Introduction
Steve Jobs, the founder of the world-famous Apple company, has become a symbol of everything advanced in the field of IT and an example of a person who built a sizeable profitable business from scratch. Steve Jobs moved into a little-studied field through trial and error, searching for perfection. Apple’s success was built on excellent marketing decisions and the creator’s personality. Apple’s business model can serve as an example of what strategies and personal qualities are needed to create an effective global organization.
Factors Influenced the Business Success
The Leadership Style
Steve Jobs’ leadership style was authoritarian; he was a demanding leader who paid close attention to the details. An authoritarian leader does not allow interference in the leadership of a group of people dependent on him; he also denies doubts or challenges his decisions on the part of his subordinates. The leader creates a clear separation between his own and others’ rights and responsibilities with an authoritarian leadership style. However, Jobs was a workaholic who was unwilling to delegate responsibilities fully. He wanted to be involved in every little thing that was important to Apple’s success. Of course, the delegation of duties is necessary, as is the case with any large company requiring extensive staff. Despite Apple’s innovation, Jobs remained as ingrained in his company as a vast global business can be from beginning to end.
Thanks to his authoritarian leadership style, Steve Jobs found a good balance between empowering his employees and leading by example. By the personal demonstration of his perseverance, Jobs inspired employees to complete tasks independently. He became a role model, demonstrating a strong personality and attention to the detail he would like to see in his peers. Each company has a mission that they bring to the world, and thanks to which, they become respected among consumers. By remaining an essential part of the company from beginning to end and regularly reviewing employees’ work to share new ideas, Jobs allowed this mission to extend to all employees.
Steve Jobs was well aware that criticism interferes with the active work of the creative department. Success is impossible without retrospective feedback, but over-criticism leads to a lack of motivation. The secret is that each team member should do their own thing; thanks to authoritarian leadership, Jobs distributed tasks accurately. All specialists of the company should do what they are experts in. A successful business makes it possible for ideas to flourish that do not interfere with each other.
Finally, the success of Jobs’ leadership lies in the fact that he was unwaveringly passionate about his company. When running a business, it is imperative to remain passionate about it. If Jobs had given up, Apple would have gone bankrupt shortly after being founded. Failures in business will undoubtedly happen; it is crucial to keep in mind the idea of why the business was started. If a person in business is not ready to endure failure, the company will collapse sooner or later.
Emotional Approach
Emotions, faith in the product, and passion are fundamental in the ability to sell and inspire other people to take action. Steve Jobs has made emotionality his forte; he believed in the success of his products, infecting his employees and end consumers with this belief. The creator of Apple was able to communicate his advanced ideas to advertisers in detail, encouraging them to cooperate even at the very beginning of his business career. At the presentations of new products, which are watched by more and more people from all over the world every year, Steve Jobs always managed to emphasize his product’s innovativeness emotionally. All this has helped Apple to create emotional commercials and the company itself to become something more than just an organization that manufactures computers.
Quick Decision Making
Steve Jobs was quick to make decisions, especially when it came to creating new products. There is often no time for long reflections in big business, and he understood this very well. Jobs valued his time and therefore listened to his intuition more often than to market research data. For example, he immediately decided that the first iMacs would be released in rainbow colors, and he was right: they were a success in the market (Jarrahi, 2018). Of course, sometimes there were mistakes, but Steve Jobs could correct them quickly.
Absolute Honesty
People liked Jobs’ ideas because he always spoke sincerely. A leader should call things their names; otherwise, it is difficult to understand each other and achieve the goal. The founder of Apple used this rule, although his honesty often reached rudeness. When Jobs returned to Apple, the company manufactured many technical products but did not have a common direction. Steve Jobs gathered all the executives and went up to the stage; he was dressed very simply: in sneakers and shorts. He asked executives what was wrong with Apple products. When no one could give a clear answer, Steve Jobs shouted in his heart that there was no longer a strategy in products (Ichbiah, 2020). Honesty and toughness without crossing boundaries are one of Apple’s simple secrets, thanks to which management success has been achieved, and user trust has been gained.
Hard Work
Success does not come by itself; great stories are always worth a lot of work. Steve Jobs was a phenomenally hard worker, often spending days at work, first in the office and then at home, contemplating new strategies. Upon his return to Apple in 1996, he had to work from 7 am to 9 pm every day, while he also ran the Pixar film studio in parallel (Meadows, 2021). He constantly motivated people to create the best products that they could be proud of and that other people would dream of owning. In business, hard work often comes first; regardless of luck, success can only be maintained by working hard.
Achieving the Goal at Any Cost
For Steve Jobs, there were practically no impossible goals: he acted decisively and did everything in his power. In many cases, he took risks, deciding on what others did not dare. Thanks to his stubbornness, Jobs also got his first job at Atari: he came to an interview and said that he would not leave until he was accepted, and he was taken (Ndoro & Niekerk, 2019). When it was not possible to act actively, Steve Jobs took a wait-and-see attitude and did not interfere. For example, after his family moved to a new house, he wanted to demolish their old mansion and build a house with an orchard there (Ichbiah, 2020). However, the public was against it, as it was a historic building. Steve Jobs could not think of anything better than to let the dilapidated building fall into complete disrepair, and the issue resolved itself. The action or inaction of Steve Jobs led him to the result, despite all the limitations. The creator of Apple used the same approach in business, allowing himself to either let go of the situation or take active actions.
Lack of Frames
Many new, ingenious things would never have been invented if people had not been able to go beyond the usual thinking if they had always reasoned according to a template. Steve Jobs did not idealize anyone and did not recognize limitations. Although he listened to good advice, he always made decisions himself, and they often shocked those around him. All this did not simplify his life but helped him achieve those goals that many did not even encroach on because they assured themselves of their unattainability. Perhaps this is one of the main secrets of his dizzying success.
Conclusion
Apple’s success story is in many ways unique, but much of it is due to its founder, Steve Jobs. The authoritarian type of leadership has allowed him to become a symbol of his company since its inception and remain so even after his death. Attention to detail, innovative approach, and belief in the success of their business have made Apple a fantastic example of the fusion of passion for its mission and hardworking on its business. The example of Steve Jobs remains inspiring even after his death. Successfully functioning already without Jobs, Apple continues to be a leader in its field. The foundations laid by Jobs, which are being implemented now, are the key to this success.
References
Ichbiah, D. (2020). The four lives of Steve Jobs: Steve Jobs biography. Babelcube Incorporated.
Jarrahi, M. H. (2018). Artificial intelligence and the future of work: Human-AI symbiosis in organizational decision making. Business Horizons, 61(4), 577-586.
Meadows, C. J. (2021). Famous business fusions. De Gruyter.
Ndoro, T., & Van Niekerk, R. (2019). A psychobiographical analysis of the personality traits of Steve Jobs’s entrepreneurial life. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, 19(1).