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Steve Jobs Said There’s 1 Decision That Separates Leaders Who Achieve Success From Those Who Still Don’t Get It
“In an exclusive 2008 interview, three years before his death to pancreatic cancer, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs spoke about the keys to Apple’s success. With the now-CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, by his side, Jobs dropped this little gem on his audience: ‘My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to make them better.’
In the business of profit and the profit of business, people empowerment and things like ’employee engagement’ or leadership development in burn and churn pressure cookers–then and now–aren’t even blips on the radar screen. It’s survival of the fittest, where individual contributors on the same team have to compete against each other in dog-eat-dog, political environments.
Get out of the way
But Jobs knew better. First of all, Jobs believed in hiring the smartest knowledge workers he could find and then getting the heck out of their way — letting them self-manage and figure things out on their own instead of micro-managing them. That practice alone separated Jobs–and leaders like him today–from the majority of top-down bosses who have to call the shots and control people and outcomes. Jobs said, ‘It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.’
A common vision
Jobs then made sure his people had a common vision, that there was consensus on the vision, and that Apple leaders were actively involved in articulating the vision consistently and intently so Apple employees understood it clearly, got excited about it, and felt deep purpose in carrying it out.