At the core of Nooyi’s leadership is the long-term commitment towards employees and clients. However, this leadership which builds on trust and responsibility might be challenged by the volatile business environment in the new economy. Today, the business environment has changed tremendously and employment is featured with constant change and uncertainty. Company reconstructing and reengineering, mergers and acquisitions, as well as downsizing and layoffs are more frequent than ever before. Flexibility and agility are valued in this volatile business environment. More employees are now responsible for their own skill and career development. They need to constantly update their professional skills to make themselves employable in the marketplace. Long-term employment, job security, commitments, and loyalty are no longer the key words defining the employment relationship. More and more organizations today offer employees chances to “improve marketability and employability” in the workplace instead of opportunities for steady career development path with the growth of the organization. (Cooper 2002, pp.357) As this flexibility demands the higher adaptability to change in the rapidly changing business environment, it seriously threatens long-term employment relation embraced by corporations like PepsiCo.
Steven Jobs: The Legendary Business Magnate
Ranked 57th of Forbes’ The World's Most Powerful People in 2009, Steven Jobs is a world-class legendary business leader in the global IT industry. He is well known as the co-founder and CEO of Apple, an US multinational company specializing in consumer electronics, computer software, and personal hand-held computer devices. Established in 1976 in Cupertino, California, Apple is best-known for its innovative hardware products include the Macintosh computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. As of August 2010, Apple has more than 34,300 full time employees worldwide. It had generated worldwide annual sales of $42.91 billion in its fiscal of 2009. As of today, the company operates 301 retail stores in ten countries, and an online store where hardware and software products are sold.
Regardless of widespread criticism against Jobs, Apple, under his leadership, has established a sound reputation in the consumer electronics industry based on its comprehensive aesthetic product design with unique advertising campaigns. Fortune magazine named Apple the most admired company in the United States in 2008, and in the world in 2008, 2009, and 2010. This achievement demonstrates that Jobs has established effective leadership making him and his company successful. Apple is committed to “bringing the best personal computing experience to students, educators, creative professionals and consumers around the world through its innovative hardware, software and Internet offerings”. (Jobs 2000, p.6) This is the dream when Jobs founded the company in 1970s, and now it is the mission statement which Apple follows at present.
Jobs is the typical example of the charismatic leader. He is extremely enthusiastic, self-confident, and visionary about the IT business industry in which he devoted his whole career life. One important characteristics of Jobs’ leadership style is his ability to combine zeal and fear for his employees, who often state that they are afraid of him. During the period of 1977-1985, Apple experienced difficult times when its CEOs lacked both marketing and technological zeal. When Jobs resumed his leadership in the company, he was able to restructure the company and return it to the normal performance through the development of new products and making them popular among consumers. Jobs’ enthusiasm and personality deeply shaped the corporate culture of Apple and it also helped develop a solid customer base that is fully devoted to the company and its brand, especially in the United States. Therefore, Apple is said to be a personality-driven company. There is another feature of leadership within Jobs’ personality. Jobs is egoistic towards himself, but he is also egoistic towards his workers in making them achieve what seemed to be unachievable before. It is essential that this egotist feature has also become an integral part of Jobs’s success. Additionally, he always believed into the need of his performance for his company and for the consumers. His self-confidence led him to the unprecedented success today. As a visionary leader, Jobs is able to direct his people and make them do things which they have never done before. He is always demanding both towards himself and towards his employees. His deadlines often seem impossible to meet, but he is constantly moving, moving towards improvement in all aspects of his work. These things are essential for the realization of Jobs’s vision and plans. As he said in a speech, “There's an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. 'I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.' And we've always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very very beginning. And we always will.”(Jobs 2000, p.7 ) Steve Jobs is the first person who brought digital technology to the masses for entertainment purposes. As a visionary, he saw that computers could be much more than productivity tools. Instead, they could be entertainment tools help unleash human creativity and enjoyment.
Though Jobs is said to a perfectionist, Jobs’ leadership is far from perfect. The legendary success of Apple in recent years is primarily due to Jobs’ unique leadership based on his personality. His personal achievement as a world business leader by no means is an unprecedented success. However, the disadvantage of this leadership model is that its uniqueness can hardly be inherited or imitated when Jobs retires in the near future.
Critical Analysis of Leadership Models
One of major differences between leadership styles of Nooyi and Jobs is that Nooyi tends to be more relationship-oriented while Jobs tends to be more task-orientated. Nooyi gained popularity and respect in PepsiCo because she treats employees as subordinates and friends. She always believes that “family, friends, and faith” are the three crucial factors contributing her success. (Nooyi 2006) However, she also admits that she has made a lot of “personal sacrifice” to build such a leadership. (Murray 2004, p.15) Nooyi has had many discussions and panels in which she clearly states she has had to make many sacrifices as a wife, a mother, a daughter, and so on. In an interview of Indra Nooyi hosted by Cornell University, Indra goes into great length discussing the details and many personal stories of how being a member of PepsiCo, and especially being CEO, has affected her. Jobs, on the other, established his leadership through continuous innovations. He always requests that subordinates think the unthinkable and perform at a high level to get the job done. In fact, Jobs has continually searched for ways to change the status quo not only within Apple but also within the technology industry as a whole. Jobs often says to his team members, “if you’re bold enough to build it, they will come.” (Jobs 2000, p.6) His utter dedication to discovery and excellence has created a culture that has made Apple a symbol of innovation. Jobs has established his own technology market that has not been limited by gender, geography, race, or age. Jobs and the creative team at Apple have sought to challenge the process through discovering what people hate or find inconvenient about technology and used that to create innovative products that stay one step ahead of the rest of the technology world. The iPhone was created to provide all of the conveniences of a Mac within a cell phone, thereby appealing to a mass of people that frequently carried all or most of those items. Jobs’ ability to challenge the process has allowed Apple to remain an individual pioneer of technology. According to the contingency theory of leadership model, Nooyi’s successful leadership builds on PepsiCo’s corporate environment and it may not be effective when it is applied in Apple’s IT business environment where innovation is highly valued. Similarly, Jobs’ task-oriented leadership model may not work out in PepsiCo where the sense of cohesiveness is more valuable.
Second, though both Nooyi and Jobs are visionary leaders, Nooyi tries to build the vision shared with her employees while Jobs tends to build the vision on his own. Nooyi has maintained the vision of making “Pepsi Co. the defining corporation of the 21st century.” (Fry 2003, p.694) The first step Nooyi took toward the vision was evaluating where the company as a whole. Nooyi noticed that many employees had skepticism and doubt about maintaining the corporation’s involvement in the spin off restaurants such as: KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell. Those doubts and skepticism were taken into consideration. Nooyi and her colleagues took a step back and tried to understand their strategy role in the restaurant business. “Once we got everybody in the restaurant business signed up to the underlying strategic rationale, the financial transaction was a very simple thing to do. It was all about laying out the reason, communicating it very clearly, having an open dialogue with them through the entire process, and affecting the separation in a way both parties felt it was a win-win” (Fry 2003, p.695) The steps toward attaining that vision involved a decision to remain a part of the KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, restaurant spin off business. She sought to clearly communicate and establish a shared vision around the underlying strategic reasoning behind both remaining in and separating from the restaurant spin offs. Nooyi’s leadership ability, inspire a shared vision, has placed PepsiCo as a realistic example of a defining corporation for the 21st century.
Jobs, on the other hand, had never been one to seek the agreement of others. He has declared, “Our vision is that we have just begun.” (Jobs 2000, p.5) He has thrived on being the first and the best at innovative technology regardless of support from his organization. “You can’t ask people what they want if it’s around the next corner.” (Jobs 2000, p.8) That attitude has made it difficult to clearly establish any detailed plans for the future. His visionary attitude has been very prominent, yet vague. Jobs has established a unique control over Apple’s operating system which has afforded Apple significant control over its ability to design, change, and adapt. That control gave Jobs a unique advantage to create innovative technology, yet there have not been any preconceptions established as to where the products will end up. On every new product unveiled from Apple, the vision of: “we have just begun.” (Jobs 2000, p.5) can be applied. However, the details and intricacies of the vision should be defined to ensure continued success; thereby rounding out Job’s inspiring a shared vision behaviour.
Third, Jobs differs from Nooyi by the way they establish principles concerning how people should be treated and what methods should be used to attain goals. As successful as Jobs appears to be, there are some leadership qualities that need to be improved. Steve Jobs has not established principles concerning the way people should be treated, nor does Jobs create standards of excellence as a leadership example for others to follow. In fact, he has been known to “scream at employees to the point of hyperventilation.” (Pomiewozik 2000, p.8) He has also been guilty of failing to follow through on promises and commitments. As an employer, Jobs was obligated to compensate employees for work as agreed upon in the job contract. That obligation to compensate employees was not followed through when Jobs fired a P.R. consultant and refused to pay the employee for completed work. (Pomiewozik 2000, p.8) His demeaning attitude should not serve as an example for employees. On one occasion, Jobs played a cruel joke on an employee by pretending to offer the employee a position as Apple C.E.O. (Pomiewozik 2000, p.8) “Values are empowering….Values motivate.” (Kouzes & Posner 2003, p.53) The joke Jobs played on that employee was neither empowering nor motivating. He clearly displayed a lack of emotional intelligence and has not established positive principals concerning interactions with other people. The values, or lack thereof, possessed by Jobs are not conducive to exemplary leadership.
On the other hand, Indra Nooyi has served as a model not only for PepsiCo employees, but also for Indians and women across the globe. Nooyi’s daily interactions display genuine respect towards everyone. Moreover, this leader has excelled by establishing goals and standards of excellence. Every year Nooyi has established objectives that have been a clear but achievable stretch. Those objectives have been established in every division and at every level. Employees look at the objectives and commit to them. “Our belief is that once you spend enough time in the design of those objectives up front and you unleash the corporation’s entrepreneurial spirit and create an environment for them to work, they can meet those objectives.” (Murray 2004, p.16) Overall employees that have not met the objectives tended to flag themselves and then established a new growth agenda. “The objectives are not just numerical objectives. They also relate to people or creating an environment or meeting certain diversity goals. That is really how we judge whether people are making progress in the organization.” (Murray 2004, p.17) Nooyi’s personal examples and values have led employees to establish individual commitment to PepsiCo. Nooyi has become a prime example which employees can model after.
Conclusion
In a conclusion, different leaderships foster different business culture, and thus, different companies. Nooyi’s leadership model is featured with sustained growth, empowered people, responsibility and trust. Jobs, on the other hand, is extremely enthusiastic, self-confident, and visionary. One of major differences between leadership styles of Nooyi and Jobs is that Nooyi tends to be more relationship-oriented while Jobs tends to be more task-orientated. Second, as visionary leaders, Nooyi tries to build the vision shared with her employees while Jobs tends to build the vision on his own. Third, Jobs differs from Nooyi by the way they establish principles concerning how people should be treated and what methods should be used to attain goals. Both leaders have attained incredible levels of success which may be attributed to strengths among the practices. However, both leaders also have weak spots among the practices which should be addressed to ensure continued success.
References
Cooper, C.L 2002, ‘’, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, vol. 59, no. 6, pp.355- 366
Fry, L. W, 2003, ‘Toward a Theory of Spiritual Leadership’, The Leadership Quarterly, vol.14, no.6 pp.693-727.
Jobs, S 2000, ‘Our Vision Is That We Have Just Begun’, BusinessWeek, 25 September pp.5-8,.
Kouzes, J. M., and Posner, B. Z 2003, The Leadership Challenge, third edition, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.
Murray, S 2004, ‘From Poor Indian Student to Powerful US Businesswoman. Interview: Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo.’ Financial Times, 26 January, pp.15-17.
Nooyi, I 2006, ‘Methods and Success.’ Presented at MIT Sloan, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 28 February
Pomiewozik, J 2000, ‘Operating System: A Biography of Steve Jobs Founder and CEO of Apple.’ New York Times, 8 October, pp. 8, retrieved 27 August 2010, <http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/08/books/operating-system.html>
Schultz, H 2008, ‘Indra Nooyi’, Time, vol. 171, no. 19, pp.116-117
