Analyzing failures of leadership: Steve Jobs’ failure in leadership
Introduction
Steve Jobs failed in his Lisa named project in 1983 and this turned out to be the biggest failure of his career during his tenure with Apple Inc. Jobs overcommitted to his conviction over the power of innovation to create a machine which was far ahead of its times and its unique features like mouse enabled interaction with graphical user interface led to fall of Lisa in markets (Smith, 2011). Consequently, Jobs was removed from the project and later detached from the company itself. This essay aims at exploring the various aspects of his leadership and analysis his leadership during the failure of Lisa.
Sources of power and influence over followers
As a leader, the sources of power which Jobs had were all channeled in his skills to use innovation for creating the computers based on his visionary approach. He also believed in creating an effective team of loyal employees and in giving them enough liberty and ownership to transform the existing processes and maximize their efforts Inside (Inside Apple, 2015). In terms of the aptness of his influence on his people, his power came from the trust which his followers believed in his capability to envision the demand of near future in computer science. This influence came into its full power right from the successful inception of Apple Inc.
Steve Jobs’ behavior before and during the failure
The aggression and over-enthusiasm in Jobs’ approach during the launch of Lisa resulted in his disclosure of certain issues with the product like higher costs and lesser compatibility with other Apple devices. These issues of excessively earnest statements from Jobs caused people wait for more economic and more compatible version of forthcoming Macintosh series from Apple (Smith, 2011). Hence, in terms of responsibility of a leader to control his urges towards a focused stance on his products, the above-mentioned behaviors were inappropriately used in the situation and proved disastrous.
Steve Jobs: task-oriented leader or a relationship-oriented leader?
Steve Jobs was definitely a task-oriented leader as he was more focused towards gaining the sustainable competitive edge and desired growth objectives for his organization rather than thinking about how his people felt (Steinwart & Ziegler, 2014). In terms of Jobs’ leadership model, this approach was favorable to his situations as he always listened to his people’s ideas and gave them the opportunity to lead through innovation and ownership. However, he never relied on building relations with his employees and openly criticized them for their failures and shortfall.
Jobs’ Motivation initiatives for employees
Steve Jobs is an example of a charismatic style of leadership used to motivate the employees and channel their efforts and dedication towards the vision of the organization. All his followers were inspired by his visionary skills and emulated him to envision the future of industry demand (Steinwart & Ziegler, 2014). All the above steps were appropriate as they aligned the thought process of the leader and his followers for a common goal.
Signs of Jobs’ transformational leadership
Answer. Steve Jobs was a leader of an entirely task-oriented style of leadership who focused on leading the organization towards his envisioned changes for near future based market demand. Jobs’ entire course of actions as Apple Inc’s founder were marked with various incidents where he transformed the earlier set paradigms of computer design and interactive features to ensure that Apple Inc. was ahead of its contemporaries like IBM, Xerox, etc. to design a machine which was capable of addressing the demands of future (Steinwart & Ziegler, 2014).
Conclusion
Jobs followed a task oriented approach where he insisted on employees to render their most innovative capabilities to make Apple Inc. the market leader. Even in the case of Lisa’s failure, Jobs came out as a transformational leader who sought to make a better and cheaper version for Lisa right after its inception into American markets (Smith, 2011). Therefore, due to this unique blend of styles in terms of the charismatic and transformational leadership by Jobs, Apple Inc. had more instance of success than those of failures like Lisa.
References
Inside Apple (2015).Steve Jobs as a leader .Retrieved from http://yaroinsideapple.weebly.com/steve-jobs-as-a-leader.html
Smith, C. (2011). What Steve Jobs Learned From His Biggest Failure. The Huffington post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/steve-jobs-failure_n_1025732.html?section=india
Steinwart , C.M. & Ziegler , A.J. (2014). Remembering Apple CEO Steve Jobs as a “Transformational Leader”:Implications for Pedagogy. Journal of Leadership Education: 52-60. DOI:10.12806/V13/I2/R3
