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Leadership Styles And Achievements Of Two Tech Leaders
Executive Summary
This report aim to present the leadership techniques and personality profiles of two famous business magnates, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, and assess the extent of the similarities and differences between these two prominent personalities of the new world. Here Gates is characterised as transactional and pragmatic at Microsoft while Jobs is presented as autocratic and visionary at Apple. The evaluation afterward discusses how their leadership styles defined the success of the endeavours as well as their companies and industries .
Introduction
The following report seeks to bring out the differences and similarities in leadership of Bill Gates of Microsoft and Steve Jobs of Apple. These two leaders transformed the technology industry but in different ways and manners are characterized differently. This report aims at looking at the leadership styles, character and key achievements of the Vaal University Management Team in order to establish the reasons as to why they were effective and had the desired impact.
Leadership Style Analysis
Figure 1: Most Effective Leadership Style
(Source: plopdo.com)
Bill Gates
Transaction kind of leadership was portrayed by Bill Gates by setting specific targets, assessing work and emphasizing on utilization of resources. At Microsoft, he adopted ‘bottom-line thinking’ as his management style, amid encouraging structured creativity within an organized structure. Culturally, Gates was very much a practical and analytical leader that made Microsoft the foremost software company in the world.
Steve Jobs
Whereas Steve Jobs was a dictatorship more of an autocratic manager, who used to take all the decisions related to Apple company . It can, therefore, be seen that Jobs’ management and leadership were almost inseparable from the strategic planning of design and visionary focus on innovation and usability. He was very much into his people, challenging them to deliver radical changes which would revolutionize the growth of their strategic initiatives.
Comparison
Whereas Gates stressed on the achievement of quantitative objectives and growth of the company, the latter relied on inspiration and aesthetic quality. Gates’ more formal strategies were a direct departure from the unorthodox ways of Jobs (Yoffie, and Cusumano, 2021). Although, they are stand at the opposite sides of the fence in terms of business models, Gates and Jobs managed to bring their companies to the world map; the former in software domination and the latter in the product differentiation [Referred to Appendix 1].
Personality Traits
Bill Gates
Gates was, and remains, notorious for his aggressive disposition, obsession with details, and complete grasp of technology and strategy. He leadership was a kind of business leadership based on pragmatic and utilitarian approach, which helped Microsoft to become the leader of software industry.
Steve Jobs
Jobs was passionate and rather single-minded about both design and usability. His managerial style made him a trend-sensitive leader that encouraged his subordinates to develop products that revolutionalized industries and consumer choices (Allal-Chérif, et al. 2021). Jobs‘ highly passionate and often aggressive behaviour kept his subordinates under pressure and made them work much harder and more effectively.
Comparison
Analytical and systematic Gates was opposite to irritable and visionary Jobs. Whereas Jobs insisted on capturing new spaces with revolutionary products, Gates’s approach was to stay dominant across as many areas as possible with basic, reasonable-sounding tactics.
Achievements
Bill Gates
Becoming the largest PC-software company in the world is a result of Gates leadership in Microsoft company (Lorange, and Mugnaini, 2023). The advancements to personal computing that can indebted millions to technology are his. Further, Gates’ charity work as a co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation also left an imprint on the world health care and education.
Steve Jobs
The iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad: Jobs oversaw Apple’s metamorphosis when he re-joined the firm in 1997. These innovation also altered the technology industry as well as enabled apple to be one of the most valuable companies in the world (Kennedy Jr, 2023). Steve Jobs’ contribution to the society is best captured by his capacity to erentCH the use of technologies in the society.
Comparison
To details, both leaders realized great feats in their own fields (Siek, 2022). Gates is associated with software empire and philanthropy while Jobs is remembered for his creativity in product design.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Therefore, it can conclude that efficacy of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs as leaders can be explained with the help of the leadership characteristics, personalities and their abilities. Gates’ transactional leadership and rationality poised Microsoft for software monopoly and philanthropic endeavors. On the other hand, while presenting Apple’s great innovations and its constant leading position in the technological market, Steve Jobs was a visionary and autocratic manager. Altogether, it can be stated that both leaders have influenced the world in countless ways, proving that there is no single way of leadership, as the main thing constitutes of vision and planning.
