3 leaders worth following more than Steve Jobs
Be the sculptor who knows how he is sculpting
Internet is littered with quotes from Steve Jobs.
He was a genius. He was visionary. He was charismatic. He was a great speaker. He could rally a crowd behind him.
But that does not make him a leader worth emulating.
Follow those who can be followed
There is no pattern to Job’s decision making because he was driven strongly by intuition. He disrupted industries because he was seeing what others did not see —in a way, it is a distorted way of thinking that one cannot develop by trying.
In a way, he is the genius who cannot rationalize why he is doing it the way he is. For him, many of the answers were — “Because I am saying so”.
We all know he was not the gentle, likeable leader. He got things done by coercion rather than persuasion. He got away with it because of the end results of Apple’s success.
It is hard to be like him.
But more importantly, it is hard to want to be like him.
The danger of trying to be Jobs
Yes, it is actually perilous to try to become Jobs. When founders try to emulate him, they end up mistaking certain of his traits a precursor to his genius.
Wearing same style of clothing, being arrogant, firing employees for trivial reasons are the side effects of his quirky thinking and success, not a reason for it.
Jobs got the kind of adulation that people can only dream of. This has also led to a universal following as well as influence to the extent that everyone is looking for the next Jobs and the most successful founders are trying to make themselves seem like him.
A very recent example that comes to mind is Elizabeth Holmes — yes, the founder of the disaster called Theranos. John Carreyrou (Author of Bad Blood) calls Theranos the biggest corporate fraud since Enron, a tale of ambition and hubris set amid the bold promises of Silicon Valley.
Media had hailed Holmes as the wonder woman and next Steve Jobs — not failing to highlight her affiliation for turtlenecks.
I am not saying that the fraud that transpired by Holmes is inspired or has anything to do with what or how Jobs did certain things but I’m struck by her emulation of Jobs.
It is easy to think that being compared to Jobs can relieve one of the responsibility to be nice or less of a prick.
For that matter, Hitler was also charismatic and achieved what seems impossible in the hindsight. There is more than excellent management at display when we look at how Hitler and Jobs bended the reality to accommodate their ideology and rebelled against the norm.
This post reveals some striking resemblances in the personal lives of both men without trying to sensationalize it.
Jobs operated in a way that was innate to his personality and hence, not easy to adopt for others. When looking for a fiery inspiration or a born leader, he is a good role model.
But when you are looking to learn how to be a good leader, you need to look up to those who started on a common ground and became good leaders later on. Their evolution can be tracked and adopted as a practice.
Three names come to my mind.
1. Satya Nadella, Microsoft
“I”m also grounded in our challenges, in fact, that’s the adventure […] which creates the competitive zeal in me to do great work.”
I had an offer from Microsoft Seattle when I finished my MS. But it wasn’t the cool company back then & I headed to Wall Street instead. Looking at how Satya Nadella has doubled Microsoft market cap in 4 years, created the biggest cloud business, & changed the culture of a behemoth like Microsoft — I feel incredibly inspired.
It really is a scenario no one envisioned 4 yrs ago.
And then I read how he raised a son with cerebral palsy.
These are the circumstances that break you or transform you — it probably formed the basis for his style of empathetic leadership & the result is in front of the world.
Transaction happens between two people, not companies, not two entities. Empathy is what allows me to deliver my best by understanding what is best for you.
Satya has truly shown the potential of empathetic leadership.
2. Jeff Bezos, Amazon
“We’ve had three big ideas at Amazon that we’ve stuck with for 18 years, and they’re the reason we’re successful: Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient.”
There is no better example of customer driven leadership than Jeff Bezos at Amazon. What makes Jeff emulatable is the way he has scaled Amazon across industries, and across geographies.
When coming to hiring new employees, Amazon process is as structured as it gets in the industry.
If you interview for any position at Amazon, you will be closely evaluated to determine whether you are a good fit with its culture or not. Amazon has listed 14 leadership principles and any newcomer is expected to know it, practice it and live it.
By creating such a process, Bezos has ensured that Amazon legacy lives on wherever and however it expands.
Further, Bezos is good at articulating how he thinks.
It means you can actually learn from him. John Mashni has a great article on it.
Bonus: Watch his interview from 2001 about how he developed the famous regret minimization framework.
3. Girish Mathrubootham, Freshworks
“When people say entrepreneurship is about taking risks, I say that it is about minimizing the numbers of risks that you take.”
You may not have heard of him. He is the one of the most successful entrepreneurs of the current age from India.
He hails from a small village in South India and had no job upon graduation. He today has taken his company Freshworks to a billion dollar valuation.
I had the delight of interviewing him personally in my latest book, No Shortcuts. It was this first hand experience of hearing him talk about his journey that made a lasting impression on me. After all, building a successful startup in India is 100x tougher than in the West.
Freshworks is a helpdesk software that Girish decided to build when he saw the existing customers of Zendesk complain about pricing in a thread on Hacker News. Today, Freshworks is the biggest competitor of Zendesk.
He is the perfect example of how to spot an opportunity and run away with it.
He is the perfect example of understanding the rules to be able to break them.
He is the perfect example of how to build a culture in a fast growing company.
In the end, I am a Jobs fan myself and most likely, you are too. He left a legacy and made a dent in the universe that, till this day, is inspiring many entrepreneurs worldwide. Stay inspired.
But when it comes to developing or learning how to do it, there are examples more worthy of following.
WANT TO BE A BETTER ENTREPRENEUR?
I’ve created a list of 15 business books you have not heard of that insanely successful founders swear by (apart from the same old Zero to One and Lean Startups!)
Nistha Tripathi is the author of No Shortcuts — rare insights from 15 successful Startup Founders.
