Steve Jobs' transformational leadership and Apple Computer's success

Leadership Lessons From Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs was a transformational leader, both from a technological and human leadership standpoint. Having not only launched Apple but also saved it from bankruptcy when he returned in 1997, Steve Jobs showed a unique set of transformational skills that would set both him and his company apart globally more than any other technology-related brand. The intent of this analysis is to evaluate Apple Computer from the standpoint of Steve Job's major impact and influence on it, including a discussion of the three major business challenges that needed to be overcome for the company to succeed. The leadership style Steve Jobs relied on is also discussed. His role as a transformational leader is clear by how effectively he could communicate a product vision and mobilize organizations in the tens of thousands of people to accomplish them (Cheung, Wong, 2011). Third, his effectiveness as a transformational leader from a business and management standpoint is also assessed, specifically by his ability to motivate individual and group behavior. Finally the major impact Steve Jobs' contributions and legacy continue to make on the technology industry and the world are also assessed.

Steve Jobs And the Daunting Task Of Launching and Running Apple Computer

The founding of Apple Computer, its many new products including the Apple Macintosh and the development and launch of an entire series of MP3 players and smartphones in the iPad and iPhone series all serve as ample evidence that Steve Jobs fully understand how to create disruptive innovation using technology and marketing skill (Hopkins, 2011). Leadership theorists and management experts point to the dramatic turn-around of Apple Computer as ample evidence of Steve Jobs' transformational leadership skills (Strategic Direction, 2002). Apple today has a market capitalization rate higher than Microsoft. As of this writing the Apple market cap of $371.98B is larger than Microsoft at $220.8B (November 6, 2011). In the last months of his tenure at Apple Computer, health concerns continued to be raised (Maugh, Thomas, 2011) and the medical leaves of absence (Gobry, Frommer, 2011) led to predictions of the Apple stock price eventually dropping rapidly when Steve Jobs' retired for medical reasons or passed on. Now after his passing, Apple stock has stabilized, a further testament to just how effective his leadership and planning skills are at enabling greater growth and profitability for the company he began.

The first major challenge Steve Jobs had to overcome in launching Apple Computer was the conformity that pervaded computing in general and computer engineering specifically. He had to help his talented engineers break the mold of what they had been told was great product design, and center not on functionality of ease of production, but the user experience. As Steve Jobs worked to overcome this challenge, the culture of Apple began to mimic his personality and take on its traits. Highly nonconformist, focused on quick, brilliant results and exceptionally valuing disruptive innovation over the status quo, Steve Jobs went about defining a culture that would actively question conventional wisdom. The result was a culture that became known for its direct, blunt nature and pride that bordered on arrogance (Brashares, 2001). Overcoming this first major challenge of architecting a culture that could innovate quickly, Steve Jobs also believed his company was on a mission to bring greater value into the world. He asked John Scully when recruiting him from Pepsi: "do you want to sell sugar water the rest of your life or change the world?" (Hopkins, 2011). This captures the intensity and focus that Jobs had as does his quote "real artists ship"(Strategic Direction, 2002) shows just how focused he was on transforming Apple by changing its culture thoroughly at the engineer and designer level first.

The second major challenge Steve Jobs faced was how to create a supply chain that could manage the torrent of new product introductions and entirely new devices and materials he needed to build first the iPod, then the iPhone and finally the iPad and iPad2. All of these devices require an exceptional level of electronics integration and circuitry to work effectively. Jobs was perfectionistic about the approach about the approaches used to qualify vendors and their quality (Brashares, 2011). He also demanded absolute secrecy and confidentiality throughout his entire supply chain to ensure nothing would leak out regarding overall designs or requirements (Brashares, 2011). Finally his approach in managing suppliers was to concentrate on making them sign the most thorough Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) in the industry. All of these strategies Jobs reasoned were critical for keeping his designs and next-generation products secret until product introduction.

A third major challenge Jobs faced in running Apple Computer was getting software companies to write application programs first on the Macintosh and later on the MacBook Air and other PC platforms the company produced. The lack of software on the Macintosh at one point was so serious of a deficiency that corporations began to limit their use internally, even for graphics (Strategic Direction, 2002). Jobs however was undaunted and invested much time and millions of dollars in his software evangelism efforts to gain greater support for his PCs. The results were impressive within the first five years of a global evangelism effort: Apple at one point had more graphics and desktop publishing applications than the IBM PC (Strategic Direction, 2002). As with many of the challenges Jobs faced in making Apple a global force in technology, music and communications, this first major one of having software running on their systems could have either been a powerful catalyst for future growth or eventually led to the company becoming lesser known and eventually going out of business. All three of these challenges illustrate how Steve Jobs viewed difficulties as catalyst for future growth of Apple and himself.

Assessing The Impact of Steve Jobs on the World

Steve Jobs revolutionized the experiences technology users have with MP3 players, smart phones, computers and networks. His greatest contributions are the redefinition of the music industry to make it more consumer driven, many contributions to the areas of device design and usability, and major contributions to the development and fine-tuning of supply chains. He also pioneered the development of new product development cycles and the creation of entirely new approaches for managing 3rd party vendors and suppliers for components and assemblies. The ability of Apple to launch new products with components, assemblies never produced before is still confidential yet the disruptive nature of this strategy is evident with each new iPhone and iPad launch. All of these accomplishments underscore what a transformational leader he was.