MBA401 Assessment: Leadership Skills of Steve Jobs Presentation

This presentation delves into the leadership capabilities of Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Inc., examining how his innovative approach transformed the technology landscape. It highlights his visionary leadership, in-depth subject knowledge, and risk-taking mentality as crucial factors in his success. The presentation utilizes three leadership theories to analyze Jobs' influence and effectiveness, focusing on his ability to inspire employees, understand market trends, and adapt to situational challenges. The analysis covers Jobs' impact on Apple's growth, his design philosophy, and his adherence to transformational leadership principles. The presentation concludes that Steve Jobs' leadership skills are an ideal example for achieving success in competitive business environments and leaving a lasting legacy.

Running head: LEADERSHIP
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Summary
The aim of this presentation is to discuss the leadership skills and abilities of Steve Jobs,
the founder of Apple Inc. who with his innovation pioneered the way to transform the
technology. Due to his capabilities, the business of any kind, art and science have established
connection with technology. It can be said that the leaders like Steve Jobs make the impossible
things possible. He was a visionary leaders and influenced the subordinates to think out of the
box. He possessed in depth knowledge about the subject and with the help of this he solve many
a problems in ecological path. He was a passionate leader and influenced his employees through
his communication style and risk taking mentality for the welfare of the company he had taken
many a critical steps which no other leaders of the history business had taken ever. The main
motto of his leadership style was not to settle and satisfied with one but keep on brainstorming
for the betterment of life. Starting from the communication, integrity, in depth knowledge and
risk taking mentality had led him to become one of the greatest leaders of time. To him, finding
the unique angle is a necessity to become successful in life. This presentation has used three
leadership theories to detail the capabilities of the global business leader like Steve Jobs and how
he was be an exemplary leader in the business operations.
Transcript
Steve Jobs is an exceptional leader who with his unique thinking style and problem solving
capabilities have led the success of his organizational named Apple Inc. he was such a leader
who focused on being more productive though healthy competition and focus on innovation.
Two major success factors of Steve Jobs are his vision and his capability to influence people
through actions. The vision of the leaders guide them to select the area they want to perform. In

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the case of Steve Jobs it is the innovation that guided him to prioritize ruthlessly. Visionary
leadership of Steve Jobs made him see the potential for how the world should exist and then take
steps to get there. Through the vision, the leaders has influenced the subordinates to see the big
picture and set goals to achieve success. This is associated with the behavioral theory of
leadership when the leadership mainly depends upon the risks taking capabilities of the leader
(Harrison 2018). Steve Jobs was had his vision to transform the understanding and utility of
technology in this world by the means of using his innovative capabilities. This is why all the
other competitors or the existing companies started to follow the innovation process of his
company Apple.
Another success factor that prove Steve Jobs to be a great business leader is his
influencing capability. According to the trait theory of leadership, the leaders who possess the
capabilities to influence people are made with certain qualities like intelligence, creativity, sense
of responsibly and other values like communication (Nawaz and Khan 2016). All of these traits
were present in Steve Jobs which convince the people working under him to contribute their own
skills for the achievement of the organizational goals.
The ways through which the effectiveness of the leader like Steve Jobs can be measured are the
response of his employee towards his characteristics and situational fit. Firstly, the
leadership characteristics of Steve Jobs were supported and followed by the subordinates blindly
because of his aim to create future for the wellbeing of the world (Zigarmi and Roberts 2017).
According to the employees of Apple Inc. he was the most passionate leader for his motivational
thought process ad unparalleled crave for learning from the situation. The success of satisfying
the employees of Apple reveals his capability as the leader. Secondly, the situational fit is a
critical aspect to measure the capability of the leaders. In this category also Steve Jobs has scored

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high because his understanding of the present and analysis of situation guided him toe find out
solution to many a problem. He had an in depth knowledge about the customer demands, trends
of technology and threats of different business environment upon the organization. However, he
created the customers what exactly they wanted and filled the void of technological growth in the
history of mankind.
The performance of Steve Jobs has contributed at every aspect of the growth of the
company he had established. His design philosophy brought a complete transformation in the
technological world and he took the world a step ahead with his innovation. His leadership traits
convinced all the people assisted with this business to follow his path. According to the
contingency theory of leadership, the leader needs to grow himself in such a way that enables
him to face any situation (O’Keefe, Howell and Squires 2019). He had satisfied all his customers
by provided them the devices they use to imaging only and brought in a revolutionary wave in
the educational technological and administrative actions. He did what would be the best for the
company as well as of the stakeholders. He admired simplicity and to him, keeping thing simple
is the toughest thing praised by the customers.
Steve Jobs leadership skills followed transformational leadership theory where the
employees interact with the high level management for any type of feedback. They were allowed
to take part in the decision making process that led to grow high percentage of trust and
dependability. He had given proper scope for the stakeholders to contribute their ideas in the
problem solving or decision making process (Willis, Clarke and O'Connor 2017). In this highly
competitive world of business, Steve Jobs had shown the path of success only through the
process of innovation and trust upon oneself. Therefore, it can be concluded that the leadership

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abilities of Steve Jobs are acknowledged to be ideal for becoming successful in the competitive
business and leave a legacy.

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References:
Harrison, C., 2018. Leadership research and theory. In Leadership Theory and Research (pp. 15-
32). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Nawaz, Z.A.K.D.A. and Khan_ PhD, I., 2016. Leadership theories and styles: A literature
review. Leadership, 16(1), pp.1-7.
O’Keefe, D.F., Howell, G.T. and Squires, E.C., 2019. Ethical leadership begets ethical
leadership: exploring situational moderators of the trickle-down effect. Ethics & Behavior, pp.1-
20.
Willis, S., Clarke, S. and O'Connor, E., 2017. Contextualizing leadership: Transformational
leadership and Management‐By‐Exception‐Active in safety‐critical contexts. Journal of
Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 90(3), pp.281-305.
Zigarmi, D. and Roberts, T.P., 2017. A test of three basic assumptions of Situational
Leadership® II Model and their implications for HRD practitioners. European Journal of
Training and Development.