Charismatic Leadership Style Of Steve Jobs

Charisma is just a trait and means to have a vibrant persona. The difference between a charismatic leader and a normal leader is that a charismatic leader is more charming and is usually more persuasive than a regular leader.

One of the single most important traits to possess in order to be an effective leader is charisma. Jeff Skilling exuding charisma and was able to convince the media, shareholders, employees, and everyone in between that he was acting in their interest and running a company with integrity and honesty. Skilling’s charisma can be seen in many instances during his career at Enron, but one of his more striking instances of charismatic leadership was how he was able to influence all of the workers at Portland General Electric to convert their 401k’s into company stock (Gibney, 2005). Though this may sound like a relatively commonplace act, it took massive amounts of charisma to gain the trust and confidence of an entire company’s employees.

The charismatic leadership model is similar to the transformational style of leadership; they focus on treating the followers as a whole person that is a vital part of the organization. The leader will be proactive with problems and find solutions before the problems arise. They will assess the situation, identify the possible problems, analyze the environment for solutions, and verbalize the plan to the team members to produce an effect of on boarding. The leadership model is said to be effective based on the fact that the leader is building on self esteem and self worth issues from the

Steve Jobs was a man that was creative, he had a vision, and he was a leader. His creations led him to begin one of the world’s most successful computer companies in the world, which took the technological industry by storm. The leadership quality that Steve Jobs exhibits more than any is charismatic leadership. The idea of charismatic leadership can be traced to Max Weber (1947), who believed authority was based on specialty characteristics, heroism and unique personality of an individual person. All charismatic leaders have at least four characteristics which

“ ( www.bbc.co.uk ). Steve Jobs has highly impressive leadership attributes, and he is a huge reason as to why Apple has been such a successful company.

Antonakis, J., Fenley, M., & Liechti, S. (2011). Can Charisma Be Taught? Tests of Two Interventions. Academy Of Management Learning & Education, 10(3), 374-396. Antonakis et al starts off research by posing a question. “Can leadership, and in particular charisma, be taught? The authors set out to prove in fact that training can training managers a specific set of charismatic leadership tactics not only improves their charisma, but their effectiveness as leaders. Charismatic leadership is defined as by Antonakis et al as being a sub element of transformational leadership. In the first study researchers assigned 34 middle managers from a Swiss company into two groups randomly. One group received training in charisma and the others received no training. The group receiving training were trained in principles on charismatic leadership. In the second study focused on 41 MBA students enrolled in a leadership course at a Swiss public university monitor charismatic leadership. The students were videotaped giving a 4 minute speech addressing problems within the company while also giving a plan of action to staff. After, speech was done, each participant received training in charismatic leadership and was asked to deliver the same speech 6 weeks later by videotape. Results reveal that improvement and effectiveness as a leader were made in both research groups. This study concluded that feedback is important to the growth and development of leaders and must be provided to

Transformational leadership are classified into four components which are pointed out by Bass (1990, p. 28), ‘charisma, idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration’. Apart from these basic roles, charisma leadership, a collection of personal characteristics, has its own role of literature since it has similarity with transformational leadership and they are contribution to each other (Bertocci, 2009, p. 43; Judge & Piccolo, 2004, p. 755). Leaders’ behaviour reflects them being role models for their followers. Followers respect, admire and trust their leaders who have charismatic effect on their followers to an extremely high grade are willing to take risks

Bryman, A., 1993, ‘Charismatic leadership in business organisations: some neglected issues’, Leadership Quarterly, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 289-304.

Many great leaders have one thing in common and that is charisma. Charismatic leaders are those that have the capability to inspire and encourage people to do more than they would normally do, despite obstacles and personal sacrifice. (Daft, R.L, pg. 364) Charisma is what provokes energy and commitment out of its followers. These leaders possess the power to motivate their followers to do almost anything. They create an atmosphere of change and express an ideal vision of a better future. The most common characteristics of the charismatic leader involve maturity, communication, humility, and inspiration. These unique qualities impact their followers and conduct themselves in such a way that allows for remarkable results. Then

The evolution of leadership theories might have started in the nineteenth century with the term “great man”. As Kirkpatrick (1996) explained the leaders had traits like nobody else. Carlyle (1907) claimed that leaders have special traits of character and the exceptional personality eventually distinguish these people from the rest. However, according to Ronald (2014), one was advised to copy these special traits to become a leader which was unlikely to succeed by imitation. At the same time, the Great

Weber’s second type of influence is charismatic authority. Charismatic authority is characterized by a leader with rare personal features that attract others to them. Charismatic leaders have qualities that are powerful and challenging

Finally, charismatic authority arises in periods of social unrest and change and thus depends not only on the existence of this `exceptional' individual but a social context which produces large numbers of individuals who are `disenchanted' with the present social institutions. Charisma, is in Weber's view ` a great revolutionary force' for social change. Charismatic movements always seek to dismantle or overthrow existing/traditional forms of authority and power. Finally, Weber suggests charismatic authority as inherently unstable since it is usually based upon a `personality cult' of the leader. When the leader dies then the movement will `die' with him/her or ossify and institutionalise itself into what Weber refers to as `the charisma of office': bureaucracy! Look at Fig. 1, (at the bottom of page 2 of this document) which I have taken and adapted from Bryan Turner's book. To understand the historical process we will need to begin with the `magician' and move `clockwise' towards `secular man'.

Charisma theory is described as a “gift”, or a unique superiority of an individual character. This is set by an advantage of which the individual is set apart from the common man and treated as a gem with supremacies (Charismatic vs. Transformational, 2011). Whereas the transformational theory is defined as leaders who enthuse followers to use their own egocentricities to benefit the organization (Charismatic vs. Transformational, 2011). These leaders also possess a gift of having a great impact on their followers (Charismatic vs. Transformational, 2011). Theories are apprehended around the world and almost every aspect of life possesses a theory behind them, whether there is action or unfolding someone’s personality. There are two leadership theories that will be conveyed, Charismatic Leadership and Transformational Leadership. Behind each theory is a founder that explains these concepts, James MacGregor Burns the founder of Transformational leadership (Conger, n.d.) and Karl Emil Maximilian "Max" Weber the founder of Charismatic leadership ("Transformational," n.d.). Over the course of time, movies have been made, demonstrating these theories, for example an old classic “The Lion King” ("Leadership Movies," 2008). This movie coveys both MacGregor Burns and Karl Emil Maximilian "Max" Weber’s theories.

The Political scientist George Mac Gregor Burns, has been one of the first one to take the challenge for a throughout analysis of this topic. He has developed Max Webber’s thinking on the sources of authority and charisma by bringing a distinction between transactional and transformational leadership.

Charisma has been associated with leaders and leader attributes since time immemorial. Webster’s dictionary defines one meaning of charisma as a divinely inspired gift, grace, or talent, as for prophesying, healing, and etc. As the definition suggests, the attribute of charisma has long been associated with religious leaders. Charisma was not formally associated with secular leaders or a secular charismatic theory of leadership until Max Weber—a German sociologist—wrote of it in that context in 1947 (Bryman, Collinson, Grint, Jackson, & Uhl-Bien, 2011, p. 86).