Introduction
The successful of business organisations is often depended on the leaders or executives who drive leadership in these business organisations. Business leaders are the main strategists of business programs that define the success of the firm in the industry and the economy in which it operates. Executive competence is one of the leadership attributes that combines other enabling qualities for business leaders (Henman, 2011).
There are many notable business executives across the world that have helped companies to gain strong positions through innovation. The late Steve Jobs id on of the most commonly known executives for his ability to drive Apple Incorporated to what it is today. It is argues that Jobs was able to develop the company through executive competence that he developed over time. This paper discuses Steve Jobs and his leadership skills that aided him in attaining executive competence that enabled Apple Incorporated to grow to success.
Overview of business performance and executive competence
It is important to note that no business company can attain growth without a clear and visionary leadership from the person leading the company. The company’s success is often based on the policies that are developed and how these policies are implemented by the organisation.
Organisational leaders or executives are the overall overseers of policies of companies since they approve the policies and ensure that these policies are implemented to the latter. The kind of policies that are developed and their respective implementation depend on business leadership qualities of the executive. The executive must have a clear picture of where he or she ought to drive the company to (Goleman, 2011).
Goleman (2011) observed that good business leadership skills of organisational executives often result in positive business outcomes for firms. This makes firms more competitive and positions them in the sense that they become more strategic in the market. Business leaders form the first brands of organisation that they are heading.
Steve Jobs is one of the most echoed business executives having taken over leadership in Apple and diving the company to greater heights. Though business leaders are shaped the organisational environment, they should to have more influence to the organisational environment.
They need to take charge of the environment and subdue to favor the practices of the company and bring about achievements. This is what successful business executives like Steve Jobs were able to do. The performance of Steve Jobs as the Chief Executive Officer of Apple incorporated is linked to many factors most of which revolve around the business leadership skills and competence.
Performance of Steve Jobs as a senior executive
Business executives have to be transformative in nature. Transformation is one of the most desired aspects in organisational or business leadership. Steve Jobs was termed as one of the most transformative oriented executives in the world by believing in change and innovation and making that change happen through innovation.
This is one of the aspects of executive competence that made Steve Jobs leave a legacy by making Apple one of the leading companies in the competitive information and communication technology industry. Transformational leadership is argued to drive innovation which is one of the most desired attributes in organisational positioning.
One of the most important transformative aspects of Steve Jobs is his belief in innovation and the subsequent support and involvement in organisational innovation leading to creativity in the company (Mohr, Sengupta & Slater, 2010).
Jobs had an open and creative mind having been one of the important players in the information technology industry before being appointed to head Apple into developing most innovative products. Most of the products that were developed during the tenure of Jobs as the Chief Executive Officer of Apple have been termed as being evolutionary. Jobs was directly involved every step of developing these products; being a specialist in information technology.
These products include the iPhones, iPads and iPods which have left a big mark in the information and communication technology industry. Perhaps, the most important thing to ask here is what it takes for a person to be a good executive and drive change in an organisation. They say, experience is one of the important considerations of the ability of a person to manage a firm. This is a weighty factor and can be easily linked to Steve Jobs as a success factor an icon in business leadership (Schermerhorn, 2011).
Steve Jobs operated in the information and communication technology industry for long before being appointed to lead the Apple Company. Jobs had developed a great understanding and a passion for the company. He only got a platform for exploring his passion for the industry in Apple. Jobs carried a broader vision in him about the telecommunication industry.
He understood what was needed in the industry and the direction that the industry needed to take and executed that in Apple incorporated. Jobs took advantage of his position as a chance to explore (Betz, 2001). This is cited as one of the reasons why Jobs was able to effectively execute innovation in the company.
This can also be used as a basis for attaining executive competence for other companies. The use of technocrats in managing enterprises is taking course in many companies. This is a positive development basing on the Case of Steve Jobs and innovation in the Apple Company. Steve Jobs is referred to as a genius in information technology which s true because he was an active participant in thinking and developing of innovation (Schermerhorn, 2011).
Jobs was applauded for being able to articulate well between the vision and the objectives of the organisation. This precisely lies with the fact that the personal vision of Steve Jobs was to a big extent related to the vision of the organisation. Jobs always saw a big potential of delivering in the company and put this vision to work by devising better strategies to drive the vision of the organisation.
Good leadership and other communication and entrepreneurial skills combined to realise the vision of the firm. A business firm may have a good vision, but this vision can only be realised when the leader of the firm is able to read into the vision. The leader reads into the vision by devising strategies that are able to drive the company towards the achievement of objectives underlying the vision.
Realising the need for innovation so as to keep per with the competition in the company, Jobs embraced investment in research and development to back the development. During his tenure, Apple was rated as one of the companies that heavily invested in research and development. This was however paid off by the results of research and development as was implicated in innovative software and hardware products that have been produced by the company (Dawson & Andriopolous, 2008).
The other important factor of organisational success in the economy is the ability of the chief leader of the organisation to embrace a positive working environment. This refers to the relationship between organisational employees and the executive of the organisation. Without this, an organisational can hardly be innovative because the level of innovation often relies on the cohesiveness of product development groups.
The ability to communicate, foster, develop and manage employee and employee relations cannot be left out at the mention of Steve Jobs and the Apple Company. Jobs had good skills of communicating with employees in the company making him easily work with all workers in the company (Nelson & Quick, 2011).
Jobs put him at a level where he managed to bridge the gap between him and all the employees. This ranged from the manner in which he dressed to the way he communicated with and engaged organisational teams. While most ideas on product development and innovation were developed by Jobs, these ideas were implemented by organisational employees.
The ability of the employees to adopt and implement the ideas is associated with the ability of Jobs to effectively communicate them to innovation or project teams in the organisation. For most of the innovations, for example, the development of the Mackintosh computer by Apple, Jobs had the whole concept behind this but communicated it to project engineers. The project engineers were able to implement the whole concept to the later (Nelson & Quick, 2011).
Therefore, the employees of firms are very important assets which drive success in business organisations thence the success of the CEO and the company. Therefore, executive competence is also reliant on the ability of executives to initiate and maintain positive working relations which Jobs did to bring success in Apple (Rumelt, 2011).
Executives are the main defenders of organisations especially when organisations are troubled by competitors. Steve Jobs strongly defended the products of the company in the market by taking head on with companies that had intentions on infringing on the copyrights of Apple.
This prevented Apple from being a subject of unfair competition from other companies the market. Jobs, strongly advocated for international copyright laws which have helped in protecting the identity of the products of Apple. With many companies operating in the industry and producing substitutes and complementary products, Apple was assured of the uniqueness of its products. This is an important business leaders fighting for the company at all times (Henman, 2011).
Conclusion
Business executives are the leading players in organisational success because they are the chief players in organising and executing operations in organisations. It has been noted that a lot is often expected of business executives or leaders because they are the main influencers of the organisational environment.
Organisational executives are expected to make a lot of efforts to learn the external business environment and implement internal practices which drives development. All this depends on executive competencies of organisational leaders which are manifested in skills, characters and actions of firm executives.
These are the qualities that have positioned Steve Jobs as a successful chief executive officer during his leadership period in Apple. Apple’s success is strongly attributed to the business leadership qualities of Jobs which bond with personal qualities.
References
Betz, F. (2001). Executive strategy: Strategic management and information technology. New York: J. Wiley.
Dawson, P., & Andriopolous, C. (2008). Managing Change, creativity and innovation. London: SAGE.
Goleman, D. (2011). HBR’s 10 Must Reads On Leadership. Boston, MA; Harvard Business School Publishing.
Henman, L. D. (2011). Landing in the executive chair: How to excel in the hot seat. Pompton Plains, NJ: Career Press.
Mohr, J. J., Sengupta, S., & Slater, S. F. (2010). Marketing of high-technology products and innovations. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Nelson, D. L., & Quick, J. C. (2011). Organizational behavior: Science, the real world, and you. Mason, OH, USA: South-Western Cengage Learning.
Rumelt, R. (2011). Apple and Jobs. Web.
Schermerhorn, J. R. (2011). Organizational Behavior. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley.