As Apple moves from a period of charismatic leadership under Steve Jobs to more organisational leadership under the more low-key Tim Cook, it is following a managerial tradition that pertains in every successful organisation when the founder entrepreneur retires. As Mr Jobs leaves his chief executive post, attention has rightly been paid to his record as a product and marketing innovator, but less to his management style – which, both good and bad, is inimitable. Along with his enviable aesthetic sense, focus and negotiating prowess, came a readiness to humiliate and embarrass others.
As with many highly effective men, it is much easier to know whether one would like to invest in Mr Jobs or buy one of his products than if one would like to work for him. It would be a case of “yes”, to the fascinating demands and the opportunity to succeed on an epic scale, and “no” to the shouting and abuse. I met a Silicon Valley psychologist this year who told me that much of his practice was made up of recovering Apple employees.
To discover the useful lessons of Mr Jobs’s managerial legacy, it is worth depersonalising the company he has built. For instance, Apple is not really one company, but three very different organisations lashed together and devastatingly fit for purpose.