One of the toughest leadership Jobs - 15.01.2009
Steve Jobs is a great communicator – who in the business world is better at capturing and holding an audience’s attention? But this week he’s revealed a weakness: when it comes to communicating openly over tough issues, he falls short.
Apple has been secretive and reluctant in its communication over the health of their founder and CEO. After dancing around the truth for several months, the company posted a letter from Jobs on its website www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/01/14advisory.html saying:
Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.
In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.
Astonishing phraseology! Here’s the self-appointed pitchman for one of the world’s most high-profile consumer-driven, hugely profitable companies begrudgingly revealing information to his employees and customers that most people feel they deserve to know. He seems to want it both ways – benefit from the powerful cult of personality around him while remaining a private person whose health and ability to perform his CEO duties he need only discuss with his nearest and dearest.
It’s true that if you feel the need to constantly project an air of invincibility in order to be at your most effective, any admission of weakness or frailty could undermine your position. But do people really expect invincibility of others – even of their leaders – in the modern era?
Certainly what they do expect is honesty. Apple declined for months to even make a superficial statement about Jobs’ emaciated appearance. Nobody expects them to disclose his medical records, but an attempt at providing some basic information would have been appreciated. A competent team of media relations professionals could draft an effective statement (not too much, not too little information) in an hour or two, but they would need to get the green light from Jobs and that was obviously not forthcoming.
For more information check out the Wall Street Journal's story
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123196896984882901.html
