leadership and management style. He was highly blunt in criticizing his staff and opted not to hide anything from his subordinates. Also, Steve was a charismatic leader, which resulted in an idealistic vision and brilliance towards innovation. Overall, he was steadfast regarding his concepts and did not welcome any opposition from the management board, thus, being perceived as arrogant.
PART C: conclusion
Leadership style and progress do not apply similarly to all individuals. Every person has a unique leadership and management style that applies to them. In this situation, Steve demonstrated tremendous improvement and significant development in his ideas and envisioned activities. Though some of his employees or competitors could have disliked his management and leadership style, they believed in his capability to steer Apple company to success. In concluding the analysis, the report will discuss some of the most significant topics derived from Steve’s career overview, achievements, and leadership style.
Personality and Leadership Style
Steve Jobs has the big five personality dimensions. His conscientiousness can be perceived from the way Apple company depended on him to change the firm’s model by being aware of the firm’s future. Steve ignored the short-term advantages by guaranteeing the continuous growth of the products. He was responsible, dependable, persistent, and achievement-oriented. Further, his compulsion to take responsibility for the whole widget stemmed from his personality, which was extremely controlling. Steve was also an extraversion that can be seen in his outgoing, self-confident, and talkative nature. he mainly dependent on his deep knowledge and comprehension of technology. Overall, he had a high level of courteousness and likability, as established by his success in Apple, which has developed into one of the most admired firms globally.
Courage and Moral Leadership
Courage to several people can be demonstrated in different events and how they react. Some events that show his courage include when he took the bold step to resign from Apple company despite being the firm’s co-founder to ensure its success. After the resignation, he realized that he required a new challenge; hence he founded NeXT company, invested in the Pixa Animation studios, and even became a board member at Walt Disney, clearly showing his courage to venture into new territories. Another incident that indicates his courage is when he opted to return to Apple company after about ten years due to the firm’s massive losses, which led to the business deal between Apple and Microsoft Company. Besides, Steve possessed courage and moral leadership, considered an essential parameter for 21st-century leaders. Additional to the abovementioned events, his courage and moral leadership can be perceived from his core values consisting of integrity, respect, authenticity, and making a difference, among other values. Also, he compiled 100% of the core values of the firm. Accountability and responsibility are other components that show Steve’s moral courage mix. Besides, he held them responsible for the company’s success after training the workers and guaranteeing that they possessed relevant skills.
Culture and Values
Steve promoted many cultural values in Apple and other corporations that he had co-founded, which focused on creating high performance in the long term. He mainly facilitated collectivism as the principal value of his leadership. he created a community of workers that encouraged open and free communication. Further, the community allowed the workers to express cohesion and pride in the firm. He inspired collectivism in the firm by supporting the collective distribution of resources. He discouraged special facilities for top management resulting in a sharing culture irrespective of their position. He improved performance and future-oriented cultural values. He enhanced a culture whi8ch improves performance via recognition and performance-centred into the firm’s future. Lastly, he enhanced human-oriented values like generosity, fairness, kindness, and caring. Such values guarantee reduced conflict in the organization, promoting a conducive environment for the employees to work and boosting their productivity. Steve implemented various techniques to ensure cultural values, including leading based on the capability to motivate and inspire workers via key values and high-performance prospects. He also concentrated on building and developing shared objectives for the workers and engaged employees in decision-making.
Communication
Steve articulated with practical and assertive communication skills and was very persuasive. For instance, during the launch of the Apple iMac, he convinced the targeted audience of the improvement and adjustments that had been included in the product to make it superior to their competitors. Further, his charm and charisma increased product sales, raising Apple’s market standards. When he was ousted from Apple company due to its poor performance, he convinced other employees to join him in co-founding NeXT company and steer it to success. Overall, he was always positive and never dwelt on issues that could cause any division among the employees.
Motivation and Empowerment
The motivation strategy used by Steve can be defined using the Path-Goal Theory. Leaders should always clear the path by removing obstacles to ensure their followers can accomplish stipulated objectives. The motivation and empowerment differ in relying on workers. Holding employees responsible when they have inadequate skills could result in frustration. Thus, Steve often motivates employees by training them when they are hired before they are held responsible for any position. Steve used various techniques like involving workers in the decision-making process by discussing all the advantages and disadvantages attached to any decision via a created community. Also, he rewarded performance via promotions, recognition, and other benefits. Steve often acknowledged teams that created an atmosphere in the firm in which they felt safe working with the company. He encouraged professional development and career advancement through promotion, training, and guidance. He highly invested in workers’ career development and motivates them to perform better and remain successful. Overall, he encouraged seeking and giving feedback that allowed the workers to assess the organization. All these motivated the workers to be highly engaged in strategizing and modifying operations, increasing their productivity.
Power and Influence
Steve had both personal and position power, seen in him being an influential entrepreneur and the owner of a multi-billion organization. His referent, expert, and charismatic power are most influential as a leader. With a solid academic background, accrued experience, and excellent skills, workers in Apple company believed in him and complied with his directives. Also, his expertise allowed him to develop strategies like investing in employees that increased the support from the workers. Steve’s source of referent power is his personality which makes him likeable. Additionally, Steve used his position power to compliment personal power. As Apple’s CEO, he has the legitimate power that gave his power to execute functions like implementing product adjustments. The reward power added his influence on the workers because he had the power to identify, reward and promote employees that created a conducive working environment, hence the excellent performance.
Vision and Strategic Direction
Steve created a vision, articulated the vision, owned such vision passionately, and relentlessly drove it to completion when he was the CEO of Apple company. Also, he created a general plan required for the attainment of the set vision. He first developed a clear resource allocation plan that guaranteed all employees the required resources to complement the assigned projects. He also developed a conducive work environment by ensuring that the employees possess the required skills through training and physical environment by removing barriers and reducing conflicts between workers. Finally, he made frequent decisions aligned with the company’s vision. His strategic direction was founded on core competence, developing different strategies, and creating values for clients.
References
Baker, J., & Baker, C. (2017). Transformational Leadership—Steve Jobs. In SAGE Business Cases. SAGE Publications: SAGE Business Cases Originals.
Isaacson, W. (2021). Steve Jobs. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks.
Kumar, H. (2020). STEVE JOBS’S LEADERSHIP STYLE. LinkedIn. Retrieved from: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/steve-jobss-leadership-style-hitesh-kumar
Ott, T. (2019). How Steve Jobs changed the course of an animation. Página de Biography. Recuperado de https://www. biography. com/news/steve-jobs-Pixar-animation-history.
Paul, K. (2018). The New Entrepreneur’s Guide to Setting Up and Running a Successful Business. Productivity Press.
Washburne, S., & Sheen, B. (2016). Steve Jobs: Computer Visionary. Greenhaven Publishing LLC.
Yoffie, D. B., & Cusumano, M. A. (2021). Strategy rules: Five timeless lessons from bill gates, Andy grove, and Steve jobs.