Content area
Full Text
Abstract: During the time, especially in the last fifty years, leadership has increasingly become a major subject in the management literature, a subject of much thought, writing and teaching. While the importance of leadership is generally accepted all over the world, there are as many definitions of it as there are organizations. In spite of the fact that the business literature on leadership is so voluminous, there is not an agreed-upon definition of the concept of leadership. Leadership is not only intensely studied, but also practiced in different organizations. How to lead effectively an organization depends on many factors such as the organizational culture, the behavior of the followers, and the personal traits of the leader. The vast majority of successful leaders are multi-dimensional individuals. The aims of our paper are to pres- ent a short biography of Steve Jobs and to highlight his contribution to modern leadership. Our research is based on a literature review. The S. Jobs example illustrates how a transformational leader as him can be a key factor in successfully turning round the fortunes of a company as Apple. The paper facilitates a better understanding of modern leadership, emphasizing the case of S. Jobs, and provides a platform on which to build further studies on the same subject.
Key words: leadership, Steve Jobs, leader, Apple
Jel Classification: M1, M19
introduction
As leadership constitutes a universal phenomenon, it is often discussed and anal- ysed in various environments (e.g., business, academic). Leadership is not only intensely studied, but also practiced in different orga- nizations. Formal organizations embodies "at least two distinctive, yet complementary aspects of the phenomenon of leadership: (1) the structure of organization institution- alizes the leadership process into a network of roles, often in an overconcretized and de- humanizing form; (2) mediating or interper- sonal leadership- what is most evident as leadership in action, operationalizes the prin- ciples of leadership as an emergent process within the context of the former" (Smircich and Morgan, 1982, p. 260). Also, leadership in organizations involves three different levels: team, operational and strategic (Adair, 2002).
During the time, especially in the last fif- ty years, leadership has increasingly become a major subject in the management literature, a subject of much thought, writing and teach...