Apple

After watching Bloomberg TV’s Game Changer episode on Steve Jobs it is clear that his leadership was a “process” to say the least. Steve had his fair share of ups and downs. Many of these cycles of good times and bad times could be attributed directly to the quality of his “leader-member” exchanges within the organizations he was a part of at any given time. Steve is greatly admired for his far-reaching vision and creativity but sometimes he couldn’t see the tree in front of the forest. And so the relationships suffered though the vision flourished.

Steve was notorious for his dogged commitment to any end goal he set his mind on. Unknowingly for Steve, often he would sabotage his relational image as the price for these goals. High performers would walk away from their job feeling underappreciated and overworked. Steve became known as ruthless and an immovable negotiator. His relationship problems then peaked in 1984 as John Sculley, CEO of Apple at the time, was forced to share with the board members and shareholders that Apple was struggling as a result of Steve’s overly ambitious drive (Bloomberg TV). Robert Cringely, former Apple employee, reports in an interview that Jobs was spending to much money feeding his latest project. Steve did not agree and the board was forced to choose between keeping the Sculley or him. Unexpectedly for Steve, he was let go. The board felt he did not have the maturity to sustain and lead the company into profits and opportunities that they needed to begin growing again. A pattern of low-quality exchanges deteriorated his image of an admired leader that others wanted to work with.

This drove Steve to greater lengths of determination and awoke a competitor that was not seen prior. With bridges burned, Steve became a direct competitor with Apple by going to work for Next. There was intrigue at this point surrounding Jobs. He had built Apple to magnanimous success and now as a free agent, (no job after being laid off) he landed a job at Next where people watched to see if he would take his visions for technology to new places we have yet to see. In his time at Next, Steve learned that he was earning greater attention and momentum from remaining a mystery rather than letting the public and media know what he was up to, according to Cringely. Perhaps this in itself began to influence his methods of isolating himself from others. At this point, Steve might have thought this was a good way of handling relations since previously his relationship deficiencies were his downfall and threatened his success. Avoiding the crowds yielded a positive effect for him at Next. He was hedging against another relational conflict. He already lost that battle once and Steve is a poor loser (Bloomberg). He rarely makes the same mistake twice. “He is a survivor”, says Alan Deutschman, journalist and Silicon Valley correspondent.

Though exciting, his pride and joy project at Next, his new startup, never took off. A high performance machine built for business needs with a high price tag did not fetch well from initial projections. He knew he had to be practical this time. So he decided to scratch the project. He was learning to be practical. He decided focus on the few things Next did well based on the response they received. This runs contrary to the legacy he leaves behind. Jobs created a product and then made the public want it. He believed that they couldn’t want what doesn’t yet exist. So he told them what they wanted and then sold the hell out of it. Time and time again. Steve had a gift at creating products that the people loved and yet he did not have a great reputation for relating to them in high quality exchanges. He drove his staff crazy with work hours. His demands for excellence seemed unreachable. Yet at the same time, he gave the public what they didn’t know they would fall in love with. Somehow, he still knew how to relate. He just wasn’t well at interacting. He was good at the “exchanges” that leader-member exchange theory prescribes for effective leading.

Steve decided to keep his distance and relate from afar it appears. He maintained a very private life even through his bout with cancer except for the letters he wrote to the staff regarding critical updates on his health that would effect change at Apple. He went on leave twice but always spun it with positive outlook for the future. He often was not popular with direct relationship skills but we all love him for his futuristic insight that effected our greater good. And in the end, I think the majority of the american public feel like they would like him personally if they had a chance to know him. His impact on us all has been immeasurable. His performance, as supported by the leader member exchange theory, created a postive relationship quality that seems to have outweighed his deficiencies (Northouse p.167, 2013).

References

Northouse, P. (2013). Leadership: theory and practice (6th ed). Los Angeles: Sage.

TV. (2011, October 14). Bloomberg Game Changers: Steve Jobs – YouTube. YouTube. Retrieved July 9, 2013, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vrM7AvmxTA

I’ve been thinking about transformational leadership and Steve Jobs ever since the group I am in for this course finished a paper on the topic. Steve Jobs was no doubt transformational throughout his lifetime. He revolutionized personal computing by successfully marketing Steve Wozniak‘s computer design, and by making an innovative connection that led to the commissioning of the mouse. Jobs reinvented how we access and listen to music and how we define the word “phone”. By the standard definition of transform, to change composition, structure, outward appearance, or character, there is no doubt in my mind that Steve Jobs was transformational. However, was he a transformational leader in a way that incorporates the definition of transformation leadership?

To summarize, transformational leadership is “the process whereby a person engages with others and creates a connection that raises the level of motivation and morality in both the leader and the follower” (Northouse, 2013, p. 186). Transformational leadership combined with transactional leadership, which is more focused on the exchanges or transactions between leaders and followers, stimulates peak performance in followers according to the diagram below.

This image demonstrates that while transactional leadership is needed, the addition of transformational leadership is what inspires follower performance to reach beyond expectations. According to this definition, there are four factors that a transformational leader embodies: idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration.

Now back to Steve Jobs. Few will deny that Jobs had idealized influence, the first factor of transformational leadership often referred to as charisma. Former president of PepsiCo, John Sculley, admitted in his interview in BBC’s 2011 documentary on Jobs that to this day he’s not entirely sure how jobs convinced him to leave his secure senior executive job at PepsiCo. Scully just knew that he wanted to join Jobs. Jobs’ charisma is what helped him market the first Apple computer. Along with idealized influence, Jobs also exhibited the second factor of transformational leadership, inspirational motivation. He was often heard saying that he wanted to change the world (BBC, 2011). Who wouldn’t find inspiration in that statement? According to Northouse 2013, leaders focus follower efforts to “achieve more than they would in their own self-interest” through inspirational motivation (p. 192). Jobs was an inspirational motivator in all of the companies he owned and to the industry in general. The third factor of transformational leadership, intellectual stimulation or creativity and innovation – Jobs had those characteristics too. It’s true that he didn’t build the first Apple computer and wasn’t innovative as much in the hands-on technical sense. However he seemed to know what the public needed well before the public knew what it needed, and so he was always ahead of the game taking inventions and innovations that he experienced and applying them to personal computing and media in a way that no one ever imagined was possible.

I can clearly see the connection between Steve Jobs and the first three of the factors of transformational leadership. It’s the last factor, individualized consideration, that I struggle with a bit. Individualized consideration is when a leader coaches followers based on their needs and “spends time treating each employee in a caring and unique way” (Northouse, 2013, p. 193). From what I’ve heard and read about Jobs, this doesn’t seem to line up exactly with Jobs’ style. According to Gladwell (2011), Jobs was known for screaming at his employees. He was also known as a bully, targeting people’s weaknesses and belittling them, and it is also said that he was dishonest when splitting some profit between himself and Steve Wozniak (BBC, 2011). If transformational leadership involves being sensitive to follower needs and raising the level of motivation and morality in both the leader and the follower, can we still claim that Jobs fits the definition of a transformational leader?

It’s true. Steve Jobs had an amazing impact on the world, just as he said he would. He transformed the world. However, his lack of individual consideration, one of the four factors of transformational leadership, does leave me wondering if his style does in fact fit the definition of transformational leadership.

BBC (Producer). (2011, December 14). Steve jobs: Billion dollar hippy. [Web Video].

Retrieved from http://documentaryheaven.com/steve-jobs-billion-dollar-hippy

Gladwell, M. (2011, November 14). The tweaker: The real genius of steve jobs. The New Yorker. Retrived from http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/11/14/111114fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=1

Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: theory and practice (6^th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Leader Member Exchange by a Game Changer: Steve Jobs

Can you be a transformational leader without individual consideration?