Sometimes we just feel that certain people are impressive, though we may not immediately realize the reason. It sometimes takes a contrasting experience to helps us juxtapose the impressive and the plebian to discover the difference. This is just what happened to me while I watched the speakers of the recently concluded CES show...
First a bit about Steve. I loved Steve Jobs' presentations the first day I saw them. Starting with the landmark 1982 Macintosh launch keynote to the current MacWorld speeches, each of these presentations were stunning. I was so impressed I started collecting the videos of these presentations and have a handful of Gigs of them saved on DVDs. What is most inspiring about Jobs is his profundity in several areas of personal computing. When he talks, it is a person with an engineer's core talking. Unlike marketing sweet-talk, Jobs touches topics at the kernel of all users, and addresses them with impressive plain-talk. Not dwelling in high-level (and often abstruse) abstraction, he keeps a clear conscience and this enables his lucid forthcoming.
When I saw many company CEOs present their products at CES, I could see a stark difference. The show had many holes and the charisma was long gone. But, these people are successfully leading their companies and are a major hit at the bourses. What then differentiated these CEOs from Jobs?
The difference, in my opinion, is in their leadership styles. These successful people 'motivate' their people; to work towards the goals of the company. They show people their goals and invite them to follow. This is a very good way to lead. But people with Jobs' personality 'inspire' their teams. They elicit support from the team because the team feels that they should support the cause of the company. These two traits are similar but not the same…the difference is the origin of the initiatives. The 'inspirers' let the employees take the first step and just give them the direction to follow. These people don't actually lead from the front. They lead from within. And this is exactly what our current generation of super specialized professionals need - Inspirers!
I totally agree with you. I feel that Steve Jobs is probably and engineer first before he is a CEO.