Many people think that a good leader should make things easier and make sure that everyone is comfortable. But according to Steve Jobs, one of the co-founders of Apple Corporation, a true leader should make people better at what they do.
He once stated in an interview for Fortune magazine in 2008: “My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to make them better.”
The quote is often shared on its own, making it sound much harsher than Jobs intended. But in this particular conversation, Jobs defined leadership as bringing diverse teams together, removing roadblocks in their way, securing funding for significant projects, and motivating talented people to do something extra special.
Support and demanding expectations were two sides of the same coin
made it quite clear that setting high expectations was not everything that a true leader should do. For him, supporting employees in achieving their goals was equally important.
For Jobs, motivating capable people to develop meant helping them to overcome difficulties and not just criticising them all the time. His approach combined high expectations with practical support, allowing teams to focus on important projects and deliver better results.
was also known for his direct and sometimes uncomfortable style of giving feedback. He once said: “I’m brutally honest, because the price of admission to being in the room with me is I get to tell you you’re full of shit if you’re full of shit, and you get to say to me I’m full of shit.”
He said such honest conversations often led to strong disagreements, but believed they helped maintain high standards across the company. Jobs also argued that this approach discouraged poor performance and encouraged people to improve.
Looking back, he said many employees who worked in that demanding environment later described it as one of the most rewarding experiences of their careers, despite the challenges they faced at the time.
Steve Jobs’ early life and career
was born on February 24, 1955, in San Francisco, California, and passed away on October 5, 2011. The former tech executive was known as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer era.
Jobs was raised by adoptive parents in Cupertino, California, located in what is now known as Silicon Valley. He dropped out of Reed College, in Portland, Oregon, and took a job at Atari Corporation as a video game designer in early 1974, according to Britannica.
Steve Jobs started his business with another Steve, Steve Wozniak, building the blue boxes phone phreakers used to make free calls across the nation. The duo founded Apple in 1976. They began their business by selling Apple I, which was a kit for building a PC.
With Wozniak doing most of the building and Jobs handling the sales, the two made enough money off the hobbyist market to invest in the Apple II. It was the Apple II that made the company, which was incorporated in 1977.
According to Investopedia, Apple was already making over $5 million in net income by 1979, solely on the strength of the Apple II. Then the company went public by 1980. Over the years, Apple’s legacy kept on growing.
It was the first company to surpass the $1 trillion market capitalization mark, and later the $2 trillion and $3 trillion marks. The company’s success was largely connected to the lessons learned from Steve Jobs.
