"Oh, it is actually a piece of shit" said Jobs about the Windows program. "Yeah, it's a nice
little piece of shit" replied Gates.
This blog post is about the leadership styles of Jobs and Branson who were very different leaders. Needless to say, both were very successful. Let's look at some of the differences
in the styles.
Products vs. People
Jobs was an exceptionally unreasonable genius together
with his unbelievable ability to articulate his vision. He made people to build
products he wanted! Most of those products people thought were impossible, but Jobs made them to create them. Think about groundbraking products
such as iMac, iPad, iPhone, not to forget programs such as iTunes and digi
movies from Pixar- along the way of his career, Jobs and his people transformed
seven industries: personal computing, animated movies, music, phones, tablet
computing, retail stores, and digital publishing.
Branson seems to be more down to earth and relaxed
leader than Jobs, although he also is known by setting huge, apparently unachievable
challenges and trying to rise above them. He built Virgin Airlines, Virgin
Music, Virgin Comics etc and now the space trips. However, he argues he has
much more human approach than Jobs. He says his priority is the
people: "for us, employees matter most. Start off with a happy
well-motivated workforce, you're far more likely to have happy customers".
Criticism vs. Praise
Jobs had his special way of challenging people. It was
usually three words: "This is shit". Those words were often said when
the employees presented their innovations or work results to him. People learnt
to interpret them as "Tell me why this is the best way to do it",
says one of the engineers who worked for Jobs. Employees did much better
after Jobs had challenged them, "which shows, you can push back on him,
but should also listen as he’s usually right", he continues. Jobs
also could come back to his employees and present the idea he had just rejected
as his own.
Jobs always said, it was his role to be honest. He would shout at a meeting, "You asshole, you never do
anything right," Debi Coleman recalls. “Yet I consider myself the absolute
luckiest person in the world to have worked with him." If Jobs wasn’t
crying about getting his way, he was usually making those around him to fear-
he had a way of spotting personal weaknesses, and calling them out to
devastating effect. Despite
this, many supertalents worked for him, even loved to do so. It seems the leadership style of Jobs was awful,
but it was an integral part of his personality. The passion, intensity, and
extreme emotionalism he brought to everyday life were things he also poured
into the products he made, says Isaacson. That all was part of his
perfectionism.
Branson who also is regarded as a passionate
leader in the business world has a very different view on leading people. He
believes the people working in his company are members of his family and his
company is a home for him. It is all about people. He thinks, one needs to draw
out the best in people, but by lavishing praise and not criticizing. It has
been his role as a leader to inspire his people to flourish. Branson believes
criticism only makes the employees shrivel. He praises his people and believes
in them and their ideas. He also says never humiliate your employees for the
mistakes they have made, whereas Jobs would shout at them. Branson talks to
them personally about the mistake and finds a quick solution to fix it. This
all sounds like a perfect world!
Hire A Players vs. Promote Internally
Steve Jobs believed that recruiting was the most
important thing he did. He managed all of the recruiting for his team; never
delegating it. He wanted to hire A Players and believed, A Players hire A
Players as they want to work with other A Players. This worked perfectly! Before
Jobs died, he was surrounded by an intensely loyal cadre of colleagues who had
been inspired by him for years. These people were exceptional talents. Jobs
treated them as top athletes who needed to be pushed and challenged to reach
their limits, not to become bothered. He also said, those supertalents do not
need any "baby" things.
Branson surrounds himself with people who are
genuinely excited about what he is doing. He built a philosophy in Virgin of
trying to promote from within. "The advantage is you know someone's
weaknesses and strengths when they get promoted. We often promote people above
the position they'd expect. I've had the cleaning lady running the record
studio. I've had someone who was a flight attendant managing a hotel. She
worked her way up" says Branson.
Delegate vs. Micromanage
Jobs rarely delegated anything, and was very well
known of his micromanagement. Jobs was legendary of his attention to
details, together with his vision. That all links to his perfectionism. After
he passed away, Apple employees missed mostly his micromanagement, not
innovations.
Branson is a great delegator who does not try to do
everything by himself: "whatever you spend all day doing, try to find someone
better than you to do that to replace you at it so you can go off and think
about the next big picture“. He believes an entrepreneur is not a manager, but
someone who is great at conceiving ideas, starting ideas and building them, but
then requires other people for implementing them and managing people.
Although these leadership differences, Jobs and Branson have both been genius leaders with vision,
passion and courage!
I have added below couple of interviews of Jobs. He does not seem to be that awful leader in these videos than one
can read from his biography, but the passion he has is almost tangible:
Last, but not least, let Branson to tell his own words what it means to be an entrepreneur and how to make best out of it:
