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Our Fickle Relationship with Leadership: Is Rim vs. Apple a Good Metaphor?

In: Business and Management

Submitted By SianzsatioN
Words 670
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I’ve been reflecting a lot about different leadership styles as I’ve been reading Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs and observing the RIM leadership change and ongoing punditry about it. With the proviso that I’m no tech or business guru and I’m using these examples as metaphor (so don’t take them to be stock tips!) let’s take a look at how these two stories translate into leadership archetypes.

Steve Jobs is the poster child for iconoclastic, mercurial leaders. If only half of what is in Isaacson’s recent bio is true, working with him was grueling, filled with bullying, drama, tears and temper tantrums. But also exciting, creative, and episodically even empowering as he pushed individuals beyond what they could imagine they were capable of. Ousted from the apex of the company, Jobs’ odyssey through Pixar and NeXT ultimately brings him back to rescue Apple from its descent into ordinariness. This is the Harry Potter model of leadership: the chosen one, different and special from birth, with abilities virtually super human, able to do things ordinary humans can barely aspire to.

Contrast RIM: co-chief executives have been at the helm, the technology has always felt like it was about being secure and functional rather than dazzling. As critique upon critique mounted (and the company’s market share fell) the company responded with incremental changes to the product and its marketing, tinkered with its corporate governance (hardly sexy), and eventually allowed its co-CEOs to plan a succession on their timing; the new leader is a trusted insider, low on charisma, no revolutions in sight. Even installing a fabulous woman as the chair of the RIM Board – a tectonic shift if you contrast the all male Board of Facebook – didn’t generate much media love. The drama of the rescue or the resurrection is absent from the RIM leadership story. The company plugs away and we

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