Who does not remember the great late Steve Jobs to returned and made Apple one of the most significant companies of the last two decades. Apple revolutionized the way we operate on our day to day by creating the first smart phone, and initiating apps, and the icloud. Apple was able to succeed because of the vision that Job’s had for his company. He believed in elegant design, and intuitive response from computers, which at the time had never been conceptualize.
How can a man become such a renown leader in our history without having the credentials to do so. Steve Jobs dropped out of college and did not posses the traditional skills to become a successful computer program, yet he was able to revolutionize the computer industry.
Steve jobs posses leadership traits known as openness to experience which is defined as: imaginative, broad-minded, and curious; they seek out new experiences through travel, the arts, movies, sports, reading, and learning about new cultures. He believed in his vision, to incorporate art into all the things he did.
His openness to experience allowed Jobs to be the type of leader that was imaginative, and sought to create a new road rather than follow the status quo. It is his imagination that revolutionize our world, his curiosity that help us communicate easier, and faster than ever before. It is his legacy of an creative leader that we will forever remember.
He is an inspiration to many leaders to follow one-self, and to think out side the box. For a leader does not have to fit in the perfect mold, and we do not need to follow the traditional role to change the world.
“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do,”
-Apple’s “THINK DIFFERENT” commercial, 1997
I am a big fan of Steve Jobs. He transformed multiple industries and created one of the most successful companies of all time. That said, I noticed that you used the trait theory to explain Steve’s leadership success. According to Penn State University World Campus [PSU WC] (2016a, L. 2), the trait theory is one of the original theories of leadership that was born from the 20th century researchers’ attempt of identifing the traits that separated great leaders from others. Researches such as Stogdill (1974) and Kirkpatrick and Locke (1991) identified traits such as drive and self-confidence that correlated positively with leadership (as cited in PSU WC, 2016a, L. 2). “The trait theory is intuitively appealing” and concords with our belief that people such as Steve Jobs are special and have magical powers (PSU WC, 2016a, L. 2, p. 12). There is also a century of research that supports the theory; additionally, the approach gives us clues on what to look for in identifying leaders (PSU WC, 2016a, L. 2).
That said, the trait theory suffers from several weaknesses. According to PSU WC (2016a, L. 2) “the definite list of leadership traits” is inconclusive (p. 12). The approach fails to address the followers or the situation, is subjective in which traits are “the most important,” it does not address how the leadership traits affect the followers, nor does it address “how to train and develop leaders,” (PSU WC, 2016a, L. 2, p. 12). The trait theory offers limited assistance for those of us who want to be more like Steve jobs, since traits are a result of nature, not nurture.
What I propose is to discuss Steve Jobs’ leadership approach from the transformational perspective instead. For those who are interested in learning more about transformational leadership, I suggest reading my blog post “Transforming a Community of Job Seekers.” Instead of repeating that post, I will focus my reply on Jobs’ transformational leadership characteristics. As you mentioned, Apple Corporation succeeded because of Jobs’ vision. According to the transformational leadership approach, people such as Jobs “are future-oriented,” see the problems of today and help create the vision for tomorrow (PSU WC, 2016b, L. 10, p. 4). Transformational leaders, such as Jobs use their rhetorical skills to sell their vision (PSU WC, 2016b, L. 10); metaphorically speaking, Steve got his followers to ride the Steve train. Moreover, transformational leaders build their followers’ trust through the projection of “self-confidence, moral conviction” and by setting a personal example (PSU WC, 2016b, L. 12, p. 4). Finally, transformational leaders develop a personal bond with their followers. They recognize their followers’ emotional states and pick up on their body language (PSU WC, 2016b, L. 12).
Why do I favor this approach instead? Because, unlike the trait theory, research has shown that the transformational leadership approach can be trained (PSU WC, 2016b, L. 12). For example, Dvir and colleagues (2002) found that just six months of transformational leadership training had a positive impact on the leader’s performance, as compared to a control group (as cited in PSU WC, 2016b, L. 12). For those of wanting to follow in Jobs’ steps, I feel that this approach provides us with more hope. However, I will criticize my own argument and claim that no amount of training can turn any of us into the likes of Steve Jobs (maybe it is the trait theory that is influencing me to say this).
As a Penn State student, I am a strong supporter of personal development. Theories that support nurture (e.g., transformational leadership theory), as oppose to nature (e.g., trait theory) offer more hope in attaining my personal development goals.
References
Pennsylvania State University World Campus. (2016a). PSYCH 485 Lesson 2: Trait approach. Retrieved June 23, 2016 from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/su16/psych485/001/content/02_lesson/01_page.html.
Pennsylvania State University World Campus. (2016b). PSYCH 485 Lesson 10: Transformational leadership. Retrieved June 23, 2016 from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/su16/psych485/001/content/10_lesson/01_page.html.
I feel like Steve Jobs is such an interesting example of a leader. He revolutionized our world and dramatically changed the way we interact with technology.
While I agree he is a great example of trait leadership as being someone who used his natural ability including his arrogance to achieve unimaginable successes I wonder if he might not be also looked at through the lens of transformational leadership.
The Kouzes and Posner model talks about five practices of transformational leaders. They were 1) Model the way 2) Inspire a shared vision 3) Challenge the Process 4) Enable other to act and 5) Encourage the heart. (Northouse, 2015, p. 174) To me it feels like this process of leadership pretty aptly describes what I know of his mode of operation. He seemed to be the walking poster child of a transformational leader.
As we have learned throughout this experience these theories overlap with each other and it is certainly true that both of these frameworks can be applied to Jobs.
Northouse, P. G. (2015). Leadership: Theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.