Paper Example: Leading and Managing Change

My chosen leader is Steve Jobs who was an American designer, inventor, and entrepreneur who was the chairman, chief executive, and co-founder of Apple Computer Inc. The revolutionary products of Apple which include the iPad, iPhone, and iPod, are currently seen to be dictating modern technological evolution. Steve Jobs displayed aspects of leading and managing change through having a strong and unique vision that made Apple the best electronic supplier worldwide (Figliuolo, 2011). He saw the need for progressing in the dangers showcased by troublesome and emotional changes in the history of information technology in the 21st century. The action constitutes the current phase in overseeing organizational change, which was to break down and recognize the need for immediate change (Thomas, 2011).

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Also, Jobs had been a specialist in change due to his visionary authority style. He could frame different backing coalitions amid the start of the change period, which is among the choices change specialists or pioneers can use to effectively oversee change (Forsyth, 2002). Nevertheless, he had both self-confidence and passion for turning his dream into a reality to help change the world through technology, which was successful. He could change the limits of his employees by finding their actual capabilities and focusing and specializing in them. In most cases, leadership is often not about micromanaging or ordering employees around (Baggini, 2011).

Jobs would encourage his employees to challenge themselves for increased productivity, and innovation, and learn from the actions and potential of their colleagues. The depicted approach used by Jobs enabled most of his employees to fully explore their potential. Additionally, Steve Jobs never confined bis abilities into earning huge dollars from his innovations and ideas. He was always focused on inventing unique and exciting innovations instead of focusing on making money (Figliuolo, 2011). The action helped changed Apple to be a trusted, high quality, unique, and well-known brand.

Problem Management and Decision Making

Steve Jobs relied on his inner-self and gut as the main guide to his decisions, which was always golden. He could let other inventors and entrepreneurs win arguments, not because he could not challenge them, but because he wanted to make them feel superior to their better ideas. Jobs seemed to have ever grasped the thinking decision-making point as a team sport, where the perspectives of different people should be integrated into an action course (Foster & Roche, 2014). He believed that when a leader surrounds himself or herself with brilliant iconoclasts and always wins, then the organization will never be successful as ever winning is always not the way to build and develop the judgment capability of the organization.

He depicted the action by narrating his story where he hired Sculley to be the chief executive officer of Apple (Sebenius, 2001). Sculley used the ideas and resources that Jobs took ten years to create to enrich himself. He only said he hired the wrong person and looked for ways of managing the problem by taking the position and allowing the backdating of stock options. Moreover, the decisions of Steve Jobs paid off because his tastes were always good and as the co-founder of Apple, he was allowed to use a dictatorial approach. However, while making his decisions, he knew that he did not know everything and allowed and incorporated other people's ideas for better decision-making (Thomas, 2011). The action, in some cases, prevented him from making decisions that were not from a bold, firm, or positive place.

Consensus Building and Negotiation

Steve Jobs always allowed his competitors to compromise first. He was always silent while making face-to-face negotiations as a way of making the other party uncomfortable. When one feels uncomfortable, the begin filling the dead air by revealing their willingness to compromise or their bottom line (Kurtzberg & Naquin, 2011). Moreover, Jobs never engaged in any negotiation as he could always re-explain the terms of Apple and let allow the other party to negotiate with themselves. Also, to build consensus, Steve Jobs would sell other companies or organizations on the bigger picture. He believed that a revolution of the e-book was coming and that his company would be at its core (Kurtzberg & Naquin, 2011). Thus, through his ideas and actions, he would collaborate with other unknown best organizations to sell their products under Apple's name.

Nevertheless, Jobs would lay out other people's options the way he saw them ascertaining that what he wanted seemed the most attractive option. For instance, while negotiating, he could only declare three options to the organization willing to join his company. Accepting the terms of Apple, making all the distributions through Amazon to see the devaluation of the involved party's products, and completely pulling e-books from Amazon and Apple stores. To be realistic, the party willing to join Apple might be having numerous other options but Jobs' simple list often instilled fear (Fisher et al., 2011). The action will, thus, make the willing organization have no option but to accept the terms in case it wanted to be successful through Apple.

References

Baggini, J. (2011). How Steve Jobs changed capitalism. The Guardian, 6. Retrieved from https://www.immagic.com/eLibrary/ARCHIVES/GENERAL/GMGP_UK/G111006B.pdf

Figliuolo, M. (2011). One piece of paper: The simple approach to powerful, personal leadership. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN:978-1-118-04959-4

Fisher, R., Ury, W. L., & Patton, B. (2011). Getting to yes: Negotiating agreement without giving in. Penguin. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/download/58834379/GETTING_TO_YES_Annotated_with_my_case_studies._.pdf

Forsyth, P. (2002). Successful Negotiating: getting what you want in the best way possible. How To Books Ltd. Retrieved from https://books.google.co.ke/books?hl=en&lr=&id=f7W9sItGk60C&oi=fnd&pg=PA7&dq=Negotiation:+Getting+What+you+Want&ots=zvhqlwMzg3&sig=hWEfbBU3ywlW5hJCpQm_2rxB0Jk&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Negotiation%3A%20Getting%20What%20you%20Want&f=false

Foster, C., & Roche, F. (2014). Integrating trait and ability EI in predicting transformational leadership. Leadership & Organization Development Journal. ISSN: 0143-7739

Kurtzberg, T. R., & Naquin, C. E. (2011). The essentials of job negotiations: Proven strategies for getting what you want. ABC-CLIO. ISBN:978-0-313-39584-0

Sebenius, J. K. (2001). Six Habits of merely effective negotiators. Harvard Business Review, 79(4), 87-97. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/David_Lax/publication/10907942_Negotiating_the_Spirit_of_the_Deal/links/551e0bbb0cf29dcabb039825/Negotiating-the-Spirit-of-the-Deal.pdf#page=19

Thomas, A. K. (Ed.). (2011). The Business Wisdom of Steve Jobs: 250 quotes from the innovator who changed the world. Skyhorse Publishing Inc. ISBN: 978-1-61608-749-4