Steve Jobs and Father Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta were both exemplary leaders. In just 35 years, Steve Jobs took Apple Computers from a mere idea to a $380 billion dollar enterprise. Father Arizmendiarrieta educated and aided the first founders of the Mondragón Cooperative that today employs more than 80 000 people. Great achievements from two man who simply cannot be defined by any one “textbook” leadership style. It appears that in real life leadership theories may be applied in synergy, allowing the flexibility for a leader to adapt their style as the situation requires. Whilst Steve Jobs and Father Arizmendiarrieta were both effective leaders, one stands out. Father Arizmendiarrieta led a population to self-sufficiency and whilst never …show more content…
Essany (2012) mentions humility with examples of how Steve Jobs enlisted expert assistance to run his companies and develop the products he envisioned. These traits were common in both men. Father Arizmendiarrieta’s own words, (cited in Lorenzo 2000, p. 271; p. 273); ‘the education enterprise is the first enterprise of a people’ and ‘to create but not to dominate’, speaks of humility, trustworthiness and authenticity. Whyte (1994 pp. 274-276) also describes Father Arizmendiarrieta’s self-confidence and his assertiveness when the need arose.
The men also shared the task related traits of passion for their work, emotional intelligence and courage (Barker 1997, p.2; Sander 2012, pp. 120-121; Whyte 1994, p. 275). Flexibility and internal locus of control was also present in both men. Dubrin (2013, p. 50) describing a flexible leader as one who can cope with technological change. Steve Jobs embodies the image of technological advancement; “Reality Distortion Field” was the diagnostic catch cry of his colleagues (Isaccson 2012, p. 98) as he made the impossible possible. Likewise Father Arizmendiarrieta initiated the changes in Mondragón by instigating education systems and eventually the Cooperative enterprise. Both man shared the same personality traits, but they did not share the same attitudes and behaviours.
According to Dubrin (2013, p. 108) consideration and initiating structure are significant leadership behaviours. A leader with high
Nowadays, idolization is still found with these successful, innovative business figures. Throughout the past decade, figures such as Steve Jobs, co-owner of Apple, had given an “exceptional influence on others” (Phoenix). Even to this day, his work and power “was such a huge inspiration to so many across the world”, and the powerful people would always stand behind him (Phoenix). Consequently, in both time periods, then and now, the idolization of such figures has been present.
The leader behavior approach is the focus of what people do as a leader or leadership style rather than the characteristics leaders inherit as a leader. It is the assumption that the actions of a person opposed to their innate mental state. Because leaders can learn through teaching and observation; specific behaviors are the focus of a leader. An important study of this theory was conducted by the Ohio State University, and the purpose was to identify common leadership behaviors. The study and research uncovered that there are two linked groups of behavior.
Given the task of conceptualizing a man who truly changed the realm of technology as we know it today, my mind secludes one person. That person is Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computer, now known simply as Apple. For this rhetorical analysis, I will be using three biographies/profiles about Jobs including “The Real Genius of Steve Jobs” by Malcolm Gladwell with The New Yorker (June 19, 2017), “Jobs’ Biography; Thoughts on Life, Death, and Apple” from NPR (October 25, 2011), and “Steve Jobs” from Biography.com (April 28, 2017). Precise attention to the audience, purpose, and tone, allows all three of these profiles to vividly explain and represent Jobs as the truly exceptionally minded man that he was.
Steve jobs demonstrated to the world just how fundamental technology is in our developing environment. He exemplified a successful and innovative leader, especially in the face of failure. One could argue that although Steve Jobs was an extremely influential businessman of his time, he had numerous tragic flaws. Egotistic is a word that describes this illustrious worker. Credit for ideas were never given to the instrumental “behind the scenes” intellectuals, and without the them, he may never have been so successful. While he was working for Apple, people would always struggle with the individualistic approach he had and would often times complain about his boastful nature. He exhibited qualities that made his dislikable, however without Steve Jobs the iPhone, a
Linda S. Tyler (2016), a pharmacist and Webb Lecture award recipient stumbled upon a research, Decoding Leadership: What Really Matters that studied 180,000 participants from 81 diverse organizations worldwide. Participants were asked what leadership trait is common in your organization? Organizations with strong leadership performance commonly showed four behaviors : solve problems effectively, result oriented, welcomes different perspective and supportive of others.
Steve Jobs started arguably one of the biggest tech companies today and had a profound impact on all of our lives. You can analyze his psyche to get a better understanding of what made Steve so successful. You can use perspectives to better understand why Steve did what he did. Some of the perspectives that I used to explain Steve’s psyche is the biological, Cognitive, Psychodynamic, Socioculture, and Developmental.
Leadership is venturing out into unknown territories and making new pathways, using knowledge, experience and wisdom to motivate followers to accomplish a shared vision. My leadership hall of fame showed me that leadership style dominates my Hall of Fame list. The three words most prevalent on my list were dependable, conscientious, and trustworthy. My list included mainly teachers and coaches from my youth and the main reason they are the ones that come to mind has to do with the relationships that were built. I am still in contact with two of my former teachers and enjoy and learn from our conversations. In a study by Andrew W. Halpin, he states “effective or desirable leadership behavior is characterized by high ratings on both Initiating Structure and Consideration” (Wren, 1995, p. 146). Structure has to do with the task at hand and consideration deals with relationships. I believe relationships in education are a strong characteristic need for team building.
Specific Purpose: To inform my audience about the progression of Steve Job’s life, and what he contributed society
The next big era of leadership theories was the Rational Management era. When the previous era failed to determine exact traits that could consistently be identified in great leaders, a shift occurred to begin looking at how these leaders behaved, and what made them into great leaders, rather than who they were in a specific sense. This was a major shift from thinking that people were born leaders, to now considering that perhaps leaders could be made, or trained to become leaders. The first of these theories, beginning in the early 1950’s, were the behavior theories. The focus of these theories was to study what these leaders do, and
According to organisational behaviour by McShane, leadership is defined as influencing, motivating and enabling others to contribute towards the effectiveness and success of the organisation of which they are members (page 382, McShane).Becoming an effective leader depends on the leader’s leadership style. Successful leaders have vision and charisma, also the leader should have an ongoing personality, talkative, careful and self-disciplined. The leader must also have self-concept
Leaders can have various characteristics including being an “Ambassador”, “Advocate”, “People Mover”, “Truth-Seeker”, “Creative Builder” and an “Experienced Guide”. According to Galford (2011) website “Leadership Style Assessment Results”, my strongest three characteristics where the “People Mover”, the Creative Builder”, and the “Experienced Guide”. “People Mover is characterized as a Talent-spotter, career-builder, motivator, someone with parental, nurturing qualities. People Movers instinctively take the lead in building teams. They’re also instinctive mentors. They generally have large contact lists; they are always introducing new people to new ideas and new paths. They’re also generally mindful of their employees’ lives outside of work; they view performance
Talking about success, in a YouTube video by Jandafrique (2009), it shows Jobs himself explaining the rules of success. In the video, Jobs quoted, “You got to love it, you got to have passion”. I strongly agree to what Steve Jobs had said because to succeed, you need to be passionate about what you are doing. A given task would not be a burden to one if that particular one loved their job. They would enjoy doing every bit of it if they love doing it, therefore making everything simpler and faster to accomplish. Other than that,”No matter how smart you are, you need a team of great people” (Jobs cited in Jandafrique 2009) was also quoted by Jobs. One cannot open an organization and work alone to be successful. It would almost be impossible. As quoted by John Heywood, “many hands make light work.” Therefore, this shows the ways and traits in which made Jobs an inspiring man.
The characteristics of a leader like Ms. Jovita Carranza came through in her daily actions with those encircled by her personal and professional life experiences. Leaders come in all forms of varieties, genders, ethnicity and descriptors like Carranza. Carranza didn't stopped to think about some of the leaders that have inspired her or even some that have infuriated her, the qualities of her good leadership skills will became apparent through her professional growth with UPS. When we think about the characteristic of a leader, we often think of leaders that are ever-changing, which calls each of us to act or to follow. We could take on the prime example, such as Carranza. She had some of the values that we all inspire to follow, she had
showed that two main behaviors, consideration and initiating structure. Consideration is how the leader shows concern for members of the group. These leaders treated everyone as his/her equal and were friendly and approachable. Initiation structure means the leader
The theories applied to Steve Jobs have opened my mind to realise how important effective leadership styles are to organisations. A lesson learnt from Steve’s leadership qualities is that a leader can adapt different style of leadership and this makes a leader more effective and efficient. The late Apple boss was a master of employing various strategies to adapt to differing scenarios and situations. Steve Jobs did not exhibit a single rhetorical style, but rather altered it depending on the situation and yet still managed to deliver a constant message to support his company’s