Leadership: Definition, Styles, and Characteristics

This presentation provides an overview of leadership, including its definition, styles, and characteristics. It focuses on the leadership style of Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple and Pixar, and his success stories. The presentation also offers valuable lessons for project managers. References are provided for further reading.

Leadership

 Leadership is a quality of a person or group of persons who have the ability of
guiding or influencing his followers such that they feel motivated to achieve their
or the organization’s goals[3].
 Qualities of leader: clear vision for the goal, taking decisions, setting goals for the
followers, helping followers to achieve their goals[1].
 Characteristics of leader: trust, vision, effective communication skills, creativity,
urgency, initiative, integrity, vision, confidence, adaptability, integrity, focus,
decisiveness, responsibility, and transparency[7].
 Leadership styles:
 1. Autocratic
 2. Democratic
 3. Coaching
 4. Visionary
 5. Strategic
 6. Transformational
 7. Laissez-Faire
 8. Charismatic
 9. Transactional
 10. Bureaucratic
Definition, Styles and
Characteristics

 Co-founder of apple and Pixar
 Iconic leader
 Invented Macintosh computer
 Importance to quality over profit
 Made Apple most successful[3]
 Believed in building life
 Three Qualities of Steve Jobs
o Adaptability: most missed quality, developed patience and
discipline when away from Apple, open to criticism[4],
o Focus: led to invention of products, developed products
according to customer’s need, focused towards his goals,
o Vision: invention of unique products, iPad an example of his
visionary thinking, analysed consumer’s mind and need[6]
Steve Jobs- Characteristics

 Three leadership styles:
 Charismatic:
 Transformational
 Transactional[5]
 Charismatic:
 Charisma means ‘gift’
 Charismatic leader has affection, trust, loyalty among followers, self-worth, ambitions, high
sense of involvement, and ideology
 Pulled Apple from crisis
 Rhetorical style depending on the situation
 Brilliantly chose right mix of persuasive strategies
 Deliver constant set of message[4]
 Transformational
 Ability and source of power to influence people
 Vision-oriented
 Inspiring
 Encourage his followers’ intellectual development
 Put product over profit[1]
 Look for perfection
 Believed in creating new rather than following something
 Made Apple’s product unique through his innovation
 Able to see the future of technology through his visionary imagination
 Ability of creating ideas into products
 Motivated employees to achieve almost impossible goals[2].
Leadership Style of Steve
Jobs

 Transactional
 Achieved success in Apple
 Shared his innovative ideas with employees
and asked them to convert it into product[3]
 He was multitasking as he participated in
recruiting, strategies, and management
 Handle and managed entire business from
various department to employees to
business processes[2]

 Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak created Apple 1 in 1976
 Their company received seed capital from investors
 Next year created Apple 2
 He became millionaire when he was just 23 in 1978
 In 1980, Apple hold Initial Public Offering (IPO)
 Created highest revenue in comparison of other IPO[3]
 By 1981, Apple was considered among three top producers of personal
computers
 Other competitors starting getting into market such as IBM and surpassed
Apple’s revenue
 But Apple released mouse-driven user interface and named it
Macintosh[1]
 This made the crowd wild for Apple
 Jobs left Apple in 1985
 He created new company and named it NeXT,Inc
 He invested $7 million in his new company[7]
Stories of Steve Job’s
Success

 Company gained this amount in very next year
 Ross Perot invested in Jobs’ company by seeing its success
 In 1990, company released its first computer naming NeXT
computer[7]
 But it was very expensive
 By 1993, it sold only 50,000 machines
 Due to this company switched to software development
 It gained $1 million profit to company in 1994
 During this time, Jobs involved in another venture
 He bought computer graphics division of Lucasfilm for $10 million[5]
 Renamed it as Pixar
 Walt Disney acquired Pixar for $7.4 billion
 Jobs became single biggest shareholder of Walt Disney
organization[6]
Continued…

 While Pixar was getting success, Jobs’ NeXT was struggling due
to decision of becoming software-only company
 Out of its 540 employees 300 resigned
 In 1996, Jobs communicated with Apple again
 Apple paid $429 million cash for NeXT and also 1.5 million
shares of Apple[6]
 After seven months of deal, Jobs was appointed as Apple’s
interim CEO again
 He modified software licensing business of company
 It made Macintosh software costly for other companies
 By 2000, Apple declared Jobs as its official CEO
 As CEO, he started to look beyond PC[2]
 Invented iPod digital music player in 2001
 By 2012, more than 350 million devices were sold worldwide[1]
Continued..

 Steve Jobs was a imaginary and visionary leader
 He was innovative
 He believed in perfection[2]
 His success story is full of inspiration
 He struggled very hard
 Despite of many critics and criticism, he did not give up and
continued his struggle[4]
 His followers believed in him
 He was the leader of youth as he inspired them through his
innovation[4]
 His charismatic personality attracts me the most
 He brought revolution in the IT industry
 He believed in creation rather than following
 All these characteristics of Steve Jobs inspire me and appeal me
towards his personality[1]
Why Steve Jobs Leadership
Appeals me

 Lot of lessons for project managers from Steve Jobs biography
 Although Jobs was technology and marketing guru but his
approach was project based[5]
 He made the complex things very simple: he senses the
demands of the customers and develop products according to
their needs
 As customers are the revenue generator for an organization,
hence managers needs to realise their needs[2].
 He was an innovator and this distinguished him from his
followers, hence a manager should be innovative
 He believed in stimulating critical thinking and innovative ideas
through Socratic method. Socratic method is a debate between
individuals. Hence managers should use this method to develop
critical thinking and innovative ideas among employees[1].
Lessons for Project
Managers

References[1] E W Larson and C F Gray, Project Management: The Managerial Process. UK:
McGraw-Hill Education, 2017.
[2] R Muller and R Turner, "Leadership competency profiles of successful project managers,"
International Journal of Project Management, vol. 28, no. 5, pp. 437-448, 2010.
[3] H Kerzner and H R Kerzner, Project management: a systems approach to planning,
scheduling, and controlling. US: Oohn Wiley & Sons, 2017.
[4] W Isaacson, "The real leadership lessons of Steve Jobs," Harvard Business Review, vol.
90, no. 4, pp. 92-102, 2012.
[5] W Lemstra, V Hayes, and J Groenewegen, The innovation journey of Wi-Fi: The road to
global success. US: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
[6] C T Xue, "Role of Leadership in Achieving Sustainable Organizational Change: Steve
Jobs," Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research, vol. 2, no. 8, 2016.
[7] S G Toma and P Marinescu, "Steve Jobs and Modern Leadership," Change and
Leadership, vol. 17, 2013.