Steve Jobs: A Visionary Leader

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Organisational Behaviour

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Table of Contents
Introduction............................................................................................................................. 2
Steve Jobs: A Visionary Leader.................................................................................................3
Sources of drawing inspiration or ideas...................................................................................3
Dealing with managers and employees....................................................................................4
Vision of the leader.................................................................................................................. 5
Lessons to be learned from the leader.....................................................................................6
Conclusion................................................................................................................................8
References................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
Leadership plays a crucial role in generating a competitive advantage for business by
ensuring that the corporation is able to effectively conduct its business operations.
Successful leaders assist in launching new products that disrupt the industry, discover new
processes, make customers happy and take risks in the business for innovation (Kaynak and
Darling, 2013). Without the contribution of effective leaders, it is difficult for companies to
effectively conduct their business operations in order to sustain their future growth even in
adverse market conditions. In this report, Steve Jobs is selected as a business person who
had a great influence as a leader in the business world. Steve Jobs was the co-founder and
CEO of Apple Incorporation which is currently the most valued company across the globe.
This report will evaluate the sources from which Steve Jobs draw his inspiration or ideas and
analyse how he deal with managers and employees. The vision of Steve Jobs will be
discussed in this report along with lessons which can be about him as a leader.

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Steve Jobs: A Visionary Leader
Steve Jobs was an American businessman and technology visionary who is best known as
the co-founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Apple Incorporation. He was born on
February 24, 1955, and he was adopted at birth by Paul Reinhold Jobs and Clara Jobs. Steve
was interested in electronics because his father demonstrates him how to take apart and
rebuild electronic items such as televisions and radios (Isaacson, 2012). Jobs attended high
school in Cupertino, California where he met Bill Fernandez and Steve Wozniak. Jobs
attended Reed College in Portland Oregon where he dropped out after six months and spent
the next 18 months studying different classes including calligraphy. These small incidents
shaped the leadership skills of Steve Jobs and contributed to the success of Apple. Jobs
started Apple in 1976 when Wozniak invented Apple I computer in the garage of Steve
Jobs’s parents (Yoffie and Cusumano, 2015).
Sources of drawing inspiration or ideas
The life incidents and experiences of Steve Jobs were the main sources of drawing
inspiration and ideas in the business. Steve Jobs was heavily influenced by the “simplicity” of
monks and gurus, and he even went to India in order to learn life lessons from them. Steve
preferred simplicity in operations, and he believes that people should have a personal
connection with their electronic devices (Lunenburg, 2012). These ideas later shown in the
computers designed by Apple, for example, the design of Macintosh which was hugely
popular and the mouse which can be used on any plane surface. Apple is known for
developing devices which are simple to use and easy to understand by its customers. For
example, Apple made a computer which enables its users to change the font type which was
a small change; however, it becomes very popular between users, and later all the other
corporations adopted this feature in their devices as well. Steve Jobs got the idea of
introducing beautiful fonts in computers based on the calligraphy classes which he took
during his time in the college (Venkatraman, 2017). At that time, the class of calligraphy was
considered as a waste of time; however, it later became the key factor which separated the
products of Apple from its competitors and ultimately generating a competitive advantage.