Leadership Power of Steve Jobs and Arnold Schwarzenegger

There are different types of leadership power; position power and personal power are two types of power. These can be exemplified by examining two different leaders who leveraged the two power types.

Position power is obtained based purely on an individual's position within a hierarchy, seniority within a hierarchy can be used in order to reward or punish an individual. One well-known example of a leader, often cited as a visionary entrepreneur, Steve Jobs. While he may have had a high level of focus, and achieved great things, he was also an individual who leveraged position power. Jobs was known to have a low level of tolerance, expected everybody to comply with his orders, without question (Celse, 2014). He was able to make these high demand because of his position, which meant that his power was legitimate (Schein, 1992). However, to demonstrate he was leveraging position power, rather than simply setting goals, it is necessary to examine some examples.

When working with VLSI Technology, a company manufacturing chips for Apple, he is document it as barging into a meeting and telling the members that they were all "fucking dickless assholes," demanding that the chips would be delivered on time. The leveraging of this power obviously worked, the chips were delivered on time (Love, 2011). Jobs whilst the CEO of Apple, so had the power to punish for non-delivery. Another example may be seen early in his career, when working at Atari (Love, 2011). Jobs recruited Wazniak to come and help him develop a smaller version of Pong, with Atari paying a substantial bonus for completing the project on time. Jobs was in charge of the negotiations and project, and lied to Wasniack regarding the level of the bonus, which resulted in jobs keeping the majority of the money received from the bonus (Love, 2011). In this case, the source of position power is slightly different, as jobs within charge of the contract and had had the power to choose whether or not to share the bonus equally with Wazniak. This is a different type of position power, where Jobs was effectively utilising his position to benefit itself, to the detriment of his partner.

A third example may be seen when Mobileme was launched, and Jobs decided to fire the project leader after the press criticised the product as being unfinished (Love, 2011). Jobs held a meeting with the team developing the product, and publicly fired the team leader, using his power to punish (Love, 2011). Maybe argued that this was also utilised as a form of coercive power, in order to ensure the rest of the team complied with his orders, with the firing of the team leader generating fear.

There are also many examples of personal power. A good example of personal power is Arnold Schwarzenegger, who started out his career as a bodybuilder and actor, and became governor of California. While it may be argued he has legitimate power as a governor, it is apparent that the source of his power throughout his career has been charisma with his ability to talk to people with over. It may be argued that many of his film appearances helped with his development of personal power, by creating potentially influential perceptions regarding his personality, even if they were not based on reality. However, it is apparent from his biography, that he has been able to gain the support of many individuals, along with their loyalty, as a result of the care and consideration he shows for the people around him, resulting from his personal power, and not from the way in which he rewards or punishes them (Schwarzenegger, 2013). It is notable that many individuals that operate successfully within the political arena are able to use personal power. This may be argued as essential in order to gain the political support that is needed before an individual is able to rise to power, especially if they come from a humble background, without a powerful family.