What Is Steve Jobs Is A Visionary Leader?

Steve Jobs was a visionary leader. Although, he was described as abrasive, he was inspiring. He set clear achievable goals. His abrasive management style did cost him to be kicked out of Apple by the very person he hired to be CEO, but his unwavering determination further took shape as, PIXAR and NEXT and boomeranged him back as the CEO of Apple (McInerney, 2011). The company’s core value reflects what he valued most -“People with passion can change the world”. True to this value he chose people on his team based on their passion as opposed to their qualifications (Evan Carmichael, 2015). Apple under his leadership was run like a startup. There were no committees for each department but instead just one leader per function for e.g. iphone,

Although most ideas originated from him and he did not exactly employ a democratic (almost autocratic with a little participative) style of leadership or share responsibilities with strategic jobs, he motivated and inspired his people. He hired people that were self-driven and did not need to be managed; they shared Apple’s vision and passion (Segall and Simple, 2016; Carmichael, 2015). Under his leadership things that were deemed impossible came to fruition because his team was inspired by his vision, knowledge and determination. His success lay in the fact that he stated his vision in small achievable goals for his revolutionary gadgets e.g. Ipods (Simon & Schuster Books, 2012). Ipod was described as “1000 songs in your pocket” (History.com, 2016). He also described computers as “a bicycle for your mind”(Popova, 2011). He was also known to reiterate goals to keep his team focused and encourage them to achieve Apple’s visionary success one step at a time. Additionally he also spoke in high stakes. He described his competitors- Samsung, Microsoft or Big Blue as mortal enemies and described Apples fight against them as a war for

Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, the second largest tech company after Apple would be the focus of this discussion. I was listening to her speech at the Pentagon on how women need to step up to leadership roles and embrace them as a reality by not backing off and attributing their roles as mothers and wives as the reason for foregoing these roles (Leadership in action, 2015). Sandberg’s leadership style could be defined as participative or adaptive. She is a team player and was behind the creation of her “Lean in” Movement and also her book with the same title. He overall goals with this was to encourage women to lean in and achieve their professional goals. She focuses on important issues like equal pay and work life balance for women. She can be described as compassionate person and has always been part of non-profit organizations to remain in public service. Her role in facebook is also part of this service because she understands the power of technology and its ability to reach the masses. Additionally, She is ambitious and has always kept her focus on goals and was never intimidated by her male colleagues. She did receive a lot of criticism, which is part of anybody’s quest to question social norms, and long held sexist beliefs (Namin-Hedayati, 2014).