4 Leadership Lessons I Learned From Steve Jobs
The biography Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson gives a fascinating look into the founder/creator of Apple and one of the most influential men in recent history. Here are 4 leadership lessons I learned from Jobs.
1) Don't ask people what they want, show them
Jobs said, "There’s an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been. And we’ve always tried to do that at Apple.”Often times we want to send out surveys and make sure everyone is ok with a decision or change before we make it. But the reality is, 100% agreement will never be achieved and it kills innovation. Now there are certainly times where there are exceptions, but leadership is about leading, which means leaders must be willing to lead. Leadership means people will criticize you, want to keep things how they are, and never want to fix something that isn't "broke."Leaders must be willing to picture a desired future and make the necessary changes and adjustments to get there. If you know Apple, you know they often bring changes to their products that are heavily criticized, only to be emulated by others rather quickly.
2) Demand excellence
Jobs, correctly, often talked about how "A" level players also want to work with other "A" level players. If Apple wanted to create amazing products, they had to demand high-quality work. This meant many people quit or were fired who wouldn't or couldn't keep up.Now, this doesn't mean we should go around firing anyone who makes a mistake or isn't amazing at what they do. However, in my experience, the bar of desired work ethic and standards for doing things is set much lower than it could for many organizations. If you raise the bar and hold people accountable to it, most people will want to reach it. Like Jobs, however, leaders must be willing to have conversations with people who are lagging behind. Everyone else knows who isn't pulling their weight, and it discourages "A" players from giving "A" effort when they know others aren't.That said, keep the next point in mind.
3) You don't have to be a jerk
Kindness and compassion are not words anyone would use to describe Jobs. It's not simply because he wasn't great at those things, but rather seemed to go out of his way to tear people and ideas down he didn't like. Jobs would often be downright mean, and I disagree with him that you have to be that way to get the best out of people.His high regard for excellence lead people to accomplish things they didn't think they could do, but I think he could have still done that without treating people so terribly. You can (and should) hold people accountable, but you don't (and shouldn't) have to do it in a demeaning way.
4) Love what you do and/or create
What I found fascinating about Jobs and Apple is that while not every product or software that Jobs was excited about ended up being successful, there was not a single product or software that was successful that Jobs and the leadership at Apple weren't excited about themselves.One example; the iPod. They all wanted a device that could do what the iPod could do. When the iPod was released, it was a revolutionary product that changed the landscape of the music industry and even Apple itself.So often we make things or work on things that we think other people want or would be helpful to them, but aren't necessarily things that we want or are passionate about ourselves. I've personally experienced this myself recently, which I wrote about here. Do, create, and lead things that matter to you and you'll likely see much better results.