Leadership Style of Steve Jobs: A Case Study

Running Head : SOCIOLOGY
Sociology
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

SOCIOLOGY1
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Discussion........................................................................................................................................3
About the leader...........................................................................................................................3
The leadership Theories and the leadership of Steve Jobs..........................................................3
The Trait Theory..........................................................................................................................4
The behavioral theory..................................................................................................................4
The transformational leadership..................................................................................................5
Steve Jobs as a Transactional leader............................................................................................6
The contemporary leadership issues related to leadership change and global leadership...........6
Recommendations............................................................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9

SOCIOLOGY2
Introduction
Leadership can be referred to as an art of motivating a particular group of people who act
towards the achievement of a common goal. In a particular business setting, the term “
leadership “ can refer to providing direction to the colleagues and the workers to fulfill the needs
of the company. The definition of leadership captures the various important elements to inspire
people around. The effective leadership refers to the accumulation of the ideas along with the
ideals (Arena & Uhl-Bien, 2016). Leadership cannot be successful unless the ideas are
communicated to others in the most engaging way. In simple words, a leader is someone who
inspires others and directs their actions. He or she is the person possessing unique characteristics
which makes others enthusiastic towards his leadership styles.
A leader can be in any field such as in the social, political, business or legal field. As far
as the business leadership is concerned, it is linked to the performance of the workers and their
motivation. It is not only about the business profits but also about increasing the bottom lines of
the company. It has to be noted that the leaders are often endowed with better leadership
qualities than others. There are ample examples of the leaders who had no prior experiences but
faced such situation which made them great leaders. In this report, one of the classic leaders
Steve Jobs will be focused on along with the analysis of the unique leadership style that he
possesses. The report will also examine his development, the capabilities the achievements. The
struggles of the leader will be assessed and end with some of the actionable recommendations for
the leader.

SOCIOLOGY3
Discussion
About the leader
Steve Jobs is a classic example of a leader who was not born as a leader but the adverse
situations made his a person to be followed by people in the business field and in other fields too.
In the year 1976, he began the Apple Computer from his garage for which he got fired by the
directors of the board in the year 1985. When the company fell under extreme competition, he
dared to go against the CEO in terms of preceding the business in future. In the year 1997, he
was rehired by Apple after founding the Pixar Animation Studios and the NeXT computer. By
every way, Steve jobs was a mercurial genius who yelled at the employees in the early days of
his career. As per the statement of some of his employees in the NeXT and Apple, he was
intolerant about anything he viewed to be a failure.
It seems that he believed in being brutally honest without considering the feelings of
others. He was against conducting the formal reviews on the employees but at the same time
praised openly if somebody did really well. As per the critiques of some of the scholars, in the
later parts of his career, he began to shift his leadership style towards the moderate one and
started empathizing with others. He began realizing that people have their own limits and
saturation points (Lord et al., 2017). In the year 2011, Steve Jobs died at the age of only 56.
However, even after his death, his reputation and accomplishments are at the heart of people. He
has been staying within his followers as an iconic, innovative and visionary leader.
The leadership Theories and the leadership of Steve Jobs
The leadership theories will be linked with the leadership style of Steve Jobs along with
the challenges faced by him during his career journey.