Check out "From Good To Great" by Jim Collins. You'll find that the "most successful" organizations actually have a leader whose principal strength is their ability to find and empower the right people. These organizations have sustained, long-term growth that outlasts that one visionary.
Contrast with organizations like Chrysler, which under Lee Iacocca, became fantastically successful... Until he turned his gaze elsewhere and the organization of yes-men he built crumbled to the ground, unable to accomplish anything of their own volition.
Jobs appears to be an Iacocca-style leader. A great visionary with incredible personal willpower, who guided a company from obscurity to domination. And yet now that he's gone, you have to ask, who is left that has sufficient personal willpower and initiative to keep driving Apple's stock upward? Did Jobs' abrasive managerial tactics leave anyone with those qualities?
Those charismatic leaders who really shake things up also polish something else to a dull, boring gloss: other people.
Contrast with organizations like Chrysler, which under Lee Iacocca, became fantastically successful... Until he turned his gaze elsewhere and the organization of yes-men he built crumbled to the ground, unable to accomplish anything of their own volition.
Jobs appears to be an Iacocca-style leader. A great visionary with incredible personal willpower, who guided a company from obscurity to domination. And yet now that he's gone, you have to ask, who is left that has sufficient personal willpower and initiative to keep driving Apple's stock upward? Did Jobs' abrasive managerial tactics leave anyone with those qualities?
Those charismatic leaders who really shake things up also polish something else to a dull, boring gloss: other people.