Steve Jobs and His Management Style

I can’t add a lot to the commentary surrounding the death of Steve Jobs.  When a man of his prestige and accomplishment dies, the media tells the stories fast.  I do have some thoughts on his legacy as a manager.  Mr. Jobs was considered an outlier in management.  His leadership philosophy was simultaneously admired, criticized, questioned, and respected. 

If there was no parking spots close to Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, Mr. Jobs was known to pull into a handicapped space and hustle into work.  Employees stuck notes under his windshield wiper: “Park Different”, mimicking Apple’s Think Different advertising slogan.  The employees also converted the wheelchair symbol on the pavement into a Mercedes logo.    

This parking anecdote reflects the management style of Steve Jobs: for him, the regular rules didn’t apply.  Management experts simply couldn’t fit him into a category.  You can say some things about the way he managed.  He put people at the center, but he never created a freewheeling organization where ideas flew from the bottom up.  In fact, he was a notorious micromanager.  Every product that left Cupertino met Job’s demanding standards.  He was known to scrutinize everything from the number of pixels to the number of screws on the bottom of a laptop.  Jobs was able to inspire astounding effort yet he was known to demean people, even making some of them cry. 

Mr. Jobs created products that were intuitive and made sense to people.  The iPod and the iTunes store gave users an easy way to access the world of music.  The iPhone and apps transformed smart phones from device used for business to a object for entertainment.  He injected meaning and creativity into products in a way that Microsoft could never quite master.  He mastered culture and people rather than focusing exclusively on technical details and engineering.  Jobs was a renaissance man--he was able to skillfully blend liberal arts and technology.  

One example is his insistence on keeping Apple’s software tied to its hardware.  Even when Amazon.com started selling songs that could be played on any MP3 player and Android was designed to work on any participating headset, Apple stuck to this strategy.  If you want to hear iTunes on the go, you need to listen to them on your iPod or iPhone.  Do you want to have an OS X operating system?  You’ll have to purchase a Mac.