Steve Jobs ' Leadership Assessment

Q: Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, was asked to come back as Chief Executive in 1997 when the business was making a loss. Jobs was appointed to provide a clearer vision for the business and to improve its profitability. How easy is it for a Chief Executive to change a struggling business into a more successful one? Justify your answer with reference to Apple and/or other organisations you know.

Leadership style is a leader's style of providing direction, implementing plans, and motivating people. There are many different leadership styles such as leaders in the political, business or other fields. Steve Jobs (24th February, 1955 – 5th October, 2011) is one of the most remarkable leadership people in modern history and he is well-known as the co-founder, chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of Apple Inc (Misa, 2011, p. 919). In any cases, Steve Jobs had displayed personal characteristics as a leader. Steven Jobs returned back to Apple when the company was going through a terrible

19). Still a part of the Great Man Leadership era, these trait theories just went a step further in attempting to pinpoint exactly which traits of these “great men” were consistently associated with the leaders, in an effort to more clearly define what a great leader was. This was again a further attempt to be able to identify a leader early on and predict which individuals were born to become leaders. It is thought that a major flaw with these theories was the failure to account for external factors, such as the environment in which the individuals were brought up in, as well as the situations they experienced (Horner, 2007, p. 270). Still today we do continue to study the characteristics of leaders in order to better define and understand what makes someone a good leader.

For centuries leaders have been analyzed in order to determine what the traits and characteristics of a successful leader are. Leadership, as defined by Koontz and Weihrich (2008) is “the art or a process of influencing people so that they will strive willingly and enthusiastically toward the achievement of group goals” (p. 311). Leadership plays an important role in employee’s participation, creativity, recruitment to an organization, their commitment to the organization, and productivity levels. Over the years, there have been a number of theories surrounding leadership such as the “Great Man” theory, which, according to Riaz and Haider (2010), “assumes that leaders are born and have innate qualities, therefore, leaders

Jobs and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak are widely recognized as pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s. When Steve Jobs running the business of Apple and NeXT organization, many studies were made some researches to find down the way he managed organization and the administration style of him. Consequently, the result of those studies show that the leadership styles of Steve Jobs related to transactional leadership, transformational leadership and charismatic leadership. Trait approach is first systematic attempts to study leadership. To be a successful leader, traits approach is the necessary actions which able to provide people with excellent and potential to perform. This style of leadership has the inherited personality traits distinguish leaders from subordinates. Trait approach just focus on the person who is leading and the leader always have several common traits such as self-confidence, initiative, intelligence, self belief. This style of administration of Steve Jobs was shown clearly in the case that it happened during his early years at

Effective leadership is one of the most important key factors for success and longevity in every organisation. So it does not come as a surprise that the topic of leadership has continued to be a subject of interest in the modern world both from practitioners as well as academics and the extensive research for decades has not exhausted the topic (Bennis W., 2007).The purpose of this essay is to apply the three relevant leadership theories in relation to Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Inc., one of the most admired leaders of recent times. The essay firstly introduces the concept of Charismatic leadership, transformational leadership and transactional leadership and then briefly reviews Jobs and his leadership styles in relative to the theories.

In the text it explains a problem with trait leadership is it never explains which traits are the ones that make a leader and which one maintains one as a leader. I disagree with this statement as a leader may not possess the traits of a leader currently or yet but through life or circumstances that effect their decisions and personal qualities may change them and form a leader.

Leadership is “ critical in codifying and maintaining an organizations’ purpose, values, and vision. “ ( PM World Today Journal ). Having good leadership methods in place at an organization is vital in bringing success to a company. Steve Jobs is highly stimulated and has a strong idea of what he wants for Apple to achieve in upcoming periods. He is a transformational leader, and this, “ represents the most popular current view of leadership. This leader is characterised by a capacity to create a highly motivating and absorbing vision of the future, and has the capability to energise others to pursue the vision. “ ( Claremont McKenna College Journal ). Jobs has put in a huge effort to create a strong framework of control and direction, for example, “ Since returning to Apple, Steve has put as much energy into creating a strong management structure as he has into the products. “ ( www.ft.com ). This is highly effective leadership, trying to improve the design of the organisation in order to achieve more efficiency.

The trait leadership theory focuses on the individual leader’s personal characteristics as the basis of its investigations. It is one of the earliest leadership theories upon whose tenets many researches on leadership have been done. Although it is not very coherent, its heuristic nature has contributed to its significance in leadership research. Zaccaro and Klimoski (2002) define traits of reference to leadership as the stable personality characteristics, which result in a consistent leadership performance pattern, given different scenarios and groups. They include individual personalities, temperament, rationale, prowess, as well as cognitive abilities. Initially, the theory explored both physical and psychological characteristics that tell apart leaders from non-leaders.

From Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela’s charisma, to Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King’s intelligence and Steve Jobs’ analytical nature, there can be as numerous ways to lead as there are leaders (Crossman, 2010). Leadership is a hot debate both in the business world and other areas of the society. Throughout the world's, there have been as many leadership models as there have been their commentators (Burns & Peltason, 1966). Fortunately, psychologists and businesspersons have established useful frameworks that refer to the main ways of leadership.

In the 1950’s the University of Ohio created the Model of Leadership program so corporations could measure standards, behaviors and plans used in various situations. In addition to this, Fernandez, (2008), states, the program also analyzes information from performance measurements so they can comprehend relationships between corporate supervisors and employees (P.1,).The Model of Leadership program compares corporate opportunities find the characteristics and behaviors of competent business leaders. This program uses diverse business opinions and employee performance to comprehend how these plans, behaviors and relationships influence the success and failure of organizations. Fernandez, (2008), also states, these facts influenced research on power, influence, managerial and ownership theories being used to manage corporations (P.1,). The Ohio State Model of Leadership program also enables authorities to produce competent appraisal opinions, techniques and requirements for current businesses.

As explained by Kutsar, Ghose & Kutsar (2014) many great leaders have led companies to growth and prosperity in various ways with different styles. In the technology sector, Steve Jobs is one of the most celebrated leaders for his leadership and innovation. Jobs over the years has shaped Apple into the technology giant it is today. Table A1, in Appendix A lists the several assessments tools used to define Job’s leadership, for this discussion we will focus on Personality incorporating the Myers-Briggs Type indicator, Behaviour incorporating Trait Theory and Jobs Leadership Grid, Development incorporating Tuckman’s Group Development Model.

This report will be focused on the effective leadership skills showed by Steve Jobs over a supported timeframe and the turnaround that Apple had experienced under his vision and orders. Steve Jobs played a very important role in leadership that led Apple from a company, which was founded in a car-garage to a great Macintosh Pcs, iPod, iPhone and iPad. The report will additionally break down and look at the key administrative and initiative abilities that Steve Jobs aced that prompted to the grand development of Apple as an association.

The purpose of this essay is to analyze a leader by using leadership trait approach. The leader chosen for this purpose is Steve Jobs who is the co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Apple Inc. The leader will be analyzed to identify some of his traits that contribute to his effective leadership.

Research on management and leadership in organizations over the past century shows there are still no clear definitions or answers about what counts as effective and successful leadership; the field remains varied and argued. Actual studies of leadership began in the early twentieth century. The research and studies on leadership have resulted in defining what characters, traits and attitudes are considered to be significant for leaders to possess. The early studies of leadership theories focused on the person and their behaviors, currently known as leadership trait theories and behavioral theories. It is important for organizational leaders and managers to understand what characteristics, traits and actions of an individual mark a great leader when forming a strong diverse workforce.