Steve Jobs Leadership Traits free essay sample

In 1976, Jobs and Wozniak founded Apple Computer (Wikipedia, 2008). By 1980, Apple had already released three improved versions of the personal computer and successfully became an important player in the nascent personal computer industry. In December 1980, Apple Computer went public, making Jobs a multimillionaire (Chandy, 2005). In 1983, Jobs lured John Sculley away from Pepsi-Cola to serve as Apple’s CEO to manage Apple’s expansion. However, as the Macintosh took off in sales in the following year, Sculley felt Jobs was hurting the company and persuaded the board to strip him of power. Therefore, in May 1985, the board dismissed Jobs from the post of the head of Macintosh division (ICMR, 2002). Determined to create great new hardware products, Jobs leaved Apple and founded NeXT. After years of sluggish sales, Jobs shut down its hardware division in 1993 and repositioned it as a software company (Angelelli, 1994). It was the nadir of Jobs’ career. Nevertheless, Jobs also acquired LucasFilm, a movie studio, and incorporated Pixar Animation Studios. We will write a custom essay sample on Steve Jobs Leadership Traits or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The first film produced by the partnership with Disney, Toy Story, brought critical acclaim to the studio when it was released in 1995 (Wikipedia, 2008). In 1996, Apple bought the NeXT to welcome Jobs back to the company. He soon became Apple’s interim CEO after the directors lost confidence in CEO Gil Amelio. Jobs purged the board and started to take drastic measures to save the company. He cancelled dozens of research projects and cut spending wherever he could. Besides, the introduction of iMac was also a stunning success and made Apple to become the industry’s most innovative company. As Jobs’ leadership of Apple had proven efficient, he took over as Apple’s permanent CEO in 2000 (All about Steve, n. d. ). As of today, Jobs has managed his way back to the top. Throughout his career, he has been humiliated and experienced business failure. Yet he is now regarded as one of the most prominent figures in both computer and entertainment industries and the visionary leader of iconic Apple. In 2007, he was even named the most powerful businessman by Fortune Magazine (Reuters, 2007). 3. 0 Overview of Leadership Trait Theory – Big Five Model of Personality According to Lussier and Achua (2007), traits can be defined as distinguishing personal characteristics, and personality is a combination of traits that classifies an individual’s behavior. Therefore, leadership trait theories were developed to identify the personal traits that clearly differentiate leaders from followers (Northouse, 2007). One of the most widely recognized personality models is the Big Five Model of Personality, which can be used to describe the most salient aspects of personality traits. The dimensions comprising the Big Five model are surgency (or extraversion), agreeableness, adjustment (or neuroticisim), conscientiousness and openness to experience (Goldberg, 1990). Surgency represents the tendency to be sociable, assertive, active, and to have positive energy (Barrick and Mount, 1991). It includes leadership and extraversion traits. People strong in surgency like to lead and want to be in charge (Lussier and Achua, 2007). Agreeableness consists of tendency to be kind, gentle, trusting and trustworthy, and warm (Judge and Bono, 2000). It includes traits related to getting along with people. People strong in this area are typically characterized as easygoing, compassionate, friendly and sociable (Lussier and Achua, 2007). Adjustment, is often labeled by its opposite, neuroticism, which is the tendency to be depressed, anxious, fearful, vulnerable and hostile (Judge and Bono, 2000). It covers the traits related to emotional stability. People strong in adjustment are always characterized as being good under pressure, having self control, being calm, secure and positive (Lussier and Achua, 2007). Conscientiousness is comprised of two related facets: achievement and dependability. Conscientious individuals tend to have a strong sense of direction and work hard to achieve goals. Therefore, they are hard working, go beyond the call of duty and have a strong desire to achieve success (Bono and Judge, 2004). Finally, openness to experience represents the tendency to be creative, imaginative, perceptive and thoughtful (Judge and Bono, 2000). It contains traits related to being willing to change and try new things. These individuals are risk takers, free thinkers and creative (Lussier and Achua, 2007). . 4. 0 Steve Jobs’ Leadership Traits Self-confidence indicates whether an individual is self-assured in his judgments, decision making, ideas and capabilities (Lussier and Achua, 2007). It includes a sense of self-esteem and self-assurance and the belief that one can make a difference. Jobs has a strong self-confidence in his ability to solve problems and make decisions. He has commented that â€Å"you have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. † (Stanford News Service, 2005) Thus, he states that it is essential to believe that what we do is great; otherwise our activity is doomed to failure. Another example of Jobs communicating his self-confidence comes rom the very fact that of introducing the innovative idea of iPod. When he first spoke about the idea of iPod to his employees, they questioned the success of the idea and were reluctant to work on it. However, Jobs were confident in his idea and he motivated and inspired them to work on it. As a result, this not only changed the fortunes of Apple but also instilled respect for Jobs in the minds of his employees as one of the best leaders of his era (Steve’s Comeback Jobs, n. d. ). Most studies on leader self-confidence found that it is strongly related to effectiveness. In the study of critical incidents by Boyatzis (1982), he suggested that self-confidence differentiates between effective and ineffective managers (Yukl, 2006). Kirkpatrick and Locke (1991) also postulated that self-confidence is one of the â€Å"right stuffs† for effective leaders. It is an ingredient that separated the leaders from the followers, and is essential for commanding respect and arousing followers (Hang, 2006). Self-confidence is best categorised as the conscientiousness Big Five dimension because people who are dependable often have high self-confidence and high energy (Lussier and Achua, 2007). In addition, Jobs is an extravert. Extraverts are outgoing, like to meet new people, and are willing to confront others (Lussier and Achua, 2007). They tend to enjoy human interactions and spend more time in social situations (Judge, Heller and Mount, 2002). This trait is demonstrated by Jobs in his behaviour that when Apple decided to advertise during the beginning, the agency wanted to use Jobs talking about his creation. A move he gladly agreed to. He was also game for the many interviews and the many front cover photographs. Jobs was obviously comfortable with his relationship with the world media (Steve’s Comeback Jobs, n. . ). Extraversion has been recognised for its contribution to leadership effectiveness. Many studies suggest that extraverts should be more likely to emerge as leaders in groups. Extraversion is strongly related to social leadership (Costa and McCrae, 1988; Judge et al. , 2002) and also leader emergence in groups (Watson and Clark, 1997; Judge et al. , 2002). R. Hogan et al. (1994) also noted that extraversion is related to being perceived as leaderlike (Judge et al. , 2002). Besides, Watson and Clark (1997) suggested that the experience and expression of positive emotions is at the core of extraversion. Therefore, it is likely that extravert will tend to exhibit inspirational leadership (Bono and Judge, 2004). A great example of inspiration is when Jobs lured Sculley from Pepsi by asking him, â€Å"Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world? †(Elkind, 2008). Since he is positive, ambitious and influential, he is likely to generate confidence and enthusiasm among followers (Bono and Judge, 2004). As surgency is characterized by two distinct clusters of traits – sociability (extraversion) and dominance (Peterson et al. 2003), extraversion can be categorized as the Big Five dimension of surgency. Jobs has also high level of energy. He always demonstrates great ambition to build a global media empire and has high drive and work hard to achieve his goal. This is shown from his â€Å"80 hours a week and loving it† work ethics. In an interview he said, â€Å"I worked really, really hard in my 20s †“ seven days a week, lots of hours every day†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Krantz, 1999) He has high levels of enthusiasm and energy for his work. Besides, high energy leaders always have stamina and tolerate stress well. They deal with and do not accept setbacks (Lussier and Achua, 2007). For Jobs, after being thrown out from Apple, he tried to do it all over again with a new company called NeXT and planned to build the next generation of personal computers that are superior than Apple. However, he failed to do so. He never gave up and dealt with his failure. He closed down his hardware division and turned his attention to the software development (Angelelli, 1994). This trait appears to be the personal characteristic consistently linked with leader emergence and effectiveness. In his 1974 review of 163 leadership studies and his first survey, Stogdill identified that effective leaders have vigour and persistence in pursuit of goals and willingness to tolerate frustration. Kirkpatrick and Locke (1991) also postulated, â€Å"Leaders are more likely than nonleaders to have a high level of energy and stamina and to be generally active, and often restless. † (Judge et al. , 2002) High energy is best categorized as the conscientiousness dimension of the Big Five because people with conscientiousness are characterized as achievement oriented, and they are hardworking and persistence to accomplish their goals (Judge et al. 1999). Leaders generally have above-average intelligence as Jobs does. Intelligence refers to cognitive ability to think critically, to solve problems, and to make decisions (Lussier and Achua, 2007). When Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, Apple was bleeding money. Within a year of Jobs as interim CEO, he reduced the product lines and cut t he wholesale cost, and Apple was back to creating profit (Steve’s Comeback Jobs, n. d. ). This example clearly shows that Jobs is intelligent because he is able to solve problems in a short period of time.