Was Steve Jobs a Role Model for Leaders? - Darren Overfield and Rob Kaiser - Harvard Business Review

I feel articles like this miss the point entirely on why Steve Jobs was one of the greatest leaders of our time.  The power in Steve Jobs was as a CEO and visionary, not in managing a group of people as a mid manager in an organization.  Steve Jobs' style doesn't necessarily work in the middle of an organization, or even as a team leader higher in the organization.  Steve Jobs is the one who proved this.  He was kicked out of his own company because the maniacal focus and perfectionism was too much for a team and organization to take.  But as the leader of the organization, it works.  He could set the culture and the focus.

The power of Steve and his personality was his decision making and intuition regarding the industry.  There are plenty of other leaders with great intuition, however the decision making is lacking.  He learned the ability to focus, probably due to his Buddhist studies.  Because he was focused, when he was presented with issues he was able to make quick, brilliant decisions. Apple is great because he made an entire organization focus and he made decisions.      

Source: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/10/judging_fr...