S t e v e J o b s完整
Steve Jobs’ Leadership Analysis
Wang Teng 3339243
HFT4295 - Leadership in the Hospitality Industry - Section RXD
TUC-FIU Cooperative School
Abstract
This essay was written to demonstrate the career history, the leadership qualities and the leadership behaviors of Steve Jobs. Through all the research that I had done, I discovered Steve Jobs’ leadership traits such as energy, social background, self-confidence and the ability of speech, and therefore Steve Jobs appears to be a directive leader and a charismatic leader. Also, I applied his leadership qualities and behaviors to the hospitality industry.
Keywords: Steve Jobs, Apple, leadership, hospitality
Table of Content Introduction (4)
Legendary Career Experience (5)
The Young Steve (5)
1976-1985 (5)
A Fresh Start (6)
Magic Show Time (6)
Leadership Traits of Steves Jobs (7)
Physical and Background Traits (7)
Personal or Ability Traits (8)
Task or Social Traits (9)
Leadership Beha viors of Steve Jobs (10)
Charismatic and Transformational Leadership Behaviors (10)
Directive Leadership Behaviors (11)
Steve In Hospitality Business (11)
Conclusion (13)
Reference (15)
Introduction
Even through we are living in the 21st centre, and with the power of the Internet, we are getting so much information everyday that we think nothing will surprise us, but it is still very hard to believe that a company can ever be so successful. Apple became the most valuable company in the world in August 11, 2011. (Markoff, 2011) Apple is a legendary company in the music, the mobile phone and the computer industry, with countless number of fans all over the world. It created the best music players -- iPods, which has a market share of 78% in the American market. (Cook, 2011) It has the No.1 music store in the world with twenty million songs waiting to be sold, and it had sold sixteen billion songs on the internet. (Cook, 2011) Macbook Air along with its operating system -- Mac OS Lion, is ranked the best laptop and the best operating system in the world. (Loftus, 2011) The iPhone 4 is the No.1 product in smart phone market with a customer satisfaction of 96%. (Cook, 2011) Apple is even richer than the American Federal Reserve, with an asset of cash of over seventy billion US dollars. (Yahoo Finance, 2011) Behind all these gorgeous data, is the creator and the soul of Apple, Steve Jobs, a man who changed the world.
Steve Jobs is a hot topic, he is one of the most famous entrepreneurs in the world. He was the co-founder and CEO of Apple and Pixar, and he was also the largest individual shareholder of Disney. His black shirt and blue jeans became the symbol of silicon valley. The cancer that Steve Jobs had was destroying his health and he became thinner everyday, but when we look at his eyes, we can see a giant inside. Each time Steve Jobs gave a keynote about new products, the world will be shocked. If there is a word to describe Apple and Steve Jobs, the word must be “magical”.
We all love him, however, God loves him more. Steve Jobs left us at October 5, 2011. Among all the comments about his death, I like what Obama said most “ S teve was among the greatest of American innovators - brave enough to think differently, bold enough
to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it.” (2011) Indeed, he not only changed the world, but also he changed me.
Next we will take a look at what major events did Steve Jobs went through briefly, and then I will analysis his leadership traits and leadership behaviors as well as to apply them to hospitality industry.
Legendary Career Experience
The young Steve
Steve Jobs was born at February 24, 1955, San Francisco. (Young & Simon, 2010) Lots of Steve Jobs’ personalities were developed during his young age, such as his ability to give wonderful speeches. He always got what he wanted by convening people, for example, he convened his adopted parents to spent their whole life saving to sent him to Reed College, where he learnt the knowledge about font designing. Later he quitted the college and went to India to study buddhism, and this experience changed his way to act and to think forever. His childhood was spent near the silicon valley, and his neighbors were working for Hewlett-Packard at that time, and Steve Jobs was influenced a lot by these people who were working in the IT industry. In 1975, he met Steve Wozniak, who turned out to be a genius in electronics. When these two people became friends with each other, something big was about to happen.
1976 - 1985
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak was both crazy about computers, but computers at that time was very huge and extremely expensive. So the two Steves decided to build a personal computer, and they did not realized that what they did changed the whole world. They built the first personal computer in the world in just a few weeks, it was the Apple I. Steve Jobs saw the value in this machine, and he was bright enough to see the future of personal computers. So they started the company called Apple in Steve Jobs’ garage with
1300 dollars in the April fools’ day of 1976, and they sold out 50 Apple I computers in their first deal. (Young & Simon, 2010) Later on, Apple II computer blew people away, and the Wall Street Journal described Apple II as the bicycle for human being in the 21st centre. (1977) It changed the way of people thinking about a computer, and Apple, along with Steve Jobs, became world famous.
However, the product after Apple II, the Lisa computer was the blasting fuse of Steve Jobs’ left. It was too expensive and people just couldn’t afford it. He made a huge mistake on marketing strategy, and Apple was in very bad situation. As a result, in 1985, Steve Jobs got fired by a company that he started.
A fresh start
Steve Jobs went out the slump by starting a new computer company called Next in 1986. Also, in the same year he started the computer animation company, Pixar, with a small team that he bought from the famous director, George Lucas. Steve Jobs’ vision was just amazing, with Pixar, he started a revolution in the movie industry. For example, the famous movie Toy Story was the box office champion of America in 1995. Those two
co mpanies played extremely important role in Steve Jobs’ legendary career, the Next helped him to get back to Apple and the Pixar helped him to became the largest individual share holder of Disney.
Magical show time
When the “apple” without Jobs was going to be eaten, he came back, in 1996. He saved Apple. The world had never been better, because now it had the iMac, a computer with a design which looks like it comes from the outer space, and it ran Mac OS X, an operating system that he developed in Next. The iMac could not be any more successful. With the famous slogan: I think, therefore iMac, iMac won the best computer price by Time Magazine in 1998.
In 2001, Apple released the iPod. iPod and the online music store -- iTunes, changed the music industry once for all. It changed the way people listen to music and the way people buy music, and iPods are the best music players in the world.
Steve Jobs never stopped. In 2007, Apple reinvented the phone. iPhones became so popular in one night. Nokia was once the No.1 leader in mobile device industry, now the position belongs to Apple. (Jobs, 2009) iPhones changed the way people think of a phone, and as he said, “It is hard to remember what it was like before iPhone.” (Jobs, 2009) With the giant multi-touch screen, and millions of applications, iPhones are the best phone in the world.
Just when people think that Apple can not be any more successful, Steve Jobs introduced iPad to the world in 2010. Again, this revolutionary device changed everything, and as he said, “ It works like magic.” (2010) It became a huge impact to publish industry and it can be seen everywhere in schools, companies and hospitals. There are so many sources to proof that iPads are so successful, but I think a quote by a famous American journali st, John Paczkowski can describe it best. He said, “ Consumers do not want tablets, they want iPads.” (2011)
Before he could change the world once more, Steve Jobs left us. He once said in a speech in Stanford University that he lived everyday as the last day of his life. (2005) As the official obituary notice of Apple says, Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. (2011) Steve Jobs’ spirit will always stay in Apple’s products, and he had became a truly legendary forever.
Leadership Traits of Steve Jobs
Physical and Background Traits
On the internet we can find an interesting topic, three apples changed human beings forever. Eve’s apple, Newton’s apple and Steve Jobs’ apple. (Sina, 2011) Steve Jobs is