Steve Jobs's leadership style and functions as a CEO leader

¶ … Steve Jobs as the best of the 10 Best Leaders of 2005. In fact, it was not him but his partner who created the Apple and Jobs was shown to have expropriated some of his ideas -- including the original idea for Apple from others. More so, one can claim that Jobs had lousy leadership skills. After all, he was manipulative, frequently cruel to employees and others, egoistical, and bullying. This was the reason why Apples fired him and Jobs was forced to start afresh and failed until Apple hired him again as their leader (Isaacson, 2011).

Job's leadership success it may be argued resulted from his imagination, creatively, and ability to take risks. It also resulted in his love for his job -- a job that he was willing o be paid only $1.00 a year -- a token sum in his last tenure as manager for he was Apple and Apple was him. Ultimately, therefore, Jobs' leadership skills may have been reduced to his enormous charisma -- people were mesmerized by him; by his unswerving focus and dedication; and his tendency to stretch the envelope. Burrows & Grover (2009) attribute Job's success to his "focus and a near-religious faith in his strategy" (5). For years, Jobs plugged away at these projects disregarding predictions of Wall Street experts. This dedication and focus, as well as amazing ability to shut out distraction, are also the qualities of a superb leader. The main functions of leadership are establishing a vision, communicating the vision, motivating, and being a change agent: Steve Jobs is well-known for mastering all these functions of management!

Some of the current leadership theories are charismatic, visionary, transformational vs. transactional. Steve Jobs was a great visionary, a transformational leader, and a charismatic leader!

All of these characteristics can be seen in the following essay

A visionary

Apple's commercial, the Blade Runner that received a reward in 1984 is still one of the most famous in advertising history. It represents Job: the individual who burst forth with a hammer, past the droning lecturers and morbid company of IBM, and through the giant computer screen slashing it away to reveal a new era: The Apple (David, 2010).

Job's inspirational commercial jingo "This Different" that symbolizes the Apple also symbolized Job:

Here's to the crazy ones. The rebels. The troublemakers. The ones who see things differently. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. ("Apple - Think Different - Richard Dreyfuss narration "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFEarBzelBs)

Steve Jobs was charismatic. He was different. He made a difference.

Quality

Jobs didn't just make a difference. He was intent that his products should not only be unusual and productive, but that they should be pragmatic, should fill a need, and should contain perfection in their every nuance. His biography (Isaacson, 2011) relates that Job had his workers inscribe their names on the inside of the first Apples that they created. This was pride in their production. For Jobs, it is quality more than quantity that counts, and Jobs makes sure that his workers be aware of this fact.

Belief

Jobs also is extremely thick-skinned. Less impulsive in the second act of his career than he was in the first, Jobs always had a belief in him and in his creations, and he stuck to this belief forging ahead despite naysayers and critics. His followers saw this and modeled it. The utter belief in the business and in the product was modeled by the leader and absorbed by the followers. They absorbed Job's enthusiasm and conviction for the job and "followed their leader."

Focus

Job's also had not time for flack. Akin with all great leaders and successful people, he looked the problem in the face, reduced it to its faults, and got down to work addressing it. Excuses or pleas of hardship did not count. There was a job to do, and Jobs did it. This was how the turn-around became achieved in Apple. Jobs returned to the workplace, brusquely informed the workers that all sucked with the place and then, disallowing them to ramble, brusquely told them that the fault lay with the products. One thing: they lacked sex i.e. punch / innovation (Burrows & Grover, 2009). He saw the deficiency. This deficiency had to be addressed. He did it.

This incident was another illustration of his remarkable ability to focus. Jobs, for instance astounded Apple when he informed them, upon his return, that there were only four products that they would focus on. All else would be eliminated (Burrows & Grover 2009).

Decisive

Jobs leadership style was more dictatorial and less democratic. This was certainly so in his first term, and much of this remained when he regained leadership of Apple. He made himself in charge. He saw the problems. He addressed them, and he implemented steps that he knew would hurt others and would be unpopular. Nonetheless, for the good of the company, they had to be implemented. One such step was the hundreds of employees that Jobs cursorily forced on his return to Apple in order to strip the company of its wastage and make it as lean as possible.