Characteristics of Business Leadership Assignment

Characteristics of Business Leadership - Assignment Example Paul Jobs, his father, was a machinist who gave young Jobs hands on experience with electronics and helped to fuel his curiosity and passion to work with electronics. It is during this time that the seed was planted and grew to make Jobs who he was, a global icon. Just to mention, Jobs had an adopted sister, Patti. Jobs was a cofounder and pioneer of Apple Computer Inc., Chief Executive of Pixar animation studios and founder of NeXT. His passion for electronics that started early in his life propelled him to admired heights in previously uncharted waters. Jobs helped to design the world of computer technology as we know it today. In his career, like many other successful of his peers, he had many challenges, most of which he managed to elude until he succumbed in October this year to cancer he had been fighting for 8 years. Steve Jobs was an inspiration to many in Silicon Valley as he saw potential in changing the approach on computer production and design of devices and equipment fo r corporate and industrial use. On his death, the computer world lost a brilliant mind, inventor and businessperson (Vivek, 2009). Steve Jobs did three main businesses in his life and at the time of his death, he was registered as an inventor or co-inventor of 342 United States patents and pending patents. All of these were geared towards improvement of the computing experience. In 1970, he and others formed Apple Computer Inc., but on leaving Apple in 1985 due to power struggles, his creative genius did not dampen but he went on to form NeXT computer and Pixar. The two firms were later acquired by Apple and Disney respectively. When starting his businesses, Jobs did not have much but his creative genius and genuine commitment to his hard work. The major challenges that Jobs faced during his business days included competition, power struggles, and hardship in selling his high quality and expensive products. As a startup corporation, the major competitor to Apple was IBM which had mo nopolized the market, making it almost impossible to sell Apple’s computers, though they were of a higher quality (Kahney, 2004). Competition between Apple and Dell computers resulted into a war of words between Jobs and CEO of Dell computers, Michael dell. Later, after Apple was up and running, a new CEO who did not like Jobs’ habit of innovating got him stripped of his duties on allegations of wastage of resources. Steve moved on to form other successful companies; NeXT and Pixar, and Apple had to enlist his services again to save it from an imminent collapse in 1996 (Kahney, 2004). 2. Analyze this business leader's leadership style and discuss how he or she has adapted to cultural differences and how he or she operates the business effectively in global markets Jobs was an aggressive perfectionist who tolerated nothing but the best from colleagues. Though a good boss, if one was not up to his standards, Jobs did not hesitate to terminate the employment, thought he d id so in the kindest words possible. Because of this, in 1993 he was termed by fortune magazine as America’s toughest boss. Employing only the best and being the best at what he did made him a trendsetter in innovation and style, in the growing computer world. Jobs had a hands-off policy when it came to his employees as he did not interfere with their innovation processes. He only communicated