Steve Jobs is currently CEO of Apple and one of the world’s best-known business leaders. The many biographies of Jobs on the internet agree on the basic details. He was born in 1955 in California. In 1976, he and Steve Wozniak founded the Apple Computer Company. The next year saw the launch of the company’s second computer – the Apple II – whose success established Apple as one of the main brands in the fledgling personal computer (PC) industry. Apple went public in 1980 and by 1983 Jobs was looking for an experienced corporate manager to oversee the company’s continuing expansion; he hired John Sculley from Pepsi Cola. In 1984, Apple launched the Macintosh, whose innovative design was surely one of the key steps forward in the development of today’s user-friendly PCs.

Your tasks

1. How and to what extent does Steve Jobs’ career illuminate the difference between management and leadership?

2. How can Steve Jobs’ leadership style be analysed? To what extent does the evidence so far conform to the Burns model of transformational leadership?

3. Jobs’ career has been in two industries that are characterised by rapid market change, fast technological development and considerable turbulence. Critically examine the extent to which these situational factors bear upon the leadership style that Jobs has shown over the years.