COMPARING THE LEADERSHIP STYLES OF LEE IACOCCA AND STEVEN JOBS
Lee Iacocca gained his greatest notoriety as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at the Chrysler Corporation in the late-1970s and the 1980s, although he remained in the post until 1992 (Verespej, 1995). Steven Jobs, who has been lionized for his role in creating Apple Computer, was later forced out of the company when it was failing, and finally was brought back as Apple CEO when the company continued to fail (Carlton, 1997).
The comparison of the leadership styles of Iacocca and Jobs is preceded in this essay by a brief review of the literature on selected theories of leadership. The personalities and leadership styles of the two individuals then are compared.
Review of Selected Leadership Theories
Three theories of leadership are reviewed briefly. The theories reviewed are situational, path-goal, and transactional versus transformational.
Situational leadership theory suggests that leadership style should be matched to the maturity of subordinates; in other words, to the situation encountered by the leader. Maturity in this situational context is assessed in relation to both psychological maturity and job maturity. Psychological maturity refers to the self-confidence and ability and readiness to accept responsibility of subordinates. Job maturity refers to the relevant skills and technical knowledge possessed by subordinates (Hersey & Blanchard, 1996).
As the maturity of subordinates subordinate increases, according to situational leadership theory, leadership should be more relationship-motivated than task-motivated. Thus, as the maturity of subordinates increase, leadership style will progress from (1) directing subordinates in the performance of tasks to (2) the influencing subordinates on actions to take to (3) participating with subordinates in the determination of performance tasks to (4) delegating authority to subordinates for the attainme...