There are so many ways to think about Steve Jobs, but to me, it comes down to one thing—true leadership. That’s what set Steve Jobs apart from other CEOs (and politicians, for that matter). Jobs did not look at where the public was going, jump out in front and claim to be leading them as so many so-called ‘leaders’ do. Rather, he blazed a trail to places people didn’t even know they wanted to go. His detractors claim that Apple invented nothing, that they stole or copied everything. Whether that claim is true or not, there is one thing that they certainly didn’t copy—the failed business models of so many other companies that involved a race to the bottom driven by cost accounting. Because Steve Jobs knew better.
Think about Apple for a moment—they make fantastic products and charge premium (compared to the rest of the commodity electronics market) prices. And people line up to buy them. They can’t be kept on the shelves. And it’s not just a small segment of the population that is queueing up for these devices either. Yes, people line up for concert tickets, or pay premium prices for the Super Bowl, but those are very limited situations—there are only a few concerts by a group that the average person could attend and going to the Super Bowl might be a once-in-a-lifetime event. Not so with Apple. We’re talking mass-market consumer devices. If you are patient, you’ll get one. And yet, people still queue. Amazing.
Did Apple fail at times? Sure. Anyone who knows about their history knows about the Lisa and Pippin (neither of which are Jobs’ products, by the way). But their successes so far outweighed those missteps that Apple has become one of the most successful technology companies ever. Those successes came from Steve Jobs’ vision and the hard work and innovation of the amazing team he assembled. At every turn detractors wrote critical articles, pointing out why the product being discussed had to fail. And yet, the public snapped them up. Do you know anyone who has a music player that isn’t an iPod? Apple owns that market. And despite stiff competition from Android, Apple makes the number one and number two best-selling mobile phones in the world (in 2011, the iPhone 4 sold 30 million units, the iPhone 3GS 12 million units, the Samsung Galaxy II 10 million). And the iPad is currently the only commercially successful consumer tablet (though the Amazon Fire looks like a potential serious challenger).
These devices didn’t come about because consumers were clamoring at the doors of technology companies (sure, some of the digerati or technorati were, but those same folks often dissed every product Apple produced because the didn’t like Apple’s business model). They came about because of the vision and will of one man who saw the future and showed people how wonderful it could be. The technologies were disruptive, even subversive, and the entrenched powers that be (especially the Recording and Movie industries) fought tooth and nail to defend their old distribution models. But the public ate them up and demanded changes to the distribution models. The battle here isn’t won, but Steve Jobs led the way.
Fundamentally, Steve Jobs understood true leadership. He understood that his vision had to be communicated and actualized, and he had to have people believe it. And he did it. He didn’t apologize, he didn’t shy away, he put his entire self behind the effort. And people followed him, to the point where the dissenters and the disenchanted proclaimed that Steve Jobs had some kind of swami-like powers—a Reality Distortion Field. For detractors, it was old-school hucksterism or snake-oil salesman behavior. They are wrong. Sure, if the products Apple sold were phony, didn’t live up to his claims or were otherwise fraudulent, that would be a legitimate claim. No, what Steve Jobs was doing was altering reality for everyone—making them see things his way. And it worked. He changed the world. Because he thought he could and he wasn’t afraid to try. Perhaps his best statement ever was the following, part of his commencement address at Stanford University in 2005:
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart…
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
Can you imagine what America would be like if our leaders in business, politics, religion or any other field thought and lived like this? I know some who did, and they created America. Would that we followed their lead.
About Stephen Adams