The humble narcissist
Steve Jobs makes for a riveting leadership case study because he was a remarkable innovator, exceptional marketer, and a visionary while at the same time being vicious, narcissistic and tyrannical. He is the textbook case for someone with a Narcissistic Personality Disorder but what sets him apart from the rest of the narcissists was that he was successful in harnessing the strengths of narcissism while tempering its weakness.
From its inception in 1976, Apple was run by Jobs with an iron first. He was infamous for being consumed with his sense of importance and brilliance to the point where he unfalteringly damaged others by exploiting and bullying them. He was rightly accused of being egoistic, controlling, manipulative, condescending and impassive. He was often guilty of humiliating subordinates publicly, planning coups against colleagues and overriding other’s opinions and suggestions. His weaknesses lead to his ouster form Apple in 1985. At just 30 years old, he was jobless, branded a public failure and on the verge of depression.
Jobs realized that inculcating self-involvement with humility will help him succeed, and that realization only came to him when he was humiliated. When narcissism works in tandem with expressions of humility, it fosters the best outcomes. Effective leaders are individuals who learn to balance disparate leadership qualities with humility to prevent their narcissism from damaging their leadership effectiveness (Owens,
One of the major challenges facing Apple was to get the appropriate replacement of the company’s visionary Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Steve Jobs who died on October 2011. The CEO was responsible for turning Apple into what it is today. Apple is in this case challenged to purse the strategies employed by Steve, that propelled the company to new heights, and which saw the company become a
There are many business issues we all face in the work place today. One of those that I can personally relate to my professional work life is narcissism. Stephen Robbins defines narcissism as being “the tendency to be arrogant, have a grandiose sense of self-importance, require excessive admiration, and have a sense of entitlement.” (Robbins, 2009, p. 113) We have one employee who has the attitude of narcissism. He is very arrogant and thinks that he knows everything about anything. This would be fine if he actually did. However, we are an electrical company. Meaning we work very closely with electricity, which is highly dangerous if you do not know 100% what you are doing. It makes it very difficult to work with someone like this. They make their co-workers feel belittled and they are less effective at the job. Narcissisms are very arrogant in the fact that they do not care about their co-workers feelings. In the article “Narcissism and Emotional Contagion”, Writer Anna Czarna states that after much research, “narcissists are less likely to “catch
Secondly, Steve Jobs used tyrannical leadership style – hire and fire at will – to ensure that his employees were always delivered products of extremely has high quality. The American author Andrew Keen's wrote “There's not an ounce of democracy at Apple. That's what makes it a paragon of such traditional corporate values as top-down leadership, sharply hierarchical organization and centralized control. It's Steve's company – pursuing his vision, at his pace, with his team, making his products. Without Steve Jobs' authoritarian leadership, Apple would be just another Silicon Valley outfit...” (Keen, 2007). CEO of Enterprise Management Associates, said, “Steve Jobs is a special example of a leader who dominated his company employees and guided them rightly with his authoritarian leadership style and unmatchable vision" (Chaudhuri, 26th April, 2012). Steve Jobs employees were always highly concentrated in work and delivered products of extremely high quality,
Without Jobs, Apple was falling apart. In 1996, Apple agrees to buy NeXT for more than $400 million. Apple didn’t buy just NeXT, but they also bought Steve Jobs back. Jobs became the chief executive and Apple’s a multi-billion dollar company thanks to products like the iMac and iPods. Jobs said, “Getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. Blumenthal says, “ In an almost unbelievable way, the dots had connected again. Jobs had been thrown out of Apple, started a company that struggled, and then sold that company to Apple, his first love, where he was now in charge. Of course, none of it would have happened had he not been fired” (197).
What is narcissism? There is no specific definition for it. In psychology, narcissism is a negative and bad character trait. Narcissists have an excessive pride and they obsess with self. In other words, they think they are better than others and only care about themselves. In fact, being confident can also be accused as narcissism. However, narcissism is more than self confidence. Nowadays, Generation Y is being claimed as narcissists and there are so many reason that the critics try to list it out to prove their claim. In my opinion, Generation Y is just adapt to the environment they are living right now. Accusing Millennials as narcissist is not accurate.
Steve Jobs on the other hand has a very innovative leadership style; he was a perfectionist who had the courage to change his mind. Steve was a very unconventional leader, he was very `high-maintenance’ who demanded excellence from his staff and was known for his
Much of Apple’s success has been attributed to Jobs. With a unique ability to visualize innovative product designs and predict what people would like to have, Jobs was known to be obsessive about process and detail. However, his influence and his presence in the whole company made a hard struggle on Apple by the time of his another leave for medical reasons. This additional challenge for Apple started when Jobs handed in the role of control to Timothy D. Cook, the current COO with a prior announcement. Jobs will be difficult to replace, since it is considered that no other person at Apple has had the experience of founding the company, being asked to leave the company, and returning years later to save it from bankruptcy just like Jobs was. But then, although the challenge soon to be faced was getting harder, several analysts are confident that Apple will survive the loss.
Steve jobs demonstrated to the world just how fundamental technology is in our developing environment. He exemplified a successful and innovative leader, especially in the face of failure. One could argue that although Steve Jobs was an extremely influential businessman of his time, he had numerous tragic flaws. Egotistic is a word that describes this illustrious worker. Credit for ideas were never given to the instrumental “behind the scenes” intellectuals, and without the them, he may never have been so successful. While he was working for Apple, people would always struggle with the individualistic approach he had and would often times complain about his boastful nature. He exhibited qualities that made his dislikable, however without Steve Jobs the iPhone, a
Personal humility includes a leader who is never boastful, acts with determination, relies on group success rather than being selfish and taking all the credit, never blame other people for his mistakes or the customer, and looks for ways to improve (Curtis & Manning, 2015). My lead never boasted about his success’. For example, when he received an interview offer for the transportation supervisor or even when the assistant general manager approached him with the offer of a supervisor, possible logistics manager position within the warehouse, he never went around boasting about his success. Instead, he allowed his work and the success of his team to show what he was capable of. He was also never selfish of the success of his team. When our department had no accidents, met our hourly picks, nothing
In 1997, what is now arguably the most recognized brand name, was caught in a downward spiral further fueled by a rapidly maturing rival. In an effort to stem the hemorrhaging, the flailing company had cycled through one Chief Executive Officer to the next, but yet continued to lose market share and profitability. It was not until the return of a high-profile alumnus did said company reverse course and ascend to technological supremacy, drastically altering the consumer culture landscape along the way. Steve Jobs, in assuming Apple’s reins in 1997, armed with vision, a new strategy, and an implementation plan, shepherded the fabled technological turnaround of the
Great leaders care about their people more than others. Narcissistic? Yes, but they also care about others. Narcissism is not bad if you don’t disregard others views. In this essay I will show why Patriotism, Democracy and Freedom are the most important values in America. Also how narcissism, if you care about others is better than low self esteem.
The NPI-16 will be entered in (A) or (B) format, and it is not a Likert scale. The participants will be asked to complete the Narcissistic Personality Inventory 16, and the NPI-16 items are taken from across the dimensions of Raskin and Terry’s (1988) 40-item measure. Ames, Daniel R., Rose, Paul, and Anderson, Cameron P., (2006) created The NPI-16 as a shorter construct of narcissism. These 16 articles consist of two questions in an A or B format (e.g. A. I am no better or worse than most people. B. I think I am a. exceptional individual). One of the dual sets (either A or B) is certified to the Narcissism factor. An indicator is specified to deduct the scores. The higher scores for the Narcissism element stipulates higher scores for Narcissism. The standard score for the general populace is 15.3. The classic score for actors/actress is 17.8. It is significant to ponder which traits are dominant. A comprehensive score that duplicates more themes on self-prominence, entitlement, attention-seeker, and manipulative is more motivation for concern than an individual who scores high on power, self-dependence and
One of the worlds most valuable company is Apple. Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Macs and many other devices. It all started when the 21 year-old college dropout. It was no straight path for him to get to what he created. It was more like a windy road. It was evident from his early years that he had no grand plan to do what he has done. However, Steve’s windy road growing up, jobs found inspiration and creativity and most
In 1997, Steve Jobs returned to Apple as an advisory and with the purposes of reshaping the product line. The changes made by Jobs resulted in increased sales and $309 million in profits. Job changed the mindset of Apples management and development team. He encourage them to have the “think different” management style that promotes the development of products that are ahead of the technology and design curve, and a creative retail strategy. It is this strategy that would eventually make Apple the best-selling company in the PC industry.
With the recent passing of Steve Jobs, there has been an intense spotlight focused on both the man and the company he built. Most of the attention has rightfully been focused on Jobs’ passion and creativity, as well as the remarkable period of innovation he preside. As a symbolic leader, the man not only once saving the company from bankruptcy but also building up a well-known brand that had integrate with our daily life – Apple.