Apple: Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs co-founded Apple in his parent’s garage in 1976, he was removed from his managerial duties at Apple in 1985. Later Jobs returned to Apple as the CEO in order to rescue the company from bankruptcy in 1997. Jobs’ first objective was to refocus the products. He did this by creating a four box grid on a whiteboard with the columns labeled “Consumer” and “Pro”, and the rows labeled “Desktop” and “Portable”. Jobs told his team of employees that their task was to focus on four products, one for each quadrant of the grid. He did this so that his team could focus in of those products to make them amazing. As a result of this decision by Jobs, Apple was able to produce and sell these four products, leading the company away from possible bankruptcy.

Jobs had a vision for the company and he made sure that all of his employees shared in that vision. In doing this, Jobs was giving meaning to work through engagement to his employees. This also illustrates his charismatic leadership style, he was energized and determined which made people want to be around him and willing to follow him.

Jobs motivated his employees in several ways, one of those ways was simply by listening to them. An example of this is when Apple purchased NeXT, a computer and computer software company, in 1997. The NeXT developers were angry about the acquisition so instead of presenting to them, he asked to hear what they had to say. He listened and expressed empathy to the employees while they vented their frustrations. This cut the tension and gave the developers a chance to express their feelings instead of listening to what Jobs thought was right for them. Another example of how Jobs motivated his employees was through symbolic gestures. He had the signatures of every member of the original Macintosh team engraved inside every single mac. This is similar to an artist’s signature on a painting, and was Jobs’ way of encouraging his employees to take pride in their work.

In this video of Jobs, he gives a bit of an inside view of how the company operates and one of the things that he stresses is how everyone meets for three hours once a week to talk about everything they are doing. He said that teamwork is key, and that teamwork is about trusting the other members to come through with their part. This is Jobs empowering his employees and giving them the authority and resources to work effectively.

Jobs was also very aware of the competition, he often looked to see what Google and others were doing with mobile phones. At the time of the release of the first iPhone in 2007, the competing smartphones were using QWERTY text keyboards and styluses. When the first iPhone came out in 2007 it featured a multi-touch screen instead. This was an innovative design that allows the screen to recognize more than one point of touch on the screen, which enabled Apple to become the leader in smartphone technology. If Jobs had not been so keenly aware of what the competition was doing, Apple would not be the successful company that it is today.

Works Cited

Henson, Ramon. “The Leadership of Steve Jobs.” Rutgers Business School, 1 Nov. 2011, http://www.business.rutgers.edu/business-insights/leadership-steve-jobs.

Isaacson, Walter. “The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs.” Harvard Business Review, Apr. 2012.

Winfrey, Graham. “How Steve Jobs Used Masterful Storytelling to Motivate Employees.” Inc., 26 Nov. 2018, http://www.inc.com/graham-winfrey/4-ways-steve-jobs-used-storytelling-to-inspire-apple-workers.html.