"Apple CEO Jobs’ life not in danger: report" say the headlines this week.
Of course, the first thing I thought of was some psychopathic Apple fanboy who was pissed off about overpaying for an unlocked iPhone ($199 with AT&T, $1,199 on ebay unlocked!) but he’d now been arrested and was off the streets.
But no, it has something to do with Jobs’ health.
"Investors are fretting" is the gist of the article, and with good reason – absolutely every Apple / Mac product that goes out the door crosses Jobs’ desk first. He is the visionary, the idea man, the face of the company, the final say.
Apple is a cult brand, there is no doubt. But it’s Steve Jobs who is the cult leader, the mastermind, and it’s his cult-of-personality that has always made Apple possible.
Which is a problem, addressed by such books as "Good To Great" – when the leader is gone, the cult members disperse, and many times, the company crumbles.
So what’s the solution to this problem?
I think the answer depends on if you’re the cult leader or someone else in the organization who stands to gain (or lose) a lot from the success or failure of the company.
If you’re the cult leader, and you want to be such until the day you die, well, then just keep being that person and run the company that way, giving no thought to what would happen when you’re gone.
But I think Bill Gates did it a much smarter way – he stepped back and out and turned the reigns over while things were still going well. That is of course the most difficult thing for a leader to do, but it’s vital to the long-term success of the organization.
I’ve seen many businesses, churches, sports teams, etc built around that one iconic personality, and it’s great while they’re there, but with few exceptions there’s no one raised up to replace them.
Probably because iconic personalities don’t like to look at their own mortality, and think they can do the job better than anyone else, so their interest in training their successor is limited.
That’s fine for the short term, i.e. the duration of that person’s sane leadership life (sometimes old icons don’t die, they just lose their minds – that messes up the company too. See: Florida State Football, to be really mean and name just one).
The long haul though, that’s a different story. Does anyone even know the name of ONE exec at Apple not named Steve Jobs? Didn’t think so.
I hope he has a nice long life, but it’d be in his and Apple’s best interests to start grooming some up-and-coming hotshot leader…if only to assuage the fears of the fretting investors.