(Response blog)
In reading Catherine Hackwell’s blog “Steve Jobs’ Management Style – Does bad management work?” I found myself thinking about how different management styles work. Catherine argues that Steve Job’s may have been more successful if he was more civilized with his employees.
In my opinion, I think that Steve Jobs typifies many successful tech founders, a brilliant, confident, and ambitious mind that can be overbearing and intense. Steve Job’s is not someone who’s famous or successful as a result of his management tactics, but rather he’s famous for his innovation and determination. Catherine actually does mention this in her post, stating his success is “mostly due to his innovation and less to do with his management techniques”, which I completely agree with.
Beyond this though, I think that Steve Jobs cannot be faulted for his inability to manage, because I think this inability stems from his unfaltering tenacity and passion. I think that if more entrepreneurs were studied, one might find that their determination for their company to succeed often impedes their ability to manage employees well, and this is not an issue limited to Steve Jobs.
Overall I found Catherine’s article really fascinating because it helped me stop and think about why Steve Jobs was successful, and how passion influences business.
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Extra:
– My favourite (very relevant) quote:
People say you have to have a lot of passion for what you’re doing and it’s totally true. And the reason is because it’s so hard that if you don’t, any rational person would give up. It’s really hard. And you have to do it over a sustained period of time. So if you don’t love it, if you’re not having fun doing it, you don’t really love it, you’re going to give up. And that’s what happens to most people, actually. If you really look at the ones that ended up, you know, being “successful” in the eyes of society and the ones that didn’t, oftentimes, it’s the ones [who] were successful loved what they did so they could persevere, you know, when it got really tough. And the ones that didn’t love it quit because they’re sane, right? Who would want to put up with this stuff if you don’t love it?
- Steve Jobs
- (Copied off: http://www.khad.com/post/83594387/people-say-you-have-to-have-a-lot-of-passion-for)
