talk about you talk about empathy and perspective and building relationships
as a leader but I look at leader a leader like Steve Jobs who's known for
his hostile attitude toward people isn't that being default aggressive like you
talk about if I'm more naturally that type of leader should I go with it if it
worked for Steve Jobs shouldn't it work for me so that's a good question and I
haven't actually read the book about Steve Jobs and I think there's probably
more than one but there's the one that's real popular real thick and someone gave
it to me and I have it and I will someday but I haven't read it yet and
I've heard it's really good and all that and I that being said I've I've heard
the same things about you know Steve Jobs that leadership style and he was
real tyrannical and I pulled a couple things here just from well here we go in
his book about jobs time at next and returned to Apple the second coming of
Steve Jobs Allen dushman described jobs rough treatment of his underlings he
would praise as a quote he would praise and inspire them often in very creative
ways but he would also resort to intimidating goading berating belittled
littling and even humiliating them so and there's another article by Ronald
regio who's a PhD in psychology and the article came from Psychology Today and
it says he was obsessively controlling and given to fits of rage throwing
tantrums and yelling at employees and board members he could tear down
someone's ideas or the person himself in a public display some have said he took
credit for others ideas and his confidence led to a sort of over-the-top
arrogance so the guys kind of tyrannical one time when they were putting together
the MobileMe application and it wasn't working well and jobs told the team that
was putting it together you when it wasn't working you've tarnished Apple's
reputation you should hate each other for having let each other down
so okay so first of all let's look at the fact that you've heard me say this
before that people's strengths are their weaknesses and their weaknesses can be
their strengths so in Steve Jobs case obviously some of this stuff some of his
weaknesses that we're talking about here were also strengths because he was
totally beyond driven right he was completely obsessed with with doing good
and all that and and he pressed toward his vision extremely hard he was
relentless in trying to make things happen and again those are very positive
characteristics if you got someone that's really driven and they're driven
to the point of almost being obsessed and you you take that and those are kind
of good characteristics but when they go too far this is why it's dichotomy this
is a balance of leadership right when you go too far you become a tyrannical
leader which is not good it's not good for a team and it's and it's and a team
that is subjected to that kind of attitude will not perform as well as a
unified team period period so the guy was clearly hostile and at the same time
clear clearly he was one of the most successful business leaders in history
right so would you look at him and say okay well maybe I should be that way
maybe I should be a tyrannical leader and I would say to that no you do not
get to do that and here's why let's look at some other characteristics that Steve
Jobs had first of all he was perhaps the foremost technological visionary in the
history of the world right I mean he had a vision of technology that very few
people in the history in the world of had and I will go a little bit more
narrow I think he understood things on a note another level when it came to
technology that the part of how human beings would interact with technology
that's the part that I think he really had just incredible vision for he
realized like oh these people won't want a computer in their house and they'll
want it to reflect the way they live and they're gonna want music in their pocket
they're gonna want all of their music in their pocket and
they're gonna want a phone that can do it you know he had this vision of how
people would interact with technology that I don't think too many people have
hmm so so that's number one number two he had a phenomenal feel for
design right for design and how to merge form and function together in in an in
an aesthetically pleasing and an oftentimes stunning way if you look at
the design and that's uncommon especially for someone to have that feel
for design and still have a massively technical background right so so that
again we're making a person that's like 1% of 1% of 1% already on top of that he
got into business his business at the right time in the right place he had the
right background on top of that the guy could speak well the guy was very
articulate right he was very articulate with his vision if you do you watch his
keynote speeches that he would give at the whatever it is when they have the
Apple Convention what's that thing called the Apple come in yeah they have
that thing well he get up on stage and he'd talk about something and he would
articulate that and he would do it with real clarity and he was very convincing
and he was very captivating and people were you know they'd say apples a cult
mmm they'd follow that guy so he had all those skills those world-class skills
and I'm not using that term lightly I'm talking world-class skills and then
they're all those world-class skills are combined together into one package one
human being and there you got you got Steve Jobs so he's got all those
advantages and then on top of that he's had some luck along the way right he had
some luck in his timing and his upbringing and in the exposures that he
got and being exposed to computer programming and those things back in the
day was rare and he got lucky and having that unfold from so he had all these
things going for him that helped propel him and his company to the top
so now if you're thinking maybe you should use his leadership style the the
questions that you should ask yourself is are you a one-in-a-billion the
technological visionary or visionary of any kind the answer that is likely no
and if you think it's yes maybe you should check your ego a little bit then
you have to ask yourself do you have an eye for design an artistic eye for
design like like da Vinci or Michelangelo if you have that you
probably don't if you think you have that maybe you should check your ego
again are you a gifted speaker and storyteller
and can you convey your vision with total clarity two big giant groups broad
groups of people and if you think you can do that again you should check your
ego can you count on luck or do you want to count on luck too to close the gaps
in some of those other areas so if you could do all those things if you
answered yes a hundred percent to all those questions and okay maybe you can
get away with being a kind of leader that Steve Jobs was but if you're a
normal person if you're a normal human being then maybe you should try and be a
good leader and maybe you should be a leader that builds relationships and
forms cohesive teams and coalition's that help you drive your mission forward
despite the ups and downs of whatever business you're in so that's it Steve
Jobs had a lot of other things that made him successful
yeah and leadership and he I've got to eventually read the book but he clearly
had some people around him that that utilized that skill the skills that he
did had and have and moved and helped move him forward right and other people
at the company other people early and in Apple we saw that hey you know what this
guy he might be a little bit hard to deal with but he's got some things that
we won't find anywhere else so let's prop him up
let's move forward yeah and that's that's the way it works yeah I think
they call that survivorship bias where like you see oh you see a successful
granule yeah yeah he did it that way so let's do it that way um but yeah you you
kind of don't see all the other factors or whatever
almost like you if you really think about it if Steve Jobs were to be like
in these tyrannical ways or what if you were to be less like that maybe there
would be more Super Saiyan but he was so strong in these other areas that it kind
of like mitigated the effects you know there's there's businesses that are
successful because they're a successful business model and they have really bad
leadership yeah and even that kinda thing that yep even the bad leadership
doesn't it's the the model is so good yeah which is a little bit contrary
because you know I would say leadership the most important thing on the
battlefield but in the business world if you have a phenomenal idea then you can
you can be successful on that idea alone now that is that is a unicorn that is
one of those rare things where you have something that's that incredibly
different and stands out from the crowd so much that it's gonna be successful no
matter what you know when the when the early gyms MMA type gyms if you had one
you were successful didn't matter what kind of leader you were because you add
you had it yeah and and now there's competition if you're not if you have
good leadership and you're not putting forth a good product amongst all their
competitors you're gonna have problems yeah you're gonna have problems with it
yeah and the more I kind of listen to you and life the more I realize that
even then the like it's almost like you have to have a minimum level of
leadership like you don't be have to be perfect if you have the one of these
situations where the product of the business model so good but still even
your leadership can mess that oh yeah you can absolutely because you yeah like
you're in a situation where it's like no now no one wants to work for you now
what oh yeah good nice and I'm a gym you don't have any you got to work there
yeah you know the whole time and you can't you know so it's gonna kind of
fall apart after a while so maybe like it in the beginning it'd be good but
it'll fall apart because he you sure for sure and you you can see that who's the
guy that just got removed from uber I'd have to go into D I'd I have to really
drill down but the CEO of uber got removed and you
know the business models awesome yeah and they still remove the CEO why
because there's there's issues there yeah
and so well it's a great business model but we still need good leadership yeah
so yeah like you like it I'm basically confirming what you just said the good
business model will get you to a certain level but then to get to the next level
and you're gonna need leadership and that's why we just it's the most
important thing on the battlefield so what the morale don't necessarily be
tyrannical no in fact don't be straight up a radical yeah don't be and I'm not
saying that there's not times where you have to have a little tyrannical flair
because there there may be times where you need to where you need to flare up a
little bit yeah but it should be rare yeah it should be rare the problem is it
becomes a crutch for people and then they just continue to do it more and
more and more and more and then it doesn't work it's like it's kind of like
drugs - right the like when you like when you flare up on someone and you win
or whatever yeah you know you kind of like it works yeah it worked and you
kind of like it feels good feels powerful hmm so I think some people
that's how you know so they'll do it and it'll work and they'll be like yeah I
don't need that little yeah and what's even worse is like when you win that's
where you you learn from someone that's what you saw and then do you do it and
you don't work for me - and I'll have to be his treat people bad and be a jerk
and yell and the my subordinates will do what I tell them to do and they will
right the subordinate will if you bark at them and scream at them they're gonna
do what you say at the moment mm-hmm the problem is what kind of team of you
built that's a problem yeah what does that support they're gonna do when
you're not there they're gonna do everything they can to cut corners and
and really they don't care about they don't care about you they don't want to
do a good job for you yeah so when you're not there they're
not gonna do a good job for you yeah so you get addicted to yelling and
screaming but it doesn't work in the broad sense of what you're trying to
make happen yeah really falling apart