Steve Jobs on Leadership

So, its been a busy week. My apologies for not being around.. sometimes it happens!

Next week, we'll continue talking about servant leadership and soon be finishing the "ten week series" (just spread out a little longer than that!) on this leadership style.

For now, as a Friday treat, I want to share with you a video that a friend of mine shared with me yesterday. As I watched this, I literally caught my breath... what a wonderful, wonderful example of what GREAT things a company can accomplish when we pay attention to our employees, when we encourage them to be brilliant and successful, and when we trust them to do their job and know their stuff!

The video is less than three minutes long and truly -- its kind of life changing, folks. So take a five minute break from the last bit of your Friday workday and get some inspiration from the legendary Steve Jobs! May he rest in peace!

What exactly is stewardship again?

I mentioned in my post Monday that stewardship is the idea that you are caring for something in trust for someone else. A good steward sees whatever he has as for the good of everyone and so carefully manages it to ensure that it benefits the majority, sometimes even to the detriment of his own self-interests.

Servant Leaders tend to practice good stewardship when it comes to how they lead and run their organization. They do not make decisions solely for their own benefit, but rather for the benefit of everyone.

No where is this more important than in a nonprofit organization, where the leaders literally are stewards of the organizations assets and charged with the duty to use and distribute them to benefit those who receive the services of the organization.

However, this is also an essential leadership quality in a for-profit company, as any leader should know that his success is largely due to the success of his team... and if he makes choices that do not benefit his team, he will lose their trust and loyalty.

How do you view your organization, division or team? Do you see it as a vehicle for your own success, or as a vehicle for the success of all who work there and who benefit from the products and services of your company? Have you made choices that predominately benefit yourself and cut benefits from your team? Where can you improve in your organization to make it more of a benefit to your staff and to those you serve?

Ancient Perspective

This week, we are going to talk a little about stewardship. Stewardship is the idea that you are caring for something in trust for someone else... servant leaders view their organizations in this way -- as a something for the all rather than just a something for themselves.

Before we dive deep into the concept of stewardship, I thought it might be good to get a little perspective from some oldtimers. While Robert Greenleaf coined the term "servant leadership" in 1970, its been something that's been happening throughout history, and most often with positive effects. Many noted philosophers in history have encouraged the concept of servant leadership to those they teach:

This is taken from the 4th century B.C. Indian work Arthashastra by Chanakya, which details the charactistics and requirements for a Rajarshi - a good and virtuous king: "In the happiness of his subjects lies the king's happiness, in their welfare his welfare. He shall not consider as good only that which pleases him but treat as beneficial to him whatever pleases his subjects"

Lao Tzu, in the sixth century B.C Tao Te Ching, gives the following advice: "A leader is best when he is neither seen nor heard, Not so good when he is adored and glorified, Worst when he is hated and despised. "Fail to honor people, they will fail to honor you." But of a good leader, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, The people will say, "We did this ourselves."

Plato states in Republic: "No one in any other kind of authority either, in his capacity as ruler, considers or enjoins his own advantage, but the advantage of his subject, the person for whom he practices his expertise. Everything he says and everything he does is said and done with this aim in mind and with regard to what is advantageous to and appropriate for this person."


Christ says to his disciples: "If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all." (Mark 9:35-36 NKJV)

US President Calvin Coolidge stated: "No enterprise can exist for itself alone. It ministers to some great need, it performs some great service, not for itself, but for others; or failing therein it ceases to be profitable and ceases to exist."

Martin Luther King, Jr. stated: "Everybody can be great, because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love."

Throughout history, great leaders have been imploring us to lead by service. They were great leaders for a reason - they practiced what they preached! Take a dose of their ancient perspective and try it out for yourself!

Using the past to plan the future

I said earlier that in order to develop good foresight, you also have to develop other key servant leadership characteristics, specifically empathy, listening and awareness. These three characteristics help you to assess what has happened in the past and what is happening in the present, so you can accurately predict what will happen in the future.

Listening. Listen to your employees. Listen to what they like and don't like. Why did the project last year fail? Because the team didn't feel motivated to be successful. Listening to your team and their thoughts helps you predict how they will react to the next goal. Whether that potential reaction is negative or positive doesn't necessarily matter here -- the point is knowing the reaction, so that you can work toward making it positive by addressing concerns ahead of time.

Empathy. If you know how your employees feel, then you will better plan for their success. If you understand their needs, their desires and their goals, both within and outside of the office, you are better equipped to put together a plan that incorporates those needs, encourages their successes and helps them reach their goals while helping you reach yours. When your employees see the benefits they can reap from reaching the goal, they are more motivated to reach it with you.

Awareness. Understanding your own strengths and weaknesses is important, as is understanding what your team is capable of doing and what tasks will require outside resources. If you fail to acknowledge a gap in your skill level, you will run into problems reaching your goal. Accurately seeing yourself and your company for what it is, capitalizing on the strengths and shoring up the weaknesses, will make reaching your goal far more feasible.

Prepare yourself with these three skills. Learn to gauge the road ahead and prepare for the potential roadblocks. The more prepared you are, the more successful you will be.

Hindsight is 20/20

You’ve heard people say this before, right? When you realize what could have been done to change a negative outcome AFTER the negative outcome has already occurred. Basically, its easy to know what would have worked after you know what didn’t!

Anyone can see 20/20 in hindsight. It takes skill to have 20/20 foresight. Some leaders have this skill naturally, but many develop it over years of working in their business, and learning from the mistakes and successes of the past.

Imagine if you could see the future and know every potential roadblock and problem that lies ahead, so you could actively work to resolve it, perhaps even before it ever became an issue.

The reality is that you can do that! Maybe not in the magical, omnipotent sort of sense, but certainly, with practice, you can become adept at identifying the potential hazards and roadblocks in your journey ahead and accommodate for them in your initial plan, so as not to let them hang you up when they inevitably arrive in front of you.

This is the nuts and bolts of the “paving the path” we talked about last week – having a keen foresight will allow you to avoid potential problems and smooth the way toward your goal.

How do you develop this? Well, as I mentioned last week, these characteristics don’t exist in a vacuum – they depend on each other. The key to developing foresight is to develop the other servant leadership characteristics, specifically empathy, listening and awareness. We’ll talk more about how those characteristics work together to help you develop fantastic foresight in the coming days.