Blog
Leadership - Farewell to Steve Jobs
25th August 2011
The resignation of Steve Jobs as CEO of Apple makes headline news today. There are some very useful profiles of Jobs and the success he has led at Apple in various online articles - some links are provided below.
We can expect lots of suitable material and discussion points on the role of CEOs and leadership arising from Jobs’ decision to finally stand down. I like this quote from an investment analyst which points to the need for a successful firm like Apple to build effective teams rather than rely simply on a talismatic leader;
“The quality of a good leader is being able to put together a team around you. Steve doesn’t design every aspect of these products the way the mythology says he does. There are guys who run the floor sales at Apple retailers that could go out and be head marketers at this company. They’ve done a great job of imprinting Steve’s DNA across the organisation and they will continue to innovate and take share.”
The appointment of Tim Cook as the new CEO is a good example of effective succession planning and internal recruitment too. Cook has already been the de factor CEO of Apple for 8 months whilst Jobs has been on his latest medical leave.