Steve Jobs Cases study
Steve Job’s style of leadership can be classified as transformational leadership. Steve Jobs will be remembered as an outstanding entrepreneur who had impossible dreams and asked: “why not?” Steve Jobs was able to use his experiences to connect dots across his career. As a transformational leader, Steve Jobs presented opportunities to his company that not one of his stakeholders could imagine was possible. However, he had an imperfect leadership history with flaws such as not being a democratic leader and his habits of not disclosing his moves to anyone until the last minute.
Applied Theory: Transformational leadership theory
While transactional leaders gain compliance through rewards and benefits, transformational leaders focus on creating valuable and positive changes in their followers. The core aspects of transformational leadership are the consistent promotion of the values, mission, and vision of the organization to the team. Transformational leaders have a clear vision such that they know what to expect from every interaction. Thus, their followers’ trust, admire, become strictly loyal to them, respect, and are willing to work harder than expected.
Analysis
Steve Jobs was often heard asking questions such as “What are you working on?” “what problem are you having?” “What are you doing to earn the money I am paying for you?” The criteria behind the success of Steve Jobs is not about his leadership style. Steve Jobs was persistent and innovative, giving new meaning to leadership. Without leadership qualities as such, he put pressure on his employees to ensure that he achieved what was on his mind. He was so aggressive that in the 1980s, the Apple board of directors attempted to limit him from launching new projects and expensive and experimental products. The way Jobs succeeded is by following his passions. He recruited candidates with unique qualities and expected them to be able to withstand his harsh criticisms while working.
Recommendations
- The organization should send Steve Jobs into a mandatory leave to give the employees time off.
- The organization should hire counselors to help employees cope with Steve Jobs.
- The organization should hire coaches and mentors to encourage, motivate, and help in the development of the employees. The purpose of the mentor is to support the team to move forward and maintaining high moral standards within the organization to counter pressure due to Steve Jobs’s leadership.
Action plan
- Raise awareness of stress, causes of stress within the organization, and support staff in building their capacity for coping with stress and pressure directly caused by the organization through counselors (Gross, 2017).
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