...has led the people to wonder the reason behind its achievements. What kind of organizational and corporate structure does Apple pursue to possess the successes? How does Apple motivate its employees in the work environment? Some give credit to the innovator of Apple, Steve Jobs, whose unorthodox style of leadership is the foundation of the company’s management. Although Apple’s organizational structure, corporate culture may seem to be a new style of management, it is inherently a cultural approach. In addition, it is Steve Jobs who is at the top of the chain of command reinforcing cultural management through his leadership, pursuit of skilled employees, and his firm grounding of corporate culture. Apple is a US-based consumer electronics company known for its ability to come out with path-breaking products. The work culture, propelled by a passion for new products with no trepidation to challenges and obstacles, exemplifies its intense work ethics. The employees are seen as small teams working for the larger organization. With each division working on a special task, one team might be responsible for designing and testing the newly invented product, while another takes care of the marketing. In his article “How Apple Got everything Right by Doing everything Wrong”, Leander Kahney points out the extremes two which workers are specialized. He writes,...
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...Medina Pashayeva 8491520 GEL/Jan12/1 Does Apple need “a great man”? After the death of Steve Jobs, management experts are wondering whether Apple will survive without Steve Jobs or not? This issue is also considered in the “InsideApple: Can It Thrive Without Steve?” article, published on the Forbes’ webpage where commentaries on the book of Adam Lashinsky “InsideApple” are provided. This article describes the aspects of the book regarding successful implementation of the “radical management system” by Apples’ incomparable leadership guru Steve Jobs. The article states that the author of the book, Lashinsky, based on the theory of organizations development, predicts an early death of Apple explaining that the company has entered the “path to senescence and death”. In turn, the author of the article, Steve Denning, specifies that “Apple’s future, therefore, depends on understanding the management principles Steve Jobs used to make it successful, while also recognizing his shortcomings. Those principles are eminently replicable business practices that, once understood, any firm can implement. It does not require “a great man”. Is it real that “any firm can implement” and does not require “a great man”? Does not Apple need Steve Jobs? When the “great guru” was fired in 1985, the situation in the company was not good enough; however, everything has changed since his return in 1997 and implementation of the strategy, which is still quite successful. Thus, CNBC reports that “Apple...
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...Steve Jobs From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Steve Jobs | Jobs holding a white iPhone 4 at Worldwide Developers Conference 2010 | Born | Steven Paul Jobs February 24, 1955 (1955-02-24) (age 56)[1] San Francisco, California, U.S.[1] | Residence | Palo Alto, California, U.S.[2] | Nationality | American | Alma mater | Reed College (dropped out in 1972) | Occupation | Chairman, Apple Inc. | Salary | US$1[3][4][5][6] | Net worth | $8.3 billion (2011)[7] | Board member of | The Walt Disney Company,[8] Apple, Inc. | Religion | Buddhism[9] | Spouse | Laurene Powell (1991–present) | Children | 4 | Relatives | Mona Simpson | Signature | | Website | Steve Jobs | Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs (born February 24, 1955) is an American business magnate and inventor. He is co-founder,[10] chairman, and former chief executive officer of Apple Inc.[11][12] Jobs also previously served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company in 2006, following the acquisition of Pixar by Disney. He was credited in the 1995 film Toy Story as an executive producer.[13] In the late 1970s, Jobs, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Mike Markkula,[10] and others, designed, developed, and marketed one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series. In the early 1980s, Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of Xerox...
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...Steve Jobs had always wanted to change the world. Ever since Jobs was young, he was fascinated with technology. When Jobs was first born, he was given up for adoption. He was taken into a family who were Armenian, and were unable to conceive, Paul and Clara Jobs. According to an article, the judge that gave Paul and Clara ownership of Steve was Laura S. Kiessling (E-Library) Because of this adoption, his father Paul who was a machinist, taught Steve many things about electronics. Without the adoption, Steve would've never been involved with electronics. His parents divorced in 1962 . Throughout his childhood and early adulthood, Jobs was lacking. He had a high school GPA of 2.65, and dropped out of Reed college. He started Apple with Steve Wozniak, by selling...
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...Leadership industry Lavon Pryor June 16, 2016 Ivy Tech Community College The co-founder of Apple Steve Jobs comes from a unique background of leadership. The author John Hope who wrote numerous books and publications wrote in his book titled “The 12 golden rules of success to become a billionaire” (2016) .John Hope wrote “Steve Jobs wasn’t from an affluent family, it was his drive ambition, and unprecedented genius that helped him to become a truly influential entrepreneur and innovator.” Steve Jobs is the co-founder of Apple along with Steve Wozniak. According to the magazine Macworld that was published by Jason Snell stated “Jobs didn't create the Macintosh project -- it was started by Jef Raskin in 1979 -- but he took it over in 1981 and brought it to fruition.” “Jobs didn't write the code or design the circuit boards, but he provided the vision that made it happen.” Jef Raskin approached Steve Jobs about the Macintosh project. Steve Jobs had no interest in the project. This all changed according to Christoph Dernbach who has written online articles and his latest article title “How Jef Raskin Started The Macintosh Project”. “In the summer of 1980, Jobs and Apple President Mike Scott had tensions brewing as Scott intended to edge Jobs out of the new Lisa.” “With his capricious and at times fairly aggressive management style, Jobs had snubbed many developers. Scott demoted Jobs to a less important role of a company spokesman and promoter in advance of Apple’s intial public...
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...Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………….....2 Part I: the management style of Steve Jobs……………………………………………………….2 Part II: Steve Jobs' presentation style……………………………………………………………..6 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………...8 References……………………………………………………………………………………...…8 Abstract Steven Jobs and “Apple” are excellent examples to demonstrate the correlation between leadership and management. There are lots of different studies on how Steve Jobs, the “Apple’s” chief executive officer (CEO), is leading the company to success. However, the main purpose of our work is not to analyze each of them, but to see what explanation of the company’s success can be found in certain articles, literature reviews and what can be learnt from Jobs’ way of presenting a product. Results of some findings have proved that the management style of the “Apple” CEO makes the company successful. Then, as soon as the mentioned CEO starts to speak, his presentation informs, entertains and inspires, capturing the audience. The simple techniques he uses can be borrowed by anyone for any kind of presentation. The value of this report is in depicting the management and leadership related issues when Steve Jobs is taken as a role model. Introduction “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower” * Steve Jobs By now “Apple” is one of the most well known brands in the world. The rising of the company has started in 1997 when Steven Jobs becomes its leader. To start, the first half of this report...
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...combination of profit-oriented and social responsibility-oriented perspectives. At one end is the approach where the profit motive eclipses social responsibility, for example Steve Jobs of Apple, Inc. At the other end is the approach that, although profit oriented, accords significant priority to social responsibility, for example, Sir Richard Branson of the Virgin group of companies. Steve Jobs, whose persona was indelibly imprinted on Apple opined that “[o]ur belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets.”(Jobs, n.d.) That statement reflected an unswerving commitment to the profit motive where consumerism was a means to an end. The following discussion presents Steve Jobs as an example of a business leader who is strongly profit-oriented, and Richard Branson as one whose primary goal is to make a positive impact on society. The leadership style, and major business principles of Steve Jobs Leadership Style Steve Jobs’ leadership poses an extraordinary challenge for description, judging by the basic categories of leadership as delineated in most business curricula. His leadership is best summed up by the Leadership Editor of Forbes magazine in the article Steve Jobs Broke Every Leadership Rule. Don't Try It Yourself (Allen, 2011). Jobs displayed charisma, revolutionary vision, and innovative genius, along with a relentless drive for excellence. On the surface these are hallmarks of Transformational leadership...
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...evaluates the likely effectiveness of that style in the U.S. today In determining the leadership style of Sir. Richard Branson one of the most influential, creative and charismatic leaders of business today has admired the business sense and innovative leadership style of Steve Jobs. Oddly enough, both Steve Jobs and Richard Branson both have a flair for business but both have two totally different personalities and leadership styles. It is odd to see the admiration of Steve Jobs peak the curiosity of Richard Branson as they had different ways of doing business and working with people (Branson, 2011). Leadership in the eyes of Richard Branson An article written by Richard Branson in the United Kingdom press media release in the “Telegraph”, he makes a comparison and contrast between he and Steve Jobs. Branson first identifies Steve Jobs as an Autocratic and directive leader from a situational leadership perspective. Richard Branson on the other hand sees himself being more delegative, participative, and selling as he relates to his employees and giving them their room to breathe and to apply skills in performance of their jobs. He believes it to be essential to allow the employees the space to do their jobs. He believes in listening first, taking the information and making sense of it all, then providing feedback (Branson, 2011). Situational Leadership styles In addition, Branson’s situational leadership style can be categorized as both participating and selling....
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...Business Leadership EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs, the man who saved a company that was literally a fiscal quarter away from bankruptcy and proceeded to grow it into the largest company in the world by market capital the company ‘The Apple’. Steve Jobs was an American businessman, designer and inventor. He is best known as the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc. Through Apple, he was widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. Good leadership is major, particularly in today’s competitive global economy, and can make the difference between the success and the failure of the organization. As per the sentence Steve jobs is the concrete example of a lifetime natural successful leader, evidence is the Apple’s success. Apple’s market capitalization is over $300 Billion (Elmer-Dewitt, 2011) making it the second most valuable publicly traded company in the world, surpassing even giant (and rival) Microsoft. Steve Jobs was an American businessman, designer and inventor. He is best known as the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc. Through Apple, he was widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He was different from many other corporate leaders in that he always knew what he wanted. When he returned to Apple after his decade-long banishment starting in the mid-80′s, the company was on the margin of bankruptcy. He actually wrote some of the...
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...Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976 with his school friend Steve Wozniak. He was ousted in 1985 and returned 1997 to save it from bankruptcy and died in October 2011. He transformed Apple into the world’s most valuable company. Steve Jobs was a polarizing figure, a visionary who led Apple from the depths of bankruptcy to become the most valuable company in the world His personality was integral to his way of doing business. Eccentric leadership style. He was a transformational, innovative and charismatic business leader. He was a Focused, Passionate, intense, petulant, impatient character. Described as a “visionary” He was excellent at communicating his vision to his staff, customers and shareholders. On his return in 1997, the company were producing numerous random products for example different versions of the Macintosh. Several weeks of product review sessions, Jobs intervened. On a whiteboard he drew a 2X2 grid declaring what he felt the company needed. On the two columns of the grid Jobs wrote “Consumer” and “Pro” and along the rows he wrote “desktop” and “portable” he told his team members to focus on 4 great products, one for each of the 4 segments of his grid. All the other ideas and products should be discarded. Jobs took 100 people on a retreat each year. On the last day of the retreat Jobs would stand up and ask the people involved with the retreat to give 10 ideas of what they should do next. This evoked a positive response with people fighting to get their suggestion...
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...1. Using relevant articles and research (research business publications, newspapers and relevant magazines), provide a detailed history of Apple and describe the current state of the company and the corporation’s future goals and vision. (Page limit: 2-3 pages, double spaced. Please include references and in-text citations). On April 1st 1976 Apple Computer was founded in a garage as the result of the combined effort of Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. At this time Steve jobs was working at Atari, under Atari founder Nolan K. Bushnell. Wozniak finishes work on the Apple 1 at the time when he was working for Hewlett Packard and made them an offer for $800 for a machine that runs BASIC. HP at that time turns down the offer. After that, they decided to cut the price to $666.66 and exhibited the computer at the Home Brew Computer Club meeting. Paul Terrell, president of Byte Shop Chain was impressed by the new invention and placed an order for 50 pieces. The order was delivered before the deadline. After short period of time Ronald Wayne decides to leave the company making Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak the primary founders of the company. This was the first big order that Apple got. In the same year, both of them came up with Apple II. It dint attract any buyers. At this time the company was facing a financial crisis and needed funding. A Steve job asks his former boss to help him find some investors who had interest in the project. Nolan Bushnell, who was his former boss...
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...Someone once said, “Teamwork divides the task and multiplies the success.” In “La Vida robot” and “Steve Jobs”, both authors describe different traits to having a successful team. While Davis feels that a strong leader is necessary for a strong team, Isaacson shows that a strong team needs at least one person who is business savvy. It is important to have a good leader in order to having an effective team. In the magazine article “La Vida Robot”, Davis describes Oscar Vazquez as “a born leader”. Oscar Vazquez was a good leader to the team. “ROTC had trained Oscar well: he knew how to motivate people. He made sure that all of his team members were in the room and focused.” Oscar knew how to push and encourage his team members and made sure they were concentrating on what they were doing. His strong leadership also helped the team raised a total of about $800. At least one team member must be savvy about business. In the biography excerpt “Steve Jobs”, the author shows two people working together but one is more serious about business than the other. Steve Jobs is Steve Wozniak’s business partner but Jobs is more savvy about business. Isaacson describes Jobs “has a bravado that helped him gets things done, occasionally by manipulating people. He could be charismatic, even mesmerizing, but also cold and brutal.” Steve Jobs tried everything to keep the team going. “Jobs worked out a plan to pay a guy he knew at Atari to draw the circuit boards and then print up fifty or so....
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...For a team to work like a well oiled machine, the members of the team must contribute ideas to get the team going and to eventually build or accomplish something amazing. In “La Vida Robot” mexican immigrants come into the country undocumented, but they work together and end up beating some of the smartest kids in the country. In “Steve Jobs” Steve jobs and Wozniak come together and end up being one of the most successful teams in history. They created the Apple 1 and the company they formed still make the phones some of us use today. Both Davis and Isaacson, the authors of “La Vida Robot” and “Steve Jobs” feel that a strong team consists of at least one person who is savy about business. In “La Vida Robot” at least one team member is savy...
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...Before Steve Jobs became a leader and manager of one of the largest corporations in the world, he was a groundbreaking innovator in the technology industry. In 1976, along with Steve Wozinak, Jobs created Apple Computers (Wikipedia, 2013). Forbes (2012) stated that Apple has since become “the most valuable company in history[…]in terms of market capitalization” (para.1). In the late eighties he also co-founded Pixar Animation Studios, another highly-prosperous enterprise. With these two powerhouses alone, Jobs has redefined leadership by having one of the most extreme success stories in the business arena. Thousands of articles, dozens of books, several documentaries, a handful of feature films, and a play have been based on Steve Jobs’ success story. Starting Apple at the age of thirty, he had a rocky start as he was not very likable as a leader. Zenger (2013) stated, “Yes, he could be rude, unreasonable, fickle, and arrogant. He even took credit for others’ ideas. The list of his weaknesses is quite long” (para.6). Jobs was a highly-intelligent man that was first a computer programmer before managing and leading thousands in two multi-billion dollar companies. To sum this up, Zenger (2013) said, “Let’s be very clear: if Jobs had not possessed the remarkable strengths…these behaviors would have capsized him early in his career, but strengths eclipse shortcomings” (para.6). Early on at Apple in 1985, Jobs was stripped of his powers in the company due to his unfavorable...
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...Some of Apple’s biggest successes include such products as: * Macintosh: Released in 1984, it became the first computer to integrate two elements we are all familiar with in computers today: GUIs and mice. Drag-and-drop was introduced to the world at large on the Macintosh, as was the concept of folders, file icons, and a trash can on the computer screen. * Pixar: Steve Jobs bought Pixar in 1986 from Lucasfilm. He originally wanted to use the company to help develop graphics-rendering hardware and software, but as it evolved into an animation studio, a deal with Disney to produce fully-CG feature-length family films wound up in a series of blockbusters, awards, and mountains of cash. Today Pixar, now owned fully by Disney, is one of the biggest names in film CG animation. * iPod/iTunes: Originally released in 2001, the portable media device known as iPod didn’t seem like a likely candidate to kick off as large a change in the music industry as it did. It quickly got refined in future generations, and was the premier, even household, name in portable media players for many years. iTunes, released in 2003, similarly revolutionized the music industry with its easily-downloadable media library that was pretty much the only thing allowing non-Apple computers to sync with iPods. iTunes eventually killed big box record stores such as Tower Records and Virgin Media megastores. Some of Apple’s biggest failures included such products as: * Apple Lisa: Released in the...
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