"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."- Steve Jobs
As you probably already know, Steve Jobs recently resigned as Apple's CEO. Pretty startling news saying that Apple is dominating in the smartphone market, and seeing major success with its Ipad.
Do leaders really determine the success or failure of a company? Or is a strong team of hardworking, dedicated employees with innovative ideas enough to maintain number one market share?
Jobs' leadership has had significant influence over the Apple brand throughout the years. There was a time when Jobs left Apple, but later returned as CEO in 1997. Six months after his arrival, the Apple brand seemed to take off. Prior to his return Apple was struggling financially- they weren't profitable.
In 1998 Jobs was able to restore profitability and significantly increase sales through launching a marketing campaign around the slogan 'Think Different.' This campaign spread the idea that people who used Macs were "dreamers that could change the world." While Microsoft was focusing on selling the attributes of it's products, Jobs was focusing on the feelings associated with the purchase and use of his products. (As I blogged about before, if you can tie an emotional feeling to your product, you have a winner).
How does this tie into leadership?
Will Apple continue to 'Think Different'? Or will they slowly creep into the status
This summer I read the book Onward, written by Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks. He spoke about how Starbucks lost its way after he resigned as CEO. It was not until his return as CEO that the company started to see the same successes they had once been familiar with. I'm wondering if the same will happen with Apple. We've seen a strong correlation between Apple's success and the return and resignation of Jobs as CEO.
quo?
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