Some of my most popular posts are the ones where I casually mention Steve Jobs. Why? Everyone is trying to figure out what leadership traits (or skills) Steve Jobs has and what they can learn from them. A quick look at Jobs’ profile will lead one to believe that his charisma, “presentation skills”, and his personality drove Apple to its current success. I’d beg to differ.
I don’t need to recite the bio of Steve Jobs, …

The CEO of Netflix, Reed Hastings, knows he’s in the wrong business. DVD distribution, like VHS distribution before it, will soon die out in favor of streaming online video that can be play on both PCs and TVs. Netflix is no longer competing with Blockbuster or even the new upstart Redbox, they are racing with established and new online video suppliers to win over an increasingly tech-savvy consumers. Mr. Hastings, a forward thinking leader, knows …

Palm was at the center of the PDA revolution in the mid-90s. However, once smartphones entered the arena, offering PDA functions with the addition of cellular connectivity, Palm started to lose their unique place in the market. Palm couldn’t compete successfully in the world of smartphones–especially with Apple, RIM, and Nokia boldly leading the way. Palm’s leadership needed to innovate or retire.
Palm’s old CEO, Ed Colligan, initially dismissed the iPhone and entered the smartphone battle …

This month’s Atlantic piece, Do CEOs Matter? has nicely laid out the conventional arguments for and against the need for aggressive leadership within organizations. The author, Harris Collingwood, ends by essentially saying that good leaders can create small gains whereas bad leaders will be responsible for huge losses. The idea here is: leaders can’t make mistakes.
CEOs represent the head of the social organization that is called a company. They are responsible for deciding where the …