TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADER :

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs

Idealized Influence

• Infused Passion • Will to create revolutionary products to perfection• Love what you do- ‘People with Passion can change the World.”

• Visionary• Provide vision by foreseeing and defining future ‘user experience’ (both

large & small details) with software and hardware. • Transformed technology system & consumer culture • Mac, IPhone, IPod, IPad, iBooks, App Store, Pixar

• Morals• Upon returning to Apple in 1997, shifted balance to ‘Products before Profit’• “Focus on making the products great and the profits will flow.” • Don’t compromise, focus to specify computer’s abilities & innovate great

products

Inspirational Motivation

• Time to Think Different• Encouraged others to spend time thinking differently in solving problems and

designing products• Onion Layer; first solutions are often complex, but keep going, live and peel back

more layers- arrive at simplicity and elegance.

• Face-to-Face• Engaging meetings to confront, hash-out, think, frame possibilities • “Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings, from random discussions..”

• Rousing Speech• One of the most inspiring speeches given to graduating students to Live each day as

their last• Have the courage to “follow your heart & intuition”

Intellectual Stimulation• Challenging Beliefs

• Reframing issues to convince others into thinking & doing- buying into Apple model • Mental innovation, enthrall into way of thinking ‘focus and simplicity’

• Radical Creativity • Innovator’s job to design what they want (will I enjoy this product myself?)• Imagine and show users this is what they want • Invoked Henry Ford’s line- “If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have

told me, ‘A faster horse!’”

• Perfection • Hardly ever satisfied, often ‘hit pause’ to go back to the drawing board and redesign

product truly loved • Perfectionism extended to even the parts unseen

IndividualizedConsideration

• Encouraging Self-Actualization • Had other people producing results they personally believed impossible

• Infused passion & value into others to accomplish never used, seen before products

• Climate to develop • Engaging culture where a ‘push’ approach was often communicated • Attracting workforce trust • “Its my job to be honest.”

• Tolerate only Great Players• Desire to only work with the best, most brilliant, and those who believe Macintosh

will change the world • “By expecting them to do great things, you can get them to do great things.”

Apple Transformation

Steve Jobs was a transformational leader who empowered Apple by successfully motivating followers to envision, innovate, and believe they can change the world.

References

• Isaacson, W. (2012). The real leadership lessons of steve jobs. Harvard Business Review, 90(4), 92-93.

• Kaipa, P. (2012). Steve jobs and the art of mental model innovation. Ivey Business Journal Online, N_A.

• Murugesan, S. (2011). What we can learn from steve jobs. IT Professional, 13(6), 6-8.