The real leadership lessons of Steve Jobs.

Abstract

The author, whose biography of Steve Jobs was an instant best seller after the Apple CEO's death in October 2011, sets out here to correct what he perceives as an undue fixation by many commentators on the rough edges of Jobs's personality. That personality was integral to his way of doing business, Isaacson writes, but the real lessons from Steve Jobs come from what he actually accomplished. He built the world's most valuable company, and along the way he helped to transform a number of industries: personal computing, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, retail stores, and digital publishing. In this essay Isaacson describes the 14 imperatives behind Jobs's approach: focus; simplify; take responsibility end to end; when behind, leapfrog; put products before profits; don't be a slave to focus groups; bend reality; impute; push for perfection; know both the big picture and the details; tolerate only "A" players; engage face-to-face; combine the humanities with the sciences; and "stay hungry, stay foolish."

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