Running head: INVESTIGATION2
MBA-550 3-2 Final Project: Part 1 – Self-Assessment Investigation
Maham Ba
Southern New Hampshire University
Leader Selection
I chose Steve Jobs as the leader I will be analyzing. I feel he most embodies the traits important to me as a leader. Steve Jobs co-founded Apple in his parents' garage in 1976, and built the world's most valuable company by the time he died, in October 2011. He brought focus to the tech giant, instilled simplicity as a value, took responsibility from end to end, leapfrogged for progress when necessary, put products first, and pushed for perfection, among other things (Isaacson, 2012).
One of the transformational attributes of charismatic leaders listed in our text (DuBrin, 2015) is that they tend to create a vision which in communicating, they are able to establish and share the values they hold for the future, in an effort to guide and motivate their workers. The vision is usually a picture of how the organization will look, once the transformation has taken effect. Steve Job was extremely passionate, and injected passion into everything he did. He led Apple to create such hub-like devices with the iPod and then the iPad. He also spoke out the dream of the cloud for these hub-like devices, and now the cloud is used by most businesses.
Self-Assessment
I analyzed my Clifton Strengths Self-Assessment results and discovered 5 major themes emerged around my strengths. The Clifton Signature Themes report identified my five most dominant themes of talent out of 34 themes measured, in the following rank order: Achiever, Relator, Communication, Developer, and Activator. As an achiever, pushing hard for desired work results does energize me in the right situation. When I have an objective in mind, I will work very hard to accomplish it. Daily to-do lists help me stay on schedule, and I also am a stickler about creating plans and schedules to drive tasks and track progress.
As a Relator, I enjoy the thrill of turning strangers into friends, which is very helpful in building new relationships and forging new contacts in business. It also helps when I am leading teams of people. Because of this strength, I am quite comfortable being honest about myself with others. I'm usually optimistic and I openly acknowledge mistakes and shortcomings. I definitely carefully think through convoluted problems and complicated projects, and I am skilled at – as well as enjoy – reducing them to their fundamental points. These skills have been very useful in communicating with executives who own the projects I manage. I can present key highlights of information and facts, logically, which comes in handy when making presentations to high level executives. I advise many of my friends and enjoy their trust in me, and I believe this reflects me as a charismatic leader.
My Communication strength highlights my skills in, and enjoyment of explaining, describing, hosting, speaking in public and writing. This helps when talking to newcomers or outsiders, especially to ease them in. I like to bring ideas to life, to energize them, to make them exciting and vivid. I use this strength when communicating a vision to my team. I am able to tell inspiring stories and enliven them with images, examples and metaphors. I have always been drawn toward dramatic words and powerful word combinations. I believe this is why people like to listen to me because I pique their interest and inspire them to act.
I am also strong as a Developer, which relates to seeing potential in others. Personally, and from a young age, I believe that each individual is a work in progress, alive with possibilities. I am also drawn toward the underdogs for this reason, and willing to give people a chance because of this. I can sense others' moods, a valuable skill when helping someone develop strength by acquiring a skill, gaining knowledge, using a talent or joining a group. I am compelled to make a meaningful and lasting impact on the planet or people's lives and urge my friends and family to do so. These days I value time with loved ones above working overtime. For them, I want to be one of the people in their lives who values them, sees what they can become, and believes in them.
My 5th and last strength is that of an Activator. In my work, in order to get issues resolved and projects moving towards completion target, I have to be an activator. I have to drive towards action, push for results and drive for success. The theme states that Action is critical, only action leads to performance, and that once a decision is made, you cannot not act. However, I do a fair amount of thinking before making decisions, and depending on the information available to me. This theme does accurately describe how instinctively, I characteristically generate enthusiasm and contend anything is possible. As in the them and while managing people, I encourage individuals to forge ahead quickly while challenging others to view major and minor assignments as opportunities to excel.
Comparative
When looking at the General Personality Traits from our text, I can see that there are some strengths I share with Steve Jobs. Our text highlights 9 general personality traits, or personal characteristics and skills, associated with effective leadership (DuBrin, 2015). (1) self-confidence; (2) humility; (3) core self-evaluations; (4) trustworthiness; (5) authenticity; (6) extraversion; (7) assertiveness; (8) enthusiasm, optimism, and warmth; and (9) sense of humor, all traits which I index high on.
Out of these traits, my Achiever theme is reinforced by trustworthiness – as I know my employers count on me to do the very best work for the organization, and my assertiveness which I use to effectively push things forward in my Activator role. Steve Jobs was very much trusted by his people, so trusted in fact that he was called back to manage the organization and was entrusted to lead it in a new direction. As an activator, Steve Jobs was able to get his work teams moving in the right direction and generate much progress from their achievements of working quick and hard under pressure. At times he was even perceived as somewhat abusive in the way he spoke to some workers, berated them and pushed them to achieve even greater goals. This method did work many times, even though it would be considered somewhat abusive and unbecoming of a modern company CEO (Gonzalez, 2016).
Jobs was also strong in Communications as I am. Isaacson (2012) discusses how Jobs was a master at communicating his vision and selling his product to not only employees but partners, consumers and even competitors. Jobs really enjoyed speaking to large groups about Apple. He cherished the unveiling opportunities, for which he invented the format, in order to create impactful communications. The black stage and curtain, the microphone, the spotlight, Jobs used all those tools to make a significant impact whenever he communicated officially about a major milestone, upcoming innovations or newly released products.
I can't say that Jobs was a Relator. He was in some ways reclusive, and didn't really seek out people's company. He was much focused on work, and tolerated people based on his need to have them create products he imagined (Isaacson, 2012). My Relator and Communication themes also leverage trustworthiness in building new relationships and driving people towards an objective, and Jobs was able to leverage that very skill too.
Humility, core self-evaluations, authenticity and extraversion- all traits which I possess, help when getting close with people under the Developer theme. Steve Jobs may have appeared arrogant at times in the way he'd approach people or function under extreme focus without empathy for the "plight" of his workers. He rewarded them amply, but was not necessarily touchy feely with them (Gonzalez, 2016).
Task Accomplishment Traits are usually associated very closely with effective leaders (DuBrin, 2015): (1) proactive personality, (2) passion for the work and the people, (3) emotional intelligence, (4) flexibility and adaptability, and (5) courage. My Achiever theme definitely makes use of my passion for the work I do and the people I work with, along with my proactive personality which drives me to come up with solutions to problems I uncover. Steve Jobs was all about accomplishing tasks which supported the creation of the products he invented. He definitely exhibited proactivity, as he leveraged his vision of the future to identify which products to start working on, and he was very successful at it.
Emotional intelligence – which consists of 4 traits: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management – figures heavily in my Relator theme, being able to assess someone's mood or feelings and act accordingly, or being able to make someone feel comfortable and trusting. I do not feel that Jobs was emotionally intelligent, as he related more to a consumer consuming his products, then a worker building his ideas (Gonzalez, 2016). We both do share a strong work ethic, and tenacity and resilience in the face of difficulty, both strengths which also support the Achiever and Activator themes, in that I will push consistently until I achieve results at work. Jobs worked tirelessly and relentlessly on his new ideas, getting involved at every level (Isaacson, 2012), and would willingly take a few steps back in the pursuit of perfection for his products.
There are a few cognitive factors which are also known to contribute to leadership effectiveness, according to DuBrin (2015). Analytical intelligence helps both Jobs and I to understand the details, the consumer data, and make decisions based on the information we have analyzed. Jobs was able to maximize this skill to conquer his market (Isaacson, 2012). Jobs also had great Business knowledge, not just about his market and industry, but also about his customers, predicting the future – what consumers would want – and then building the products which the consumer data showed that they wanted. For me, knowing the industry, market and company where I work is critical as a leader and Achiever, being charged with charting the course for the organization and pushing everyone forward to innovation. It will help me navigate the business and people landscape of my company and my industry, as I network under my Relator and Communication themes.
Steve Jobs and I both share in Technical competence, which directly addresses the breadth of technical skills we've both used in our work. Steve Jobs was known to get down in the weeds and contribute to everything from the strategic vision down to the packaging (Isaacson, 2012). These very skills have helped me succeed as a project manager, understanding how systems connect, which languages are appropriate, how to get information out, and creating business artifacts.
Creativity is another trait Jobs and I shared. This trait plays in thinking out of the box, and the willingness to consider options previously unseen or unconventional choices. Sometimes in order to move forward, leaders must be able to think beyond the norms for new directions. It is possible for this creativity to manifest itself as the hiring of creative designers, as opposed to coming up with a new logo myself (Amabile, 2014). Steve Jobs as a charimastic leader, attracted hundreds of creative workers wanting to partake in his vision, and drawn by his charisma which was built on a lot of self-confidence and awareness (Isaacson, 2012).
Conceptual thinking – something I associate with being a visionary and coming up with ideas based on a concept, is very useful when charting new directions, starting new initiatives or addressing business problems. This is a foundation skill for Steve Jobs, who was a master at conceptual thinking. Jobs conceptually thought up the cloud (something that today's businesses critically rely on), touch screens and tablets – all 3 of which are master components of doing business today.
Leadership and Management
Steve Jobs's career is storied (Wikipedia, 2018). From humble beginnings as a 3-person company in his parents' garage, Jobs became the richest non-wealth inherited person at 23. He worked in Apple with Steve Wozniak long after the third co-founder left. When Apple cleared $3 million in sales in 1977 after unveiling their first computer, they established the company in an office and Jobs began managing other people, workers and projects for product development.
He took great risks and also had great success during this time and his innovations netted him a tremendous amount of money. The company was still small, and Jobs obviously was involved in every aspect of it. Jobs resigned in 1985 after clashing with the former PepsiCo CEO he brought in himself, to steer the ship so he could focus on product development (Heracleous, 2016).
In 1986, Steve Jobs funded the Pixar movie studio for 10 million, which was purchased by Disney in 2006 after 11 box office hits for $7.4 billion. Jobs had managed to turn his investment into veritable gold, by providing creative input in the films and the technology. Jobs started NeXt a computer company that built expensive advanced computers for education, one of which was used by English computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee in Switzerland to invent the World Wide Web at CERN in 1989 (Wikipedia, 2018). He was innovative, and creative, and visionary in the products he designed, so much so that Apple – his old company – acquired NeXt in 1997 and with it, Steve Jobs returned back to Apple finally. There he became interim CEO, then assumed the full post a few months later.
As a new leader of Apple, Jobs made drastic changes immediately, in his opinion, all designed to turn the company around from a few low years. The acquisition of NeXt allowed Jobs to use the technology he created outside of Apple, to form Apple's famed Mac OSX operating system. Jobs later drove the company to create mobile phones with the iPhone.
Steve Jobs was known as a very charismatic leader. He leveraged some key skills in accomplishing his goals, even though his focus was around the products and consumers, rather than business operations. Jobs wanted to drive the direction of Apple towards the future, not worry about accounting procedures and hiring quotas. He wasn't much of a relator. He had focus, discipline, he was creative and really saw the big picture. His own passion was critical for inspiring his teams and drive them to reach his vision.
According to Isaacson (2012), Jobs' charisma and focus were key in helping him drive for changing his organizational structure – typically based on the products he was inventing and the direction he was heading the company towards – and subsequently impacted operations. His communication style was unique and permeated all aspects of the company. Gonzalez (2016) discusses how Jobs was obsessed with controlling the vision, and how his personality directly affected how the company was being run, and how workers perceived their leadership and the mission put before them.
Steve Jobs was aggressive and demanding of his workforce. His feedback carried tremendous importance in all aspects of the company, reflecting how much the workers followed their leader. Overall, Jobs took on his management roles seriously, and brought tremendous focus while in role. However, his focus was mostly on the product side, and he relied heavily on his co-executives to manage operations and other daily details. As a CEO, I believe I will be very focused on turning out a solid product as well. If the company is dependent on its products to generate revenue, that's where a leader's attention should be. Jobs and his subsequent success exemplify my opinion on this matter.
References
Amabile, T., & Khaire, M. (2014, August 01). Creativity and the Role of the Leader. Retrieved July 22, 2018, from https://hbr.org/2008/10/creativity-and-the-role-of-the-leader
DuBrin, A. (2015). Leadership: Research findings, practice, and skills (8th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Gonzalez, G. (2016, August 10). Steve Jobs: Abusive Manager or Inspirational Leader? Retrieved August 5, 2018, from https://www.inc.com/guadalupe-gonzalez/abuser-motivator-leadership-styles.html
Heracleous, L. (2016, October 5). Why Steve Jobs was such a charismatic leader. Retrieved August 05, 2018, from https://www.wbs.ac.uk/news/why-steve-jobs-was-such-a-charismatic-leader1/
Isaacson, W. (2012, April). The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs. Retrieved August 5, 2018, from https://hbr.org/2012/04/the-real-leadership-lessons-of-steve-jobs
Wikipedia.com. (2018, August 03). Steve Jobs. Retrieved August 05, 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs
Running head: INVESTIGATION1
