(A discussion of Steve Jobs as a leader, based on Andrew J. DuBrins definitions.

) Introduction iPledge allegiance to the Apple by the genius of Steve Jobs, and to the Quality fo r which it stands: one Fanboy under Tech, Indivisible, with Creativity and Style for all.1 This ode to the CEO of Apple exemplifies the influence and charisma extreme fans of Apple products (the so called apple fanboys) attribute to Steve Jobs. However, a pparently he is hated with similar eagerness by others, exemplified by the excis tence of a we-hate-Steve-Jobs petition site2. So, who is this person that creates su ch extreme emotions? Steve Jobs is a co-founder of Apple Company in 1976 (with a childhood friend Ste ve Wozniak)3. He was forced to leave the company in 1985, after internal power s truggles, and returned twelve years later. Meanwhile, he had very successfully l ed the Pixar animation studios4. Apparently, Steve Jobs is, despite his success, or maybe therefore, a controvers ial individual. Maybe a first approach to answering why this is can be found in a Harvard review blog entry by Bill Taylor: So In terms of the impact his products have had on the world, Steve Jobs represents the face of business at its best. And yet, in terms of his approach to leadership, Jobs represents the face of bus iness well, if not at its worst, then certainly not as something worth emulating.5 We will attempt to analyze his leadership style and his traits based on the info rmation available to us: Charisma What is charisma? In Dubrins book on leadership he suggests that charisma involves a relationship between the leader and the people being led6. He furthermore point s to the importance of management by inspiration as he calls it and he point to the different communication styles of a charismatic leader7. In essence, charisma is a key aspect of leadership, as Dubrin discusses. Steve Jobs is famed for his ability to give speeches and captivate the audience at tention8. He is able to captivate his employees and audience with the ability of an evangelist. In this respect we can observe that he posses the charismatic ab ilities that Dubrin demands by communicating his ideas using metaphors and analo gies and storytelling9. Interestingly, when presenting the new Apple product iPad he would sit down on a cou ch as some of us would have at home and create a scenario that helps the viewer and listener to imagine a Sunday-morning scene at home, using this new product w hile reading a paper. Jobs then also started by opening the webpages of an Ameri can newspaper. By creating these stories in our head he communicates the advanta ges of his products most efficiently. He is a gifted speaker with an uncanny ability to confound his employees and the public with an almost evangelistic delivery (referent power10). Jobs charisma is largely dependent on his deep knowledge and understanding of th e technology he is immersed in (expert power11). Jobs technical knowledge might not be that of his engineers, however, Jobs has been the founder of Apple togeth er with Wozniak, and together they developed the very first hardware. Certainly Jobs understanding of the technologically possible, combined with a visionary gi ft help him to develop his visions and then efficiently communicate them, for ex ecution, to his employees.

His charisma enables him to whip up the enthusiasm of his employees (job involve ment) to achieve more by doing seemingly impossible tasks, and also convince cus tomers to buy Apple products. Personalized leadership His charisma type could be described as being personalized12. This means in acco rdance to Dubrins explanation, that one serves primarily own interests and exerc ises only minor restraints on the use of power. In Jobs case this means that he does not only motivate by story telling but also by force. Jobs is described by some as being manipulative, dishonest, and boorish13. An indication for this can be found, when he says, for instance: My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to make them better. My job is to pull things toget her from different parts of the company and clear the ways and get the resources for the key projects. And to take these great people we have and to push them a nd make them even better, coming up with more aggressive visions of how it could be.14 He wants people to follow him, expects obedience and much of it seemingly o ut of the self-interest, since working at Apple is what he considers a valuable goal in his life15. In conclusion, we can say he is a visionary type who communicates his visions we ll in this story telling fashion16. This vision, and the way that he can communi cate it is the main attribute that makes Jobs being perceived as Charismatic. Leadership Behaviors Because of his manipulative behavior he is considered by some of his employees as au tocratic. His behavior in meetings for instance is described as being rude, auth oritative and obnoxious17. Dubrin explains the importance of consideration and, what he calls, initiating s tructure18. Considerations stands for the degree that a leader offers emotional support, while structure is the way work is organized, i.e. by schedules, orders , guidelines etc. Getting the job done is highest on their priority list.

Because of his quest for perfection, Jobs has domineering presence which makes s ome of the employees fear him. This would let us assume that his consideration l evel is rather low (else he would care about peoples fear and try to counteract it) and his initiating structure level appears rather high, as we saw in the for mer paragraph on charisma, when we saw him saying My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to make them better. My job is to pull things together from different parts of the company and clear the ways and get the resources for the key projec ts.19 However, in his later years, he shows more warmth and less vindictiveness toward s his employees. In fact, a current rating of approval by his employees shows Jo bs to get a 90% approval rating20. Nevertheless, it is not at all clear that thi s rating is based on him being softer on people today or simply on peoples admirat ion for him due to his success. Leadership style Autocratic versus participative Jobs seems to micromanagement at Apple. Jobs admits that there are an incredible amount of up to 100 individuals reporting directly to him21. As mentioned above , he is perceived as autocratic. The fact that so many individuals report to him directly is representative for his will and eagerness to hold all the strings i

n his hands. Total control is certainly the basis for this leadership. Dubrin describes an autocratic leader as one who tells people what to do, assertin g themselves, and serving as a model for team members22. In contrast, a participat ive leader would be interested in hearing everyones opinion and integrate them int o a group-decision either in a democratic way (let a vote decide), a consensus f inding manner (strive for an agreement of compromise) or consultative (consult w ith all group members, then decide)23. We assume that the amount of Jobs participative leadership is low. Anecdotes rumor that he is a rather rude participant in meetings and extremely impatient24. Thi s behavior certainly does not contribute to people wanting to voice their opinio n and participate. In contrast, Dubrin explains that a participative leadership style demands for teamwork approach where the leader does not try to dominate the gr oup25. From the documentary The triumph of the nerds we may conclude that his humility leve ls are very low, bringing his personality in conflict of the requirements for a participative leadership style26. This documentary has Jobs talk about some of h is less successful episodes, blaming others for the losses.) Entrepreneurial At the same time Jobs is being described as entrepreneurial: Jobs may be a multibi llionaire, but that hasnt cut into his work ethic. He brings an entrepreneurs energy to tasks many CEOs would see as beneath them27. Dubrin defines an entrepreneur as someone with a strong will for achievement and a sensible risk taking, high degree of enthusiasm, tendency to act quickly on o pportunity, being impatient, visionary, amongst others28. From the above discuss ion we have seen already, that Jobs can be described as being enthusiastic and a visionary, being impatient and having a strong will for achievement. Additional ly, Jobs has taken risks and seized on opportunities many times in his career, f or instance when leaving Apple (though being forced to) and leading Pixar to suc cess, just to come back to Apple some years later and saving the day for a compa ny in dire straits at the time29. His continued entrepreneurial spirit is also shown by the fact, that he repeated ly introduced products to the world that revolutionize the entertainment industr y, and the way entertainment media is distributed (e.g.: the iPhone and iPod as media devices, and iTunes as distribution channel). Transformational leader Dubrin defines a transformational leader as one who brings about major, positive c hange for the group, organization or society30. As we just heard, Jobs has transfo rmed several companies over the years. He has transformed Pixar into a success s tory31. He has all the necessary attributes to be considered one, based on some requirem ents that Dubrin mentions32: he leads by example, he practices empowerment, he h as a vision and as mentioned he can be perceived as charismatic. However, he appears to lack the humane qualities of a transformational leader, w hich are also mentioned as a prerequisite for a transformational leader by Dubri n33, namely: emotional intelligence, personal encouragement, building trust (App le is famous for its secrecy, even admitted by Jobs himself: It is generally not A pples policy to trumpet our plans for the future; we tend to talk about the things we have just accomplished34) etc.

Power Motives In asking why someone strives for power, Dubrin explains two major motives, the pers onalized and the socialized power motive35. In Jobs case neither seem to fit compl etely. The personalized power motive would require the striving for status, mone y and luxury, something that is hard to pin on Jobs. Socialized power motives on the other hand would require the use of power for the greater good, or to help others.

We may leave the description of his motives to himself, by citing his words: Your time is limited, so dont waste it living someone elses life. Dont be trapped b ma C which is living with the results of other peoples thinking. Dont let the noise o f others opinions drown out your own inner voice; and the most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary36. His motives appear selfish, but without the typical requirements of the personal ized power motive. It would possibly be fair to assume that power is not his dri ving force, at least, when we trust his own words, but rather that for him, powe r is something that is a necessity for what really drives him: achievement in it self. Personality traits of effective leaders Dubrin mentions several character traits for an efficient leader37. We want to b riefly mention them an state what we feel is true for Jobs from the above discus sion: Self-confidence: intimidatingly high Humility: incredibly low. (The documentary The triumph of the nerds can be used for reference38. This documentary has Jobs talk about some of his less successful ep isodes, blaming others for the losses.) Trustworthiness: probably low, if the mentioned secrecy he exhibits in dealing w ith the world outside the company is in any way a reflection of how he deals wit h flow of information within the company (which is likely, since many projects r emain incredible enough, secret until they are unveiled, like exemplified in the recent introduction of the iPad39). Authenticity: true authenticity is based on self-reflection, which requires a de gree of humility we can safely assume from the already analysed not to be found in Jobs. Extraversion: his self-confidence may at first be mistaken for extraversion, how ever, extraversion in a socially interested way appears not to be extractable fr om the above analysis. Assertiveness: the description of how he runs meetings and the aggression with w hich he motivates his employees speaks for a high degree of assertiveness. Enthusiasm: his speeches and his entrepreneurial behavior indicate a large degre e of enthusiasm. Sense of humor: he never exhibited it, in case he posses it. Conclusion Interestingly, in general Jobs personality traits would not be characterized as the traits of an effective leader. In a way, he is far from a classical text-book ex ample, as Dubrin for instance describes it. Nevertheless his charisma, self-conf

idence and passion for work overshadow all his negative characteristics thus mak ing him one of most successful CEOs of the decade. Also check other popular articles on business themes: Douglas McGregor: Human relations perspective on work Henri Fayol: 14 principles of management Business Ethics: A review of the psychology of morals and economy and the effect s of measures such as Codes of Conduct (Honour Codes) REFERENCES: 1 http://fanboypledge.com/ 2 http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/we-hate-steve-jobs 3 http://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/01/business/an-unknown-co-founder-leaves-after20-years-of-glory-and-turmoil.html 4 http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/history/1986.html 5 http://blogs.hbr.org/taylor/2009/06/decoding_steve_jobs_trust_the.html 6 Leadership, Andrew J. Dubrin, Edition 6, 2010, page 68ff 7 Leadership, Andrew J. Dubrin, Edition 6, 2010, page 77ff 8 http://sixminutes.dlugan.com/steve-jobs-presentation-tips/ 9 Leadership, Andrew J. Dubrin, Edition 6, 2010, page 78ff 10 Leadership, Andrew J. Dubrin, Edition 6, 2010, page 69ff 11 Leadership, Andrew J. Dubrin, Edition 6, 2010, page 69ff 12 Leadership, Andrew J. Dubrin, Edition 6, 2010, page 71ff 13 http://www.economist.com/media/globalexecutive/icon_steve_jobs_e.pdf 14 http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fortune/0803/gallery.jobsqna.fortune/5.ht ml 15 http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fortune/0803/gallery.jobsqna.fortune/4.ht ml 16 http://www.workbabble.com/2009/10/steve-jobs-the-return-of-the-worlds-greates t-storyteller-7-tips-to-sell-your-ideas-the-steve-jobs-wa.html 17 http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/what_steve_jobs_is_like_in_a_meeting.php 18 Leadership, Andrew J. Dubrin, Edition 6, 2010, page 100ff 19 http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fortune/0803/gallery.jobsqna.fortune/5.ht ml 20 http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/which-ceos-have-been-naughty-or-nice-accordingto-their-employees/ 21 http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fortune/0803/gallery.jobsqna.fortune/7.ht ml 22 Leadership, Andrew J. Dubrin, Edition 6, 2010, page 114ff 23 Leadership, Andrew J. Dubrin, Edition 6, 2010, page 113ff 24 http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/what_steve_jobs_is_like_in_a_meeting.php 25 Leadership, Andrew J. Dubrin, Edition 6, 2010, page 113ff 26 http://www.pbs.org/nerds/part1.html 27 http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_06/b3970001.htm 28 Leadership, Andrew J. Dubrin, Edition 6, 2010, page 120ff 29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc. 30 Leadership, Andrew J. Dubrin, Edition 6, 2010, page 83ff 31 http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_06/b3970001.htm 32 Leadership, Andrew J. Dubrin, Edition 6, 2010, page 86ff (Attributes of Trans formational Leaders) 33 Leadership, Andrew J. Dubrin, Edition 6, 2010, page 85ff 34 http://images.apple.com/hotnews/agreenerapple/docs/A_Greener_Apple.pdf 35 Leadership, Andrew J. Dubrin, Edition 6, 2010, page 49ff 36 http://www.thepracticeofleadership.net/2005/07/01/steve-jobs-your-time-is-lim

ited-so-dont-waste-it-living-someone-elses-life/ 37 Leadership, Andrew J. Dubrin, Edition 6, 2010, page 33ff 38 http://www.pbs.org/nerds/part1.html 39 http://www.utalkmarketing.com/pages/Article.aspx?ArticleID=16688&Title=Why_th e_Apple_iPad_launch_was_the_worst_kept_secret_ever Post revised: Aug. 19, 2010