Lessons in Leadership (I): Steve Jobs

Last updated on: August 12, 2014 at 12:48 pm by John Mark N. Reynolds

Lessons in Leadership (I): Steve Jobs 2014-08-12T12:48:14-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I am reading books on leadership with a group of friends at HBU and we began with Steve Jobs. Walter Isaacson is a better writer than Jobs’ a topic and at times the gap between talent and the subject’s pretensions shows in the book: Jobs was less consequential than he believed and Isaacson struggles to do more than show that Jobs was not the guru and revolutionary he pretended. Don’t get me wrong: Jobs, like Walt Disney, was an important figure in the twentieth century, but Jobs thought he was very important and except as an icon he was not.

There was more than a dash of P.T. Barnum in Jobs, a famous “reality distortion field” that is every conman’s tool. Like Barnum, Jobs was not all huckster: sometimes what look like reality distortion was reasonable aspiration teamed with rigorous demands for hard work. Jobs was charismatic and when a project was possible, then his charisma could do what was unlikely. Other times, as with his cancer or NEXT, Jobs distorted reality trying the impossible and failed leaving people burned out on Steve Jobs. He distorted reality to make himself rich, powerful, and fulfilled: a narcissist, “not that there is anything wrong with that,” Apple stockholders exclaimed.

If you accepted Jobs self-evaluation, then you forgave him much. Jobs was not a very good man, but he did have great gifts and strong abilities as a leader. He was also very, very good at being Steve Jobs. Some of those strengths cannot be emulated by a moral person: people are not means to an end for a Christian. And yet even most of the people burned by Jobs, and there were more than a few, recognized his talent, especially as a leader. Like the much greater Walt Disney, Jobs could not do what he set others to do (he was no programmer), but he convinced them it could be done. Jobs also had a finely tuned gut instinct, also like Walt, for what people wanted.

So what did Jobs get right?

First, Jobs looked for “A” talent and did not accept mediocrity. He understood that “A” talent likes to be surrounded by “A” talent and that functionaries and time wasters do not function and waste more than their own time. People make an organization, not the organization. He would pay what it took to keep the best, but would fire those who stood in his way. Flee any organization that never lets anyone go, but leave faster if the brightest and best abandon the company.

Five mediocrities around the boardroom table cannot accumulate genius.

Jobs got this right, but it does come with two cautions. He was too apt to go with a first impression that divided the world between winners and losers. His relationships swung between disproportionate admiration to unreasoning hatred.

Second, Jobs made Apple into a movement as much as a company. Apple had values and if the company never practiced them with full consistency, Jobs tried. He believed in his own advertisements and the sincerity showed. He wasn’t selling you technology, he was (in his heart and mind) leading a digital revolution.

Every decision, even counterintuitive ones fit that model. If he made his technology a “closed” box, it enabled creatives to ignore the technology to create. An Apple produce “just worked” so many of us could forget about the product and do our work. Jobs loved his product and believed (or wanted to believe) in all of it. His famous demand for beauty and detail was sometimes paralyzing, but it was fundamentally sound. Jobs reminds me never to hire a person who just wants a job.

Apple refused to accept “loser” status. If they were behind in a technology (discs or drives), they simply changed the rules by leapfrogging that tech. Doing this requires more than competent people, or even raw brain power, it demands visionary genius. Jobs was such a man and he hired people like himself.

Jobs did not ignore market research, but he was not paralyzed by it. He loved the Ford quip that dismissed research by claiming that if asked people would not have wanted a car, but a faster horse. The iPad is a great example of Jobs’ daring. I mocked the iPad as a bloated iPhone or as lame computer (no keyboard!), but Jobs understood a niche existed and I caught up.

And yet the quip is not the whole story. Apple religiously tried out stores and products, often on executives. If a corporate executive at Apple hated a phone feature, they knew we probably would as well.

Fourth, Jobs was not afraid of failure, because he never believed failure was the whole story. Jobs had a career marked by risk and not all those risks worked out, but Jobs saw that failure could birth bigger success. Nothing ever simply fails or succeeds. Success has the seed of future failure if taken too comfortably and failure often spins off great opportunities. PIXAR, after all, was not originally all about animation. NEXT was not so great, but it enabled him to return to Apple with some ideas, software, and people.

Finally, Jobs demanded excellence, but knew he needed a profit. Many a visionary fails because he does not know when to compromise. Jobs could not get everything he wanted, so when he had to do so he would put a product with the best he could get at the price point he needed. He never lost sight of the objective (faster, smaller, thinner, more beautiful), but that do not stop him from compromise.

A bankrupt Apple would not be able to do better next time.

Steve Jobs was held back from full greatness by his own moral failure to treat people humanly (as colleagues like Woz did), but he also possessed gifts that enabled him to do what few others could have done: bring the humanities and technology together. This fairly inhumane man gave gentle humanities the tools of tech.

Culture

On Books

Previous Post

August 5, 2014

For Joy's Sake

Next Post

August 13, 2014 The Guns of August

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Apologetics Art Culture Education On Books On Education Philosophy Politics Pop Culture Spiritual Reflections Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 July 2025 June 2025 September 2024 July 2024 June 2024 December 2023 June 2023 September 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

I destroyed the world but saved eight people and many animals in a floating vessel. What am I?

Select your answer to see how you score.

The deluge The flood A great storm God's judgment

Books by This Author John Mark Reynolds

See All Titles »