A Comparison Of Steve Jobs And Fr. Jose Arizmendiarrieta

Steve Jobs and Fr. Jose Arizmendiarrieta were the founders and leaders of two different but highly successful and profitable organisations, Apple and Mondragon. The two companies are from different parts of the world, in different industries, and can only be compared by their organisational and financial success. Fr. Jose and Steve were the architects of this success, leading and inspiring confidence and support among the people who were needed to achieve their vision and organisations goals (DuBrin, 2013). This essay will compare and contrast the leadership of Steve Jobs with that of Fr. Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta based on Andrew J. DuBrin’s leadership theory.

Brief Background

Fr Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta, a Catholic Priest, founded the Mondragon Corporation, a cooperative in the Basque region of Spain in 1956. The region suffered greatly during the Spanish Civil War (Thomson, 2010) and Fr Jose felt it his calling to help his regions people recover, allowing them to continue to support themselves. Fr Jose’s motive was to promote individuals’ moral character as well as social justice through the creation of a new kind of work place, one that encouraged hard work, cooperation, shared rewards, and individual responsibility. At the same time, he sought to generate employment and income in a region that had been impoverished by war, dictatorship and neglect (Lafuente, 2012). The initial cooperative was successful and from that much other cooperative business emerged in industries including banking, manufacturing, distribution and education. The Mondragon Corporation multiplied until it became the biggest employer in the region (Witzel, 2003). The Mondragon Corporation now consists of over 82,000 people in an integrated group of so...

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...ties and differences of the leadership of Steve Jobs and Fr. Jose Arizmendiarrieta that the leadership required for organisations to succeed is unique to the goals and definition of success portrayed by the leader. Their leadership styles were reflected in the organisations development and it can be seen why leadership in organisations is of such importance. What is also clear is that there is no right or wrong way to lead – Fr Jose achieved a sustainable profitable cooperative, Jobs archived a highly profitable company. The leadership practice used needs to fit the organisations vision, the needs of the stakeholders, and be ingrained into followers. The followers need to buy in to the leader’s vision and goals and play their part in implementing the steps required for success. The leader is ultimately responsible for guiding the followers along the path to success.