If you’re in love with your iPhone or your iPad, or a variety of other Apple products, you can thank Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, Inc.
I read an interesting article from Fast Company magazine recently that highlighted a little more of his leadership style- that of micromanager in chief. Allow me to share the quote and then I’ll share a few thoughts on the other side:
Mike Evangelist (yep, that’s his name) still remembers one of his first meetings with Jobs. It took place in the Apple boardroom in early 2000, just a few months after Apple purchased the American division of Astarte, a German software company where Evangelist was an operations manager. Phil Schiller, Apple’s longtime head of marketing, put Evangelist on a team charged with coming up with ideas for a DVD-burning program that Apple planned to release on high-end Macs — an app that would later become iDVD.
“We had about three weeks to prepare,” Evangelist says. He and another employee went to work creating beautiful mock-ups depicting the perfect interface for the new program. On the appointed day, Evangelist and the rest of the team gathered in the boardroom. They’d brought page after page of prototype screen shots showing the new program’s various windows and menu options, along with paragraphs of documentation describing how the app would work.
“Then Steve comes in,” Evangelist recalls. “He doesn’t look at any of our work. He picks up a marker and goes over to the whiteboard. He draws a rectangle. ‘Here’s the new application,’ he says. ‘It’s got one window. You drag your video into the window. Then you click the button that says BURN. That’s it. That’s what we’re going to make.’ “
“We were dumbfounded,” Evangelist says. This wasn’t how product decisions were made at his old company. Indeed, this isn’t how products are planned anywhere else in the industry.
The tech business believes in inclusive, bottom-up, wisdom-of-crowds innovation. The more latitude extended, the greater the next great thing will be. Nowhere is this ethos more celebrated than at Google, where employees are free to spend some of their working hours building anything that strikes their fancy. A few of these so-called 20%-time projects have become hits for Google, including Gmail and Google News.
Apple’s engineers spend 100% of their time making products planned by a small club of senior managers — and sometimes entirely by Jobs himself. The CEO appoints himself the de facto product manager for every important release; Jobs usually meets with the teams working on these new gadgets and apps once a week, and he puts their creations through the paces.
Like I said above, and is evidenced by the article, Steve Jobs is a notorious micromanager. Being a micro-manager has always gotten a bad name. No leadership book ever tells you to be that involved in the details. But here’s the truth. Because of his leadership style, and demanding the exact vision that he wants to see, Apple recently overtook Microsoft as the largest tech company in the world.
So here’s what I’m wondering. A lot of leadership books talk about developing core values and developing a mission and vision statement that seemingly bubbles up as the result of lots of meetings and processing. This kind of leadership style places a lot of emphasis on the group.
But in a lot of companies and churches that are really successful, there seem to be leaders who exert a lot of control and authority.
So what do you think? Who’s right? Do you think a Steve Jobs kind of leadership style is consistent with a biblical view of leadership?
[image by acaben]
I think that micromanaging might have its place but there are certainly dangers too. Take Apple for instance. What happens when Steve Jobs dies or moves on? Will it be able to continue to be effective?
If I look at Jesus’ leadership style, he invested all of himself in 12 men with some investment in a larger group of 70 and a little investment in the larger group that followed him and that he preached to. That little group of 12 had only three and a half years with Jesus and yet it ended up changing the world.
Look at Paul in the NT, he would spend a very small amount of time by modern standards with church groups in various cities and they would continue to grow like crazy without Paul’s micromanaging ways…
Christians have one big advantage over the world. They have the teaching and direction of the Holy Spirit.
We need to build churches of people who know how to get their teaching and instructions from the source, not from us.
True, true…
I don’t believe you provided evidence of micro-management, but just a description of an involved executive. I am sure that he picks what products to get involved in, and keeps his involvement at a high enough level. There is no way he could handle things otherwise.
Also, consider the source of control and authority. Jobs is an industry icon and company co-founder. He is not an average manager hired into a working organization. Some people arrive in organizations, and tempted by the allure of power, declare themselves sole masters and protectors of the place. Notice the countless dictators through history. Watch out!
You’re right. That example isn’t the best in pointing to his micro-managing. The whole article gives is a little more context. But I don’t think there is any arguing in the industry that he is a micro-manager. That’s what all the articles about him say, anyway.
The allure of power is very dangerous, like you say.
I wonder if there are some things we can learn from his leadership style, though?
Rodlie, I may be the wild card here…. but Christianity is NOT a democracy. Of course in the Old Testament it was always God’s intention to have a Theocracy, with only Him as their leader, but as we know, the people wanted a king/dictator. And we saw how that worked out, some kings did good, but all too often the OT says the kings “did evil in the sight of the Lord.”
Fast forward to New Testament… yes, the priesthood of all believers means every member is a minister. While it’s true we are all witnesses of Jesus, there is still the structure in question. Ephesians 4:12 addresses this with the clergy gifts Jesus gave to the church: some apostles, some prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. The purpose? To build up the church to be like Jesus. And then of course we see the development go further with elders and deacons and deaconesses. While the structure of NT Christianity does not come with an exhaustive manual, we do see that Paul and others implemented structure into church leadership. There was even a council at Jerusalem where Paul went in order to get his missionary orders. All members are gifted by the Holy Spirit and He appointed those with the “greatest gifts” which are, ironically, the gifts that require the highest level of servitude, for the leadership of the Church. Pastor/Elders were appointed to be, literally, overseers of the local church, to ensure fair and lovingly consistent behavior between the believers, and to guard against false teachers, while they taught how to live like Jesus. Some might call this micromanagement.
The problem with Christianity as democracy is: Who is the leader? Yes, Jesus is our ultimate Leader. But the leaders over His church were not voted for by some democracy, but they were appointed/called by the Spirit, and confirmed by the church. The NT, in 1 Corinthians 12:11 says that the Spirit gives the gifts to whomever He determines. That is how one becomes a leader in the church, not by popular vote. The reason we need leaders is so we can be lead and built up to be more Christ-like, not so they can hold some fancy title or feel power over others. Steve Jobs always had a clear vision in his head and he lead with that vision fueling his every move. I actually think we need more leaders like Steve Jobs in the church. Structure and leadership through democracy stifles and quenches the Holy Spirit. It’s too bad Jobs was a Buddhist instead of a Christian, perhaps he would have rubbed off more of his leadership style.
Interesting. Yeah, I don’t think the issue is whether there were leadership structures in the NT, but what the role of leadership was and how they were supposed to lead. In Matthew 20:25 and on we have a clue where Jesus makes a distinction between godly leadership and secular leadership. In 1 Peter 5 we also get some more clues.