steve jobs the unconventional leader

Delhi UniversityMCA-1 Batch(2014)

NEVER GRADUATED from college

DROPPED OUT of Reed College after the first 6

months, stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months

Had no idea what he wanted to do with his life but

TRUSTED HIMSELF

SLEPT ON THE FLOOR in friends' rooms

Returned coke bottles to buy food

Walked 7 miles across town every Sunday night to

get one good meal at the Hare Krishna temple

Started dropping in the classes that he found interesting

Decided to LEARN CALLIGRAPHY at Reed college

INCORPORATED CALLIGRAPHY IN MACINTOSH

that became the first computer with beautiful typography

Since Windows copied Mac, probably NO COMPUTER

WOULD HAVE HAD TYPOGRAPHY if Steve would not

have

dropped out to follow his interests

Jobs was a TRANSACTIONAL leader

• Influenced employees for strong desire of work and provided them vision.

TASK ORIENTED leader

• More focused on task and organization performance than on people

•Was able to get people to follow him disregarding whether he was liked or not.

ADAPTIVE leader

• Started from leading himself to leading huge company

Considered one of Silicon Valley’s leading EGOMANIACS

• Did not regard the feelings of employees; only listened to their ideas.

• Demanded excellence from his staff and delivered blunt criticisms.

Ensured NO MISTAKES would be made

Believed that LEADERSHIP IS WORK. Knew what

to say no to and what to focus on.

MOTIVATED EMPLOYEES to accomplish more

than they dreamed possible.

Was CONFIDENT OF HIS MANAGEMENT

STYLE and did not conform to traditional business rules

Was a DEMANDING PERFECTIONIST with an

aggressive and demanding personality.

DOING IT

THE JOBS’ WAY

Leadership lessons

Lesson 1: Focus

Jobs was famous for his LASER-LIKE FOCUS

FOCUSED ONLY ON THE PRODUCTS knowing that the

profits would follow.

Larry Page, Google’s co-founder, visited Jobs to ask for

advice.

• Jobs told him to focus on any five products and “get rid of

the rest, because they’re dragging you down”.

• Larry followed his advice

Lesson 2: Conviction

Known for DEMANDING THE IMPOSSIBLE

Made his partner PRODUCE A NEW GAME IN 4 days,

after saying it would take months to do the same

Made an engineer deliver a 28-second time savings who

said it was impossible to shave 10 seconds off the boot

time

Jobs would stare at you blankly and say with unwavering

conviction while demanding the impossible “Get your

mind around it. You can do it”.

Lesson 3: Follow Your Passion

Jobs’ believed

• PASSION was a critical component of success

• the only way to do great work is to LOVE WHAT YOU DO.

• The only way to be truly satisfied was to DO GREAT WORK

Urged everyone to do what they love.

Lesson 4: Vision

Jobs did not tolerate an employee who didn’t share his vision.

DENIED 3 of the 6 ORIGINAL Apple EMPLOYEES stock

As he believed they were no longer critical assets to the

prospering COMPANY’S SUCCESS.

Lesson 5: Hire Creativity

The Apple slogan, “THINK DIFFERENT” was Jobs’

mentality behind hiring people.

Apart from engineers, he hired “ MUSICIANS, POETS,

ARTISANS, ZOOLOGISTS and HISTORIANS who also

happened to be computer scientists.”

“ While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.

Because the people who think they are crazy enough to

change the world, are the ones that do.”

Lesson 6: Risk Failure

Jobs didn’t hesitate when it came to

TAKING RISKS.

His RISK-EVERYTHING MENTALITY

that took a small start up in his parent’s

garage and turned it into a multi-

billion dollar company.

Lesson 7: Serve A Purpose

“ Make it great ” , “Is this as great as it could be? ”

were some of Jobs’ many SIGNATURE CATCH

PHRASES

Consumer-focused vision.

He wouldn’t just make it he would MAKE IT GREAT.

Lesson 8: Tenacity

Jobs went back to the drawing board even in the

advanced stages of product development.

NEVER COMPROMISED on consistency of beauty and

quality.

Asked his development teams and engineers to work

nights and weekends to GET THINGS JUST RIGHT.

The iPhone was revamped even after the design was

first approved

Lesson 9: Collaboration

Believed in FACE-TO-FACE collaboration.

The Apple headquarters was designed to ENCOURAGE

CHANCE MEETINGS and maximize person-to-person

encounters.

Wanted people to ENGAGE, INTERACT and

BRAINSTORM informally

THE MESSAGE TO EVERY

LEADER IS THIS:

Identify the distinctive strengths you possess. Find ways to magnifythem and lead with them. They will make you into a truly extraordinary

leader.