World Leaders: Steve Jobs vs Richard S Fuld - Essay Example

?Running head: world leaders World Leaders Introduction: Leadership is the ability to influence others to achieving goals by providing direction, guidance, encouragement and feedback. For this, individuals need to possess certain qualities, which are identified as the leadership qualities. People that possess leadership qualities and are able to achieve difficult tasks while developing others are considered as good leaders; and those that fail to achieve goals are considered as bad leaders. In this essay, Steve Jobs and Richard S Fuld will be compared for their leadership qualities and accomplishments. Learning from this study will be applied to understand own leadership qualities and key qualities that could help in becoming a better leader will be identified. Conclusions will be drawn based on learning obtained from this entire study. It is first important to understand the background of Steve Jobs and Richard S Fuld. Firstly, Steve Jobs was the co-founder of Apple Inc, the world’s most admired company. He co-founded Apple in 1976, and has ever since been innovating and revolutionising the PC technology. His contributions to this revolution came in the form of ground-breaking personal computers. Jobs’ association with Apple was initially very challenging as Jobs was very clear about how to run his business, which others did not seem to be convinced. In spite of immense growth and success, Jobs continued to face differences with his colleagues due to which he had to depart from Apple Inc. He later started another company, Next, which also did excellent business for almost 10 years; during this tenure, Jobs was able to successfully create another computer platform development company and created numerous computer-animated feature films that became very famous. During this time, Apple had realized its loss and asked Jobs to join back as its CEO. Jobs again created history with this return to Apple through his innovation in the form of ipod, iTunes, iMovies, Apple TV, ipad, and iphone (Lussier & Achua, 2009). Secondly, Richard S Fuld is the ex-CEO of Lehman Brothers that filed for bankruptcy during 2008 recession. Fuld is known for his competitive spirit and his traditional style of leadership. After the collapse of Lehman Brothers was announced, Fuld is known to have escaped from the press and did not want to answer their questions, which many found it unethical; he also did not accept that he had done anything wrong (Koch, 2008). His failure is also mainly due to his high risk-taking actions and risky business decisions; his arrogance and overconfidence can also be blamed. It will be interesting to study the leadership styles of these leaders. Both leaders exhibit certain leadership characteristics such as energy, intelligence, knowledge, decision-making, confidence, enthusiasm, independence and desire to lead (Daft, 2008). However, qualities such as honesty and integrity probably lacked in Fuld’s leadership based on the outcomes seen post Lehman Brother’s collapse. Some common leadership traits can be identified in Jobs and Fuld’s leadership such as, risk-taking behaviors, aggression and confidence, passion, and competitive spirit. However, Jobs also had other traits such as passion, creativity, empathy, and vision. On the other hand, Fuld is less courageous, more authoritative and demanding. According to theory, these traits are that of an autocratic leader (Daft, 2008). Steve Jobs also showed some traits of democratic leadership, such as encouraging others, participation, and dependence on subordinates’ knowledge and abilities. Jobs continuously encouraged his team members to create something new and he was immediately drawn to something different that his team made in terms of technology or products. However, he always looked for perfection and high quality. It was very difficult for the team to match up with Jobs’ expectations. In spite of these findings, Jobs’ leadership can be said to be autocratic and not democratic. Daft (2008) explains that team members tend to perform well even in the absence of their democratic leaders because they derive encouragement and direction from participation and involvement, unlike in the case of autocratic leadership. This proves that Steve Jobs always depicted autocratic leadership, and is evident from the fact that Apple Inc continued to fail after Jobs left the post of CEO in 1984. Only after Jobs returned, employees at Apple Inc started gaining their lost direction as well as enthusiasm. Everyone at Apple Inc was habituated to Jobs directing and driving styles. Applying Fiedler’s contingency theory of leadership (Daft, 2009) to these two leaders, it can be said that both were high on task and low on relationships, which caused their failure at some point. Jobs had to leave Apple Inc during 1984 as he could neither come to terms with his new colleagues and their ways of working nor did he know how to convince others to this ways of working. Richard Fuld neither honored relationships nor followed the warnings from his colleagues, which caused him a big failure; he was only bothered about the results/profits. From Hersey and Blanchard’s situational leadership theory perspective, Jobs can be identified as both directive and selling styles because he directed his team towards his vision while allowing them to perform the rest of the task. Steve Jobs was successful in identifying his followers’ abilities and potential unlike Fuld who did not believe in his team’s capabilities when it was needed. Jobs’ success can be related to his thought process and attitude, which was highly practical and shrewd. He believed that the best way to grow business is to build great products that they would want for themselves. This shows that he was a visionary leader and had clear goals about what he wanted to achieve. He believed in focusing on his strengths rather than comparing himself to others in the arena and trying to be ahead in the race. His constant focus on his strengths made him realize that the only way to keep Apple Inc at the top was to continue to build world-class products and to bring transformation in the PC and mobile technology industry. Considering the leadership style, Steve Jobs was very aggressive, tough, and very demanding; in other words, he had more qualities of an autocratic leader. He was very open and blunt at expressing his thoughts and opinions, without much consideration towards others feelings. He never hesitated to take tough decisions or to be tough with people. People also describe him as creative, loyal, hardworking, committed, and enthusiastic. Jobs was highly intuitive, and his decisions as well as creativity were driven by intuition; this shows how he was able to invent so many different technologies successfully in such short span of time. Richard Fuld may be considered as the bad leader because of the downfall of Lehman Brothers, which is the worst failure in the history of any business. He is known to be a tough competitor and an aggressive person. This means he shows autocratic leadership style. However, his leadership style alone cannot be blamed for his failure. His personality was that of high risk-taking, aggressive, and demanding, which means he would not encourage participation and involvement from his team members. Hence, he was a poor listener, and did not listen to his team members’ suggestions, problems and issues, which could have saved his company from the downfall. He did not show honesty and integrity by accepting his mistakes like a true leader; instead he chose not to face the public or give any justification for his failure. He valued his own dignity rather than his employees and share holders’ honor. A few bad leader behaviors, according to Erickson et al. (2007), include, poor communication, lack of knowledge, poor ethics, lack of integrity, poor interpersonal relationships, erratic and arrogant behaviors, political and dishonest behavior (Aluya, 2009). As Daft (2008) explains, leaders’ actions depend upon their values; if leader gives more importance to terminal values, then he/she will place greater value on recognition and pleasure; and if instrumental values are more important, then the leader is more helpful, encouraging, courageous and honest. Fuld placed more importance on terminal values, which eventually resulted in his failure. Moreover, his risky actions to make more profits and his greed for more profits made him take few wrong decisions, which resulted in his failure. Lack of knowledge can be very harmful for leaders because this will affect their decisions. In the case of Fuld, he took few immature decisions related to some expensive investments, like real estate, without much knowledge, which resulted in huge losses (McDonald, 2009). McDonald (2009) explains that Fuld distanced himself from his followers as he was too ambitious and self-centered towards making huge profits. He ignored some of the warnings from his team members about the potential loss from the real-estate side, which could have saved him from the downfall. Very interesting facts can be learned from both Steve Jobs and Richard Fuld’s leadership stories. Most importantly, to be a good leader, it is important to do the right thing. Qualities such as honesty, integrity, knowledge, vision and kindness will help leaders to win; and selfishness, greed, lack of knowledge, aggressiveness, and unfriendly attitude will lead them to failure. Leaders have to trust their followers and give sufficient chance for the followers to participate and come up with ideas for business. Leaders should be authoritative only when the followers do not have a direction or do not possess the required knowledge to achieve a task as explained in the situational leadership theory (Daft, 2009). If the leaders make use of power and authority to achieve their goals over followers that are highly knowledgeable and skilled, it will have a negative impact on the followers and the outcomes; moreover, leaders will not gain the required trust from their followers. Trust is very important for leaders to inspire their followers to perform through mutual trust and respect, knowledge and reward. Leaders have to be honest and open about their intentions and goals so that they can direct followers in the right manner and gain followers’ trust. My understanding about leadership has also been similar to autocratic leadership style, which includes power, authority, and commanding behavior. Being more participative and encouraging others to participate in activities and decision making will help in simplifying work as well as getting the work done faster and in many other ways. I now understand that leadership is not about authority and power, but about involvement, encouragement and understanding. If leaders have to achieve their goals with the help of their followers, then they have to give their followers the first place in terms of communicating understanding, participating, appreciating and building trust. Conclusion: In conclusion, leadership is not about authority but more about working together. Jobs’ openness, boldness, focus, knowledge, and intuition actually helped him become a better entrepreneur because he was honest, unlike Fuld who regarded his own reputation and interests ahead of the shareholders’ trust in Lehman Brothers. To become a good leader, it is important to understand one’s personality and make changes according to the need while keeping in mind the importance of honesty, integrity, selflessness, and knowledge. Leaders have to work along with followers and not try to rule over them. References Aluya, J. (2009). Complexity of Leadership, Organizations and the Real Estate Industry: Disrupting Existing Systems. Indiana: ArthurHouse. Daft, R.L. (2008). The Leadership Experience. 4th ed. Mason, OH: Thomson Higher Education. Koch, M. (2008, October 7). Sddeutsche Zeitung, Germany. Argentati, R (Tr). Watching America. Retrieved 08 Nov. 13 from http://watchingamerica.com/News/8158/the-gorilla%E2%80%99s-downfall/ Lussier, R.N and Achua, C.F. (2009). Who is a Leader? Leadership: Theory, Application, & Skill Development. (pp:2-30) Mason, OH: Cengage Learning. McDonald, L. (2009). Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers. New York: Three Rivers Press. Read More