Randall Stross of The New York Times looked at Steve Jobs’ years in the wilderness running NeXT Computers and concluded the lessons he learned were essential to making Apple the success it is today.
While leading NeXT Jobs obsessed about detail, famously leaving his key customers waiting while he discussed the layout of sprinklers in the landscaped gardens.
On returning to Apple, Stross points out Apple’s management team has been remarkably stable and this stability, borne out of Jobs trusting his key staff to make the right decisions, is one of the reasons for the company’s success.
As we move into an era where information becomes a commodity and the old style of manager guarding their sources of knowledge becomes irrelevant, the trust based organisation is going to replace the command and control models of the past.
This is going to challenge to a lot of managers in private and public organisations. It will be interesting to see how enterprises, government agencies and political parties around the world manage those challenges.
The style of leader raising today is very different from those of the past.