I’ve recently been reading Becoming Steve Jobs by Brent Schlender. It is a biography that focuses on Jobs’ development as an entrepreneur and leader. It is an interesting read, and I am enjoying it, even though it covers a lot of the same ground of Walter Isaacson’s bio of Steve Job.
One of the interesting things about Steve Jobs is how he was able to replicate success over and over again. Even when he was pushed out of Apple and had to start from scratch, he was able to put himself in a position to succeed. It got me thinking about the soft skills that someone needs to work a similar level.
The five traits that stand out to me are:
Charisma: Being able to rally the people to his cause. People want to work with him, people want to buy his products, people want to know what he is working on. He was extremely demanding, but the type of person that great technical people wanted to work around.
Responsibility: Having no fear about making decisions. No fear about taking on the responsibility for success or failure. Not seeking to offload decisions to anyone else.
Thinking: Uses his mind. Responsibly and assertiveness are the follow through, but he and others like him are the ones who can see a problem and think up the solution to the problem.
Risk Taking: A willingness to bet on your judgment and to go for something that the sensible types would never try. To succeed on a big level, you can’t be afraid to put all your chips on the table.
Disagreeableness: He is not afraid to push people to get what he wants. He is not afraid to make other people upset. He wants what he wants and if other people are unhappy about that, or if getting it will make others unhappy, he doesn’t care. This is less about being disagreeable as it is about not caring about being agreeable. He was focused on achieving specific goals, not getting people to like him.
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