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Jack Welch and Steve Jobs exemplify the true meaning of what a leader is. Their personality traits of being conscientious open to experiences, extroversion, persistent, and passionate has led them to be the most phenomenal visionary leaders of their time. Jack Welch was the chairman and CEO of General Electric between 1981 and 2001. During his duration at GE, he managed to introduce a fresh and innovative leadership style. Welch developed a ranking system that put employees in one of three categories. The top 20 percent were “stars”, the middle 70 percent were the crucial majority, and the bottom 10 percent were weeded UT (Bloomberg, 1998).
I admire and strongly agree with Wheel’s management approach of making employee’s accountable. If you are hired to perform a job, then expecting results of a certain quality is justified. In addition, I believe that Wheel’s passion for productivity and results allowed him to achieve effective performance management within his company. Results create SUccess, and I believe most people tend not to raise their standards high enough if there are not serious repercussions that follow, such as being dismissed for not providing results. Welch most notable achievement was increasing the market value of the General Electric firm.
As CEO he increased it from approximately $12 billion when he took over, to a colossal $505 at the time of his retirement (Management, 2012). He managed to make GE the world’s second largest company with a market capitalization that was only exceeded by Microsoft. Through hard work and perseverance Welch managed to attain legendary status of being one of the greatest Coos of all time. Steve Jobs was an entrepreneur, co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. As the CEO of the company, Jobs covered the development of the mimic, pod, phone, and pad, and on the services side the company’s Apple Retail Stores, Tunes store, and the App store.
The success of these products under Jobs provided stable years of financial return, and propelled Apple to become the world’s most valuable biblically traded company. The reinvigoration of the company is regarded by commentators as one of the greatest turnarounds in business history (Gallo, 2011). Jobs was a “one-in-a-billion” innovator with a bulldog mentality. He created a vision and relentlessly drove it into completion. Jobs was a demanding perfectionist who always aspired to position his business and products at the forefront of the technology industry by understanding ND setting trends with innovation and style.
His reputation was built on being a brutal force and often destroyed staff for their “bozo” ideas and typically shrugged off his associates suggestions in favor of his own gut instinct. Moreover, he only wanted what he called “A-players”. Meaning that they had to be brilliant and he insisted that under the threat of being fired, that they would never reveal any of Apple’s secrets inside or outside of the organization (Curare, 2011). In summary, both Welch and Jobs are extraordinary leaders who demonstrate charismatic and transformational leadership styles.