Apple Inc. and The language of Leadership

A nine-member city council, functioning in accordance with the Optional Municipal Charter Law Act and the Mayor-Council local government system, has been in charge of Newark since the referendum’s approval in 1954. The council members are chosen on an unaffiliated basis either the general election held every four years or during the normal municipal elections. The other four are chosen by the entire city, while each of the five wards elects one representative (Jindrich 157).

The mayor, who serves as the city’s chief executive, is above the council. Ras Baraka is the mayor of Newark at the moment; his term ends on June 30, 2018. Luis A. Quintana, the first Apple computer. However, Jobs left and established the NeXt platform that would later merge with Apple to form a bigger cultural ramification.

In 2011, Steve Jobs died of a tumour-related respiratory arrest (Abraham, 2014).

Contributions to Society/Organization

Jobs was a problem-solver and an excellent public speaker (Hull, 2015).

Jobs’ vision about computers for everyone revolutionized the computing market (Tenzer & Pudelko, 2015).

Apple Inc. has created jobs directly and indirectly. For instance, the company has 47.000 full-time employees (Bengtsson et al., 2016).

Jobs envisioned developing something that would help the whole society by creating many opportunities (Blom & Alvesson, 2015).

Leadership Analysis

Remarkably, authoritative leaders do not succeed in developing an enabling environment for workers (Auvinen et al., 2013).

Jobs upheld the transformational leadership style that has been widely adopted in the corporate world (Steinwart & Ziegler, 2014).

He also embraced the situational leadership style to motivate his employees to realize success.

Jobs’ leadership style could be compared to Bill Gates’, Elon Musk’s and Mark Zuckerberg’s.

Steven John Jobs and Bill Gates

Jobs and Gates’ success could be attributed to unique leadership styles.

Gates adopted a more participatory approach to leadership that capitalized on the unique individual capabilities of his team members.

In contrast, Steve Jobs adopted a more autocratic form of leadership.

Both leaders were dedicated, passionate, innovative and hardworking (Xue, 2016).

Steve Jobs and Elon Musk

Elon Musk was the founder of Tesla and SpaceX. He also contributed to the formation of PayPal (Blom & Alvesson, 2015).

Jobs and Elon shared the belief that anything was possible through the hard work. However, Jobs was more charismatic and confident as compared to Elon.

Jobs was more authoritative and strict regarding to the product development (Arnulf et al., 2015). In contrast, Musk’s decisions were dependent on customer feedback and preferences.

Both leaders were persistent, principle based, rational and thoughtful.

Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs

Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, and Jobs created products, which were beneficial to the entire world.

Zuckerberg enjoyed tremendous success in his line of business (Kark & Razin, 2013).

Both Zuckerberg and Jobs were passionate about creating something that would not just generate money.

They both had a hard-driving leadership and were not open to criticisms.

Leadership Recommendations

Leaders should adopt appropriate elements of communication in different circumstances.

Good leaders should be neither judgmental nor arrogant to their followers (McCleskey, 2014).

Leaders should also pay attention to develop and maintain management and leadership skills.

Good leaders should motivate and show respect to their followers.

Living with Bad Decisions

Steve Jobs hired John Scully to operate Apple Inc.

However, Sculley was not familiar with the organizational culture and did not understand the brand.

Sculley acquired power and ousted Jobs from the company.

Jobs regretted his decision to hire Sculley (Hull, 2015).

Summary

Language was an essential aspect of leadership.

Varied language techniques could be adopted when communicating with subordinates.

Jobs learned from experienced and was able to enhance success in Apple Inc.

It was important that a leader recognized and executed necessary actions to enhance productivity and organizational success.

Managers vs. Leaders

Managers focused on how to get things done while leaders emphasized on the meaning of decisions and events.

Leaders tended to be more sensitive to language.

Leaders provided insight into why followers accomplished certain tasks.

It was essential to understand the language skills a leader possessed and those skills that the leaders needed to acquire.

References

Abraham, M. (2014). Five leadership skills that made Steve Jobs transform Apple. GRIN Academic Publishing. Retrieved on July 9, 2017 from http://www.grin.com/en/e-book/268494/five-leadership-skills-that-made-steve-jobs-transform-apple

Arnulf, J.K., Larsen, K.R., & Martinsen, K.R. (2015). Leadership in language: Differential impact of media language on leadership survey responses. Academy of Management Proceedings, 2015(1), 13360-13360. Retrieved on August, 2015 from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280883946_Leadership_in_language_Differential_impact_of_media_language_on_leadership_survey_responses

Auvinen, T.P., Lämsä, A.M., Sintonen, T., & Takala, T. (2013). Leadership manipulation and ethics in storytelling. Journal of Business Ethics, 116(2), 415-431. Retrieved on September 6, 2012 from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-012-1454-8

Bengtsson, A., Jörnlid, S., & Lindskog, M. (2016). Stories of Steve Jobs. LUP Students Papers, Lund University Libraries. Retrieved on July 10, 2017 from https://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/search/publication/8888235

Blom, M., & Alvesson, M. (2015). All-inclusive and all good: The hegemonic ambiguity of leadership. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 31(4), 480-492. Retrieved on December, 2015 from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956522115000603.

Heracleous, L., & Klaering, L.A. (2014). Charismatic leadership and rhetorical competence: An analysis of Steve Jobs’s rhetoric. Group & Organization Management, 39(2), 131-161. Retrieved on February 26, 2014 from http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1059601114525436

Hull, T. (2015). The positive use of negative language. Board Leadership, 2015(138), 1-3. Retrived on March/April, 2015 from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bl.2015.2015.issue-138/issuetoc

McCleskey, J.A. (2014). Situational, transformational, and transactional leadership and leadership development. Journal of Business Quarterly, 5(4), 117. Retrieved on January, 2014 from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272353199_Situational_transformational_and_transactional_leadership_and_leadership_development

Kark, R. & Razin, M.A. (2013). The apple does not fall far from the tree: Steve Jobs leadership as simultaneously distant and close. In M.C. Bligh, & R. Riggio, When Near is Far and Far is Near: Exploring distance in leader-follower relationships, Wiley-Blackwell, 241-273. Retrieved on January, 2012 from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286330776_The_Apple_does_not_Fall_Far_from_the_Tree_Steve_Jobs’s_Leadership_as_Simultaneously_Distant_and_Close

Steinwart, M.C., & Ziegler, J.A. (2014). Remembering Apple CEO Steve Jobs as a “transformational leader”: Implications for pedagogy. Journal of Leadership Education, 13 (2), 52-66. Retrieved on Spring, 2014 from http://www.journalofleadershiped.org/attachments/article/340/V13I2steinwart.pdf

Tenzer, H., & Pudelko, M. (2015). Leading across language barriers: Managing language-induced emotions in multinational teams. The Leadership Quarterly, 26 (4), 606-625. Retrieved on June, 2015 from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277325955_Leading_Across_Language_Barriers_Managing_Language-induced_Emotions_in_Multinational_Teams

Xue, C.T. (2016). The role of leadership in achieving sustainable organizational change: Steve Jobs. Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (UIR), 2(8), 263-267. Retrieved from http://www.imperialjournals.com/index.php/IJIR/article/view/1407/1351