Bill Gates and Steve Jobs - Leadership Comparison

1. How have Gates and Jobs shaped technology? How has technology shaped them and their companies?

Both Gates and Jobs were seriously affected by technology, thus they dedicated whole their life for the technology. Since they started their careers at early stage of computer age and formed what are considered to be the two of the largest and most successful industry companies. It's hard to distinguish whether they formed the technology or vice reverse as nowadays their companies are what we consider technology.

2. Compare the leadership styles and approaches of Gates and Jobs. In what ways are they similar? Different?

Bill Gate’s practiced participative leadership style because he involved his subordinates in decision making. He is a flexible person and he recognized his role as a visionary of the company. Whenever it was needed he brought professional managers for managing and developing the structure of the organization. Gates is a strong and energizing person his enthusiasm, hard working and judgment skills reflects his personality. His power of motivation and skill of choosing the right partners became the success factor for Microsoft.

On the other hand, Steve Job’s practiced authoritative leadership style, because he centralized the authority around himself, he never gave a chance for subordinate to be involved into decision making. He believed that whatever he did was right. His relation with employees were not good, he failed to motivate his employees in many occasions. He was a great leader as he himself showed great drive and enthusiasm, but in many cases he failed to be a good manager; therefore there formed a situation when he was forced to leave his own company.

3. Who do you believe is a better business leader?

I believe that Jobs leadership style is better in the early staged of the company, when the enthusiasm about