Steve Jobs Shares the Secrets to Successful Team Leadership in This Throwback Video The Apple co-founder reveals what he really thinks about professional managers
By Nina Zipkin
Though Apple co-founder Steve Jobs died six years ago, his outsized influence is certainly still felt. A recently surfaced video interview with the late CEO -- which based on his haircut seems to place him in the mid-1980s -- shows him sharing his views about best practices for hiring and what makes a great manager.
Up front, he says that the greatest employees are the ones who have the ability to manage themselves. But they can only do that if the leadership at the top is clear about what they want. "What leadership [is] having a vision, being able to articulate that so the people around you can understand it and getting a consensus on a common vision," Jobs says.
Related: Steve Jobs Systematically Cultivated His Creativity. You Can Too.Jobs goes on to explain that one of the most important jobs of someone in his position is recruiting new employees. He notes that he isn't necessarily looking for someone who is an industry veteran, but rather someone who understands where technology is and where it could go in the future. He also recalls a moment when as the company was growing, that he and others executives thought they needed "professional managers," but that ultimately turned out to not be the case.
"We went out and hired a bunch of professional management [and] it didn't work at all. Most of them were bozos," Jobs says with his characteristic brutal candor. "They knew how to manage, but they didn't know how to do anything. If you're a great person, why do you want to work for somebody that you can't learn anything from?"
Related: What the Creation of Apple's iPhone Teaches Us About Innovation
Ultimately, he notes that the best team leaders are the ones that aren't angling for power for power's sake. "They are the great individual contributors who never, ever want to be a manager," Jobs says. "But decide they have to be a manager because no one else is going to be able to do as good a job as them."
Do you agree with Jobs's assessment? Let us know in the comments and check out the full video below.
