From Rob Kaiser: “According to conventional wisdom, leadership is about influenc

Question

From Rob Kaiser: “According to conventional wisdom, leadership is about influencing individuals to contribute to group goals. Although the preferred way for leaders to influence followers has changed with the times—command and control leadership during the predictable days of industry, a more engaging person-oriented approach for the softer and less certain knowledge economy—the core assumption remains that leaders contribute to the bottom line by cajoling, inspiring, and motivating followers. The problem is that this view cannot explain „the Apple paradox. By all accounts, Steven Jobs, the founder and CEO of Apple Inc., is a difficult person—abrasive, angry, mean, hard to satisfy, volatile, and supremely arrogant. He reduces subordinates to tears, takes credit for their ideas, curses them in public, and even yells at Board members. According to the conventional model, Jobs is a horrible leader…” However, Jobs has over 100 patents to his name, has created radical new products and new markets, has been deeply involved in the business, and has recruited some of the best talent in the world to work for Apple. Based on your knowledge of organizational behavior and leadership, how do you explain the apparent paradox? What theory or theories can provide insight?

Explanation / Answer

Leadership has an influence on all the aspects of business. Leadership is guided by the relation between leader and followers.

Transactional and transformational leadership

Transactional leadership implies a type of leadership where a leader comes in contact of others so as to get something valuable in exchange. In this style, leader controls his/her followers by praise and coercion. It is also believed that if such employees are not regularly challenged and praised, they may divert their attention towards starting something of their own.

Transofrmational leaders create an environment that fosters knowledge creation and sharing. The employees are motivated to bring about effectiveness and innovation.

Steve Job's leadership style can be categorized into both transactional and transformational leadership.

Transformational Leader:

1. Charismatic personality

2. Great visionary, who had the vision to sell computers.

3. He encouraged and brought about innovation in technology.

4. He was motivating and inspiring and it is only because of this reason that his employees worked towards his ideas which otherwise they were not very convinced of.

5. His aggressive style of woking was explained by him as an approach to create successors.

Transactional Leader:

His leadership style included both rewarding the employees and also brutally reacting. His agression was one reason that made him a difficult person in front of his team.

In addition to this he can also be classified as a task oriented leader, where his focus was more on task completion and goal achievement.

Attributes:

1. visionary

2. Emotionally stable

3. Risk Taker

4. Openness to experience

5. Highly focussed.

6. Passionate

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