Steve Jobs was a brilliant innovator and has re-shaped the way we communicate in society. As I type this on my Mac Book air and have my iPhone playing music in the background there is no doubt that he has impacted my life. His ingenuity was undoubtedly profound. What I find most interesting about Steve Jobs is his representation of power and influence in leadership. I would like to point out that power and influence are in fact two very different things and Steve Jobs was so successful because he did in fact possess both.
First I would like to clarify the difference between power and influence. “Power is the capacity to produce effects on others or the potential to influence”(Hughes, Ginnett, & Curphy, p. 3). Now notice in that definition that the “potential” to influence can happen from power. But that is something that does not always happen if the leader is lacking influence. If you have power to someone they may have authority to affect others but do they have the internal motivation, or persuasion techniques to inspire change within them? This is the difference. On the other side, influence is described as “the change in a target’s attitudes, values, beliefs or behaviors as the result of influence tactics”(Hughes et al., p. 4). Some of these tactics could be methods of persuasion, charisma, and likeability or even by motivating people to accomplish joint goals.
Steve Jobs however had an exceptional influence on others. He had a dynamic personality. “If Steve was in your life he had one of three relationships with you. He was seducing you, ignoring you, or scourging you. If he needed you he would seduce you and make you work very hard for him. If he felt you weren’t working hard enough, he would scourge you”(PBS.ORG [PBS], n.d.). I think this is an excellent example of how Steve Jobs built the Apple Empire at such a very young age. He had the influence to get people moving for him. He also had the power as the APPLE founder to hold people accountable. While sometimes not in the nicest way he certainly asserted his power often.
It was that sort of influence that essentially catapulted Jobs to have the power to accomplish his wildest dreams. He implemented tactics that would accomplish what he wanted. Hughes, Ginnett,& Curphy outline a list of Assessing types of influence tactics such as inspirational appeals, pressure tactics, exchange and personal appeals to name a few. In the documentary his followers provided examples in which they worked for free when the company was starting up in exchange for stock in the company. In addition there were several references to Jobs ability to pressure his people to perform at their highest levels and accomplish things that had never been done before. Lastly, he was such a huge inspiration to so many across the world that had so many powerful people stand behind him when he needed it. Even his rival Bill Gates saved Apple by giving Jobs 120 million dollars when the company was about to fail. If you can inspire your biggest rival to help you save your company than I would say you have a lot of influence and power.
In closing I think it is interesting to view power and influence differently. The true great leaders of our time represent both of these dynamics exceptionally. Hopefully we can be inspired by them to continue to innovate, motivate and mobilize our followers to accomplish great things.
References
Hughes, Ginnett, & Curphy (). Chapter 5: Power & Influence [Lecture notes]. Retrieved from https://cms.psu.edu/section/content/default.asp?WCI=pgDisplay&WCU=CRSCNT&ENTRY_ID=34487DDCB40546F1ABBB4F73D809D725:
PBS.ORG. (n.d.). Steve Jobs – Disruptive Innovation Documentary – One Last thing [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnoeSvHAJ9I&feature=youtu.be
While I agree that Steve Jobs had a lot of power and influence, I’d say he had a lot of power and influence, I believe he had somewhat of negative power and influence over his workers. Jobs had Coercive Power (PSU WC, 2016) over his workers because of the fear of having their ideas being crushed and thrown out by him. Also the fear of being fired from him as well. He also had Legitimate Power (PSU WC, 2016) being the CEO of Apple and by proxy having people listen and follow him since he was in essence, the boss.
Jobs need for power was really a mixture of personal and socialized power (PSU WC, 2016). He wanted to be in charge and if someone’s desires and ideas didn’t align with his, he fired them or berated them. However on the same flip side he wanted to turn Apple Computers into a powerhouse to compete with IBM and Microsoft. As for influence he was able to use pressure tactics (PSU WC, 2016) on Steve Wozniak to force him to agree to start charging for the Apple I computer. If Wozniak had his way, the Apple I would’ve just been an open source hardware for people to customize. Jobs on the other hand wanted to charge for it because he saw the innovation that was in it.
Jobs use this influence when he worked with Jonny Ive, Apple’s Chief Design Officer, on the iPhone. That’s why the iPhone has always had one button and isn’t as customizable as a Android phone. Jobs felt that the common cellphone user shouldn’t be customizing “his design” with the iPhone and they were too dumb to know what they wanted (Steve Jobs, 2011). He hated the fact that companies like Microsoft and Android allowed users to customize their products.
While Jobs was a innovator and designed some of the most inspiring electronic and computer products, he was also lackluster engineer by his own admission (Steve Jobs, 2011) and was a very difficult leaders to work with and for.
References:
Pennsylvania State University (2016) Psych 485: Leadership in work settings. Lesson 7 https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/sp16/psych485/
Isaacson, W. (2011). Steve Jobs. New York: Simon & Schuster.