A comparison & contrast of two comparable company leaders - Essay Example

? A comparison & contrast of two comparable company leaders Table of Contents Introduction 3 Leadership style of Steve Jobs 4 Charismatic Leadership Style followed by Steve Jobs 4 Transformational Leadership Style followed by Jobs 5 Leadership style of Bill Gates 6 Autocratic and Delegate Style of Leadership followed by Bill Gates 6 Comparison and contrast of leadership styles of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs 7 The Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid 9 Conclusion 12 Reference 14 Bibliography 16 Introduction With the emergence of the new economy in the digital age the need for leadership and accurate leadership styles have gained all the more importance in organizations. Businesses have increasingly discovered that their successful survival depends largely on their capacity to leverage collective knowledge which consequently depends on the cadre of supervisors and leaders that they possess in order to meet the growing demands of speed and innovation in the fast moving business world. Leadership has attained importance in its ability to influence individuals and groups in directing and supporting their efforts towards accomplishments of organization goals and objectives. Leaders have been recognized as heroic figures that have the capabilities to determining the future and fate of the organization. The search for the leadership traits and characteristics has been continuing for centuries and extensive research has been conducted to find the qualities distinguishing an individual as a leader. History suggests that different leaders have followed different leadership styles over the years; while some have been participative others have been autocratic. However, this largely depends on the personal characteristics of the individuals standing out as leaders. This project seeks to bring forth the differences and similarities of leadership styles pursued by Bill Gates and Steve Jobs who are owners of Microsoft and Apple respectively. This is done with particular reference to the theories of leadership and real life examples from organizations. Steve Jobs has been an unconventional leader and is known as for ability of building consensus and consultative approach. His leadership style demanded high degree of excellence and accuracy from his co-workers and he was known for his blunt release of criticisms. On the other hand, Bill Gates is known for his technical bent of mind and demonstrates task oriented leadership style where he is found to be mostly concerned with the accomplishment of tasks and organizational objectives. Leadership style of Steve Jobs In order to understand the core steps and ideas which led to the growth of Apple and accounted for its success, it is crucial to make a thorough understanding of the leadership style followed by Steve Jobs who had been the CEO of the company during the same period. One of the statements made by Steve Jobs throws light on the style of leadership that Steve Jobs he considered adopting. He had said that innovation is the main distinguishing factor between a leader and a follower. Innovation has been the key to the style of leadership that Steve Jobs has followed in his organization. Also his leadership style has made innovation easily accessible to all his customers such that they remain open to acquiring his products frequently (Hitt, Ireland & Hoskisson, 2010, p.352). In this context it is surprising to note that Steve Jobs did not successfully graduate from any college. He rather devoted all his time to technologies and innovations in his domain. Thus it can be inferred that leadership is a feature which cannot be acquired, rather individuals are born with the characteristics. Steve Jobs is considered to be the central personality in his organization. He has become the icon in the organization and seems to have developed a cult-like personality. This is the reason why Apple is considered to be personality driven (Dailey, 2011). Charismatic Leadership Style followed by Steve Jobs Charismatic leadership typically instils submission and awe in the minds of the followers which ignites their commitment, interest and energy towards the desired direction and consequently produces results which are above which is normally desired (Daft & Lane, 2007, p.359). Charismatic leadership style creates an emotional impact on people as they have an emotional influence over their minds and hearts. Charismatic leaders often emerge during the times of trouble and successful persist in spite of the existence of many odds against them. Because of their inspiring and strong characters, they are able to inspire people and their mere presence helps followers to reduce stress and anxiety (Daft & Lane, 2007, p.359). The credibility of Steve Jobs gets reflected through the fact that during the period between 1977 and 1985, Apple lacked the technological and marketing zeal even though there were as many as 6 CEOs during that period. But during the tenure of Steve Jobs, Apple was able to resume its shape and restore its structure and performance with the development of new products and services and popularising them popular to his customers (Hafner, 2005). The fact that Jobs had found Apple Computers in1976 and by 2005, the company had employed more than 1500 employees is a demonstration of Jobs’ successful style of charismatic leadership. Transformational Leadership Style followed by Jobs Steve Jobs is considered to be the biggest example of a transformational leader. His high quality of transformational leadership gets evident through his success in being able to direct his people to do things which have not been done previously but which he considers essential for realizing his plans and vision. Like a typical transformational leaders Jobs looks for transforming individuals to help each other out and to be encouraging and harmonious and to look at the organization as a whole. According to Dubrin, transformational leadership is defined as one who is able to bring about positive and major changes within a group, organization or society. The transformational style of Jobs gets reflected not only through his attributes in Apple, but also through the transformation of other companies that he has led. The transformation of Pixar into a successful story is an example of his transformational style of leadership (Dubrin, 2008, p.86). Transformational leadership style of Steve Jobs was evident from the fact that it accounted for a big difference in the performance of the organization. Supervisors, executives and administrators need to focus more on the exchange of social, personal and material benefits for the attainment of adequate performance level. The inspirational charisma of Steve Jobs was able to instil the mission of the organization into the minds of employees and articulate a vision of possibilities successfully to them. He was able to merge the self interest of the followers or employees in the organization with the higher level concerns (Bass & Riggio, 2006, p.127). Leadership style of Bill Gates Gates is considered to be one of the most successful entrepreneurs of his time in the world. Known for his immense talent and technical bent of mind, Gates is an example of immense success and profitable entrepreneurship for many years. The success of Microsoft accounts for a true demonstration of the leadership and entrepreneurship of Bill Gates and also accounts for high motivation of the upcoming entrepreneurs of the world (Kiran, 2008, p.18). Autocratic and Delegate Style of Leadership followed by Bill Gates Leadership style of Bill Gates is a demonstration of both autocratic as well as delegate style. The autocratic nature of his personality gets reflected through the fact that he is obsessed with details and checks up everything conducted in Microsoft. He dislikes complaints and prefers accuracy in all activities which is the reason why he has restricted major software giants, competing with him to dominate the world. However eventually he tried to remove himself from the daily operations of the company. Even then he was considered as an industry visionary or rather an authority. The success of the personal computer is seen throughout America and Gates continue to contribute much further in the advancement of Microsoft. He has a very transparent vision and he was successful in aligning resources in Microsoft in attaining that vision (Gaspar, 2006, p.258). The delegate style of leadership of Gates is reflected through the fact that he gives tremendous autonomy to his managers to run their individual departments independently. This is seen through the recruitment and selection processes in Microsoft. Even though the processes of recruitment and selection are conducted by individual departments in the company, Gates remain particularly conscious about the attributes of the software engineers that are recruited. He looks for particular attributes in the individuals recruited while he considers recruitment accounts for a major critical element in the software industry. Thus it is evident that even though he provides a certain amount of autonomy to his members in running of the company, he typically retains of reins in the process. He allows frank suggestions from his employees and remains open to feedback and suggestions (Gaspar, 2006, p.258). Comparison and contrast of leadership styles of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs It is seen that both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs demonstrates similarities as well as dissimilarities in their leadership styles. It is evident that both of them have put all their efforts, hearts and soul into the development of their vision, however, their approaches has differed from one another. The development of the computer language Altair 8080 pc made the foundation of the company Microsoft. He continues to develop two different languages too. Gates has been particularly quick to adapt with the changes. His enthusiasm and hard work has consequently yielded him success and reputation from all over the world. Gates is recognized as a visionary and father figure in Microsoft. He believes in decentralizing of authority and control in the organization and betterment of the organizational structure (Ivancevich, 2008, p.353). On the other hand the vision of Steve Jobs has been different. The development of Apple computers which is hardware making company was undertaken with the purpose of developing computers which were affordable and as well as easy to use. However there have been criticisms against the leadership style of Jobs as he has been inconsistent in his conducts. Steve Jobs has been criticised for forcing people to choose between the Microsoft-IBM Operating system and his own Mac Operating system. This is a demonstration of poor management skills on the part of Jobs and is said to have been the reason for the retarding of growth of Apple (Weihrich & Cannice, 2010, p.371). Also the leadership style adopted by Jobs has been criticized of deteriorating the inter-relations between management and employees and communication within the organization. Deteriorating communication system within the organization and poor relations between management and employees has been detrimental for the growth of Apple to a certain extent (Weihrich & Cannice, 2010, p.371). A basic difference has always existed between the philosophies of the two leaders consistently. According to Bill Gates, Microsoft’s philosophy has been to ensure that every house would have a computer running Microsoft software. This particular philosophy has been more focussed towards running the company’s softwares in every household. On the other hand, the philosophy of Apple has been different. Steve Jobs seeks to ensure that computers are made accessible and available for all and is made easy for use. Thus efforts of the company are directed towards making their computers accessible for everyone in every household and to be used by all too. Both Bill Gates and Steve jobs have been particularly good at developing new and innovative ideas and converting them into successful products to be used. This has been possible mostly because both of them have never retreated from taking risks and have consistently tried working hard to get what they desired even if some of their attempts have gone futile. This also gets demonstrated in their leadership styles and how they conduct with their followers or organization employees. Steve Jobs possesses a very demanding personality which gets reflected through the high standards of performance that he demands from employees in the organization. According to the style of leadership this reflects high concern for the task and less concern for the people. In this regards Gates depicts an authoritative compliance management style. This is the reason why Microsoft has been able to achieve high success in its attempts to be part of each household. In this context it is also important to mention that Steve Jobs also demonstrates a management style which is highly demanding and aggressive too. This is also a demonstration of authoritative style of leadership. This can be explained through the managerial grid proposed by Blake and Mouton to explain the four managerial styles according to the leaders concern for his people and tasks respectively. The Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid Blake and Mouton created a grid in which the concern for task and the concern for people were gauged from being low to high. These dimensions are rated from 1 to 9 in the grid and managers are placed on this grid according to the level of concern that he holds for his people and his production respectively. This is illustrated in the diagram below. Figure 1: The Leadership Grid (Source: Miller, 2009, p.47) According to this grid, leaders having least concern for both people and tasks is said to follow impoverished leadership style. Under this the leaders is considered to be mostly ineffective where he is neither engaged in creating efficient systems in the organization nor creating an environment conducive for employees working in the organization. Under the country-club management style and team management style the leaders is said to demonstrate highest concern for the people but high and low concern for production respectively (Miller, 2009, p.47). The middle of the road management style demonstrates a balance between the leader’s concern for people as well as his tasks. Leaders having the maximum concern for tasks and least concern for people is said to demonstrate authority compliance leadership style. Steve Jobs leadership style can be said to belong to this position of authority compliance style as he shows greatest concern for task accomplishments and is highly demanding and aggressive of his workers. Such leaders’ desire for accomplishment of tasks remains high while the concern for people diminishes further in the process (Miller, 2009, p.47). According to the past achievements Steve Jobs also is a demonstration of situational leadership. The situational leadership of Steve Jobs was attained during the period of the Silicon Valley boom in the 1980s. It was during this time that Steve Jobs founded Apple, which was the very first large scale manufacturer of computers. Jobs’ response to the situation and prompt which consequently emerged with the development of Apple’s user friendly devices which gained immense popularity and helped making the personal computer a very usual and common appliance in every office and household. On the contrary Bill Gates seems to have long term vision and dreams regarding his ambitions which did not arise out of a sudden situation or context. Jobs’s situational characteristics are also reflected through the technical and market innovation which he used for making a breakthrough in the market. Apple is considered the best in the industry in terms of manufacturers of products which are most user-friendly. This is in accordance to the approach of situational leadership in which individuals can achieve leadership functions effective in selective slots. The leader attains role ad function in a particular situation and subsequently convinces followers to follow his footsteps which were exactly the case of Apple Computers (Greenwald, 2007, p.244). The basic difference in leadership styles between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates is that the former is a complete perfectionist and tries to keep all operations under his authority and control. However, the latter believes in decentralized authority and considers distributing control and authority among members in the organization. In this regard it can be said that Jobs' leadership style is more authoritative and does not consider the opinions of other employees. On the contrary, Gates provides allowance and control of authority to other members and invites suggestions and feedback from them. This style is considered to be more participative in nature rather than authoritative. This is because he includes the other members in the decision making and running of the organization. Although both demanded high degree of perfection from employees Steve Jobs’ leadership style is considered being unconventional and has been termed as a “high maintenance co-worker” demanding high level of excellence from staffs, providing them with feedback and criticisms blatantly (McInerney, 2011). Conclusion It is seen that leadership finds utmost importance in the world of business and competition and largely accounts for the success of enterprises. Microsoft and Apple are some of the examples of organizations which have shown tremendous success because of the attributes o their leaders in guiding them. Two of the greatest leaders in this regards are Steve Jobs and Bill Gates who has been pioneers in leading the two world famous organizations Apple and Microsoft respectively. Born with perfect vision and intelligence, these two leaders have shown certain similar as well as certain dissimilar characteristics with regards to the styles of leadership that they have followed in these organizations. Both are philosophical in their minds and perfectionists in their respective fields. This has made them both aggressive and highly demanding of their workers. However, the degree of aggressiveness seems to be higher in the case of Steve Jobs while Gates has shown greater concern for people along with tasks and production in his organization. An authoritative style of leadership is shown more by Jobs as compared to Gates. The latter leaders believe in decentralizing authority and control while retaining rein in the organization while the former prefers to keep total control of authority in the organization. In fact Gates invites and encourages feedback and suggestions from employee’s regarding the making of decisions in the organization. This reflects a more participative style of management in which managers and workers are allowed to put forth their views and suggestions in the regular workings of the organization. Gate’s leadership style is considered to be a combination of authoritative style and delegate style. However, on the contrary Jobs demonstrates complete authoritarian style which can also change according to the situation. Thus he also shows situational leadership style at times. Reference Bass, B. M. & Riggio, R. E. (2006). Transformational leadership. Routledge. Daft, R. L. & Lane, P. G. (2007). The leadership experience. Cengage Learning. Dailey, K. (2011). The Cult of Steve Jobs. [Online]. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15194365. [Accessed on January 02, 2012]. Dubrin, A. J. (2008). Leadership Research Findings, Practice And Skills, 2008 Edition. Dreamtech Press. Gaspar, J. E. (2006). Introduction to Business. Cengage Learning. Greenwald. (2007). Leadership and Followership. [Pdf]. 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