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Please check out my article on the founder of Apple Mr Steve Jobs.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1451648537/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=ivitv-
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This article will be analyzing Steve Jobs and his control over the media organization known as
Pixar from 1986 to 2006. The two integrated theories used by Steve Jobs were transactional
leadership and transformational leadership. By blending these two theories I've noticed that Steve
Jobs managed to create his own brand of Charismatic leadership. Steve Jobs, in a sense, looks at
these theories as two stages of one movement.
Who is Steve Jobs?
In 1986 Steve Jobs bought a Graphics Group from Lucasfilm's computer graphics division. Even
though he bought it for 10 million dollars, this was considered an inexpensive purchase. George
Lucas was in the process of some financial difficulties. He was going through a divorce and at this
time in California the spouse receives half of everything. George Lucas did not want to lose
financial control over his Star Wars enterprises so he made plans to give his ex-wife a monetary
settlement.
Lucas thought that selling his computer graphics company was the fastest way he could generate
more revenue. He expected to get 100 million for the company. Steve Jobs managed to get the
company for only 10 million. Jobs relocated the company to Emeryville, California and named it
Pixar. This purchase was one of several strategic moves Steve Jobs made from 1986 to 2006.
While making these decisions, Steve Jobs was incorporating transactional and transformational
leadership.
Transactional to Transformational
Debra Nelson, in her book Organizational Behavior discusses how Jobs started off working for
Atari and then eventually created his own company called Apple Computers. Jobs was a visionary
and his software design brought immediate financial success to his employers in the present but
Jobs was looking ahead to the future. Wayne Gretzky was often asked about his success in
hockey. Gretzky would always say that he doesn't focus on where the puck is; he focuses on
where the puck is going. This is a saying that Steve Jobs quoted often. He was always trying to
"see where the puck was going" in respect to computer technology.
This did not sit well with many of his employers. The CEO of Apple essentially "ousted" Steven
Jobs for his visionary talk. It was at this point that Jobs formed another company called NeXT
computers. Steve Jobs also purchased what is now Pixar. These actions on his part demonstrate,
"the kind of rhetorical work a leader in transformational mode needs to do when confronted with a
staff (Apple Computers) firmly embedded within a transactional mode. It offers further insight into
the rhetorical features that make Steve Jobs' discourse so persuasive" (Nelson 248). Steve Jobs
convinced many people to follow him as he planned to build computer technology of the future.
Steven had essentially worked in transactional mode when building the Apple Computers
company but he desired to extend the transactional mode to a transformational mode.
Unfortunately Apple Computers CEO was comfortable with a transactional mode and did not want
things to change.
A leader like Steven Jobs can be a transformational leader and a transactional leader. It is harder
for a transactional leader to switch to looking into a transformational future but it's easy for a
leader who is primarily transformational, like Steven Jobs, to vacillate between the two modes of
present and potential future. "Exceptional transactional leadership cannot substitute for
transformational leadership" (Nelson 402). "Steve Jobs has an uncanny ability to create a vision
and convince others to become a part of it. Some scholars see transformational leadership and
charismatic leadership as very similar" (Nelson 402).
Charismatic Leadership in Pixar
When combining transactional and transformational leadership a leader can become a strong
charismatic leader of an organization. Steve Jobs' CEO leadership over Pixar from 1986 to 2006
was a perfect example of charismatic leadership born out of these other two approaches.
Charismatic Leadership is hard to define because many scholars disagree on the criteria for
someone to have charisma. Most everyone agrees that charismatic leaders possess gifts and
talents that are used to effectively persuade people to believe in their ideas.
I would consider transactional leadership and transformational leadership as very valuable talents
that could be used to effectively persuade a group of people. Jay Conger in his book Charismatic
Leadership in Organizations connects these three forms of leadership into one approach. "Many
researchers postulated that charisma is a popular attribute of leaders who serve in the change
agent or transformational roles. Others believe that charismatic leadership was the most
exemplary form that transformational leaders could assume" (Conger 11).
Under the leadership of CEO, co-founder and chairman Steven Jobs, "the Pixar animation studios
combined creative and technical artistry to create original films in the medium of computer
animation" (Nelson 176). Toy Story was a revolutionary 3-Dimensional, all-digital movie. Toy Story
was the first of its kind. Steve Jobs worked with technology guru Ed Catmull and the "multi-
talented John Lasseter in an effort to develop software systems to produce animated, three
dimensional movies using computer graphics" (Mogel 189).
From 1986-1991 they developed three core software systems: Marionette, Ringmaster and
Renderman. These were used to make animated shorts and because Pixar was so cutting edge,
they were able to license these programs out to other people. Ed Catmull talks about developing
cutting edge animation in an interview. When asked how Pixar could keep such an innovative
edge he mentioned a lot of things. One important factor is having a group of honest people
working with you. There are no class systems either; they all look at each other as peers.
He also stresses the importance of a good communication structure. "I think we have one of the
finest buildings for working and communicating that I've ever seen, which incidentally is a tribute to
Steve Jobs, who drove the design of it" (Catmull 1). Jobs draws people in, causing them to feel the
"energy of the building" as Catmull puts it. "And when you feel the energy of the building, it helps
the group come together and stay together and produce the magical things (Catmull 1).
Steve Jobs drove this design for nearly ten years. In the book The Second Coming of Steve Jobs,
author Alan Deutschman chronicles how Steve Jobs maintained an energy among his followers at
Pixar for a long time before there was any serious pay off. At the end of 1986, Pixar had no
foreseeable future, but the very creative Lasseter was working on some new and innovated ideas.
Lasseter had created several short films and one short film in particular attempted to demonstrate
and validate the Pixar Image Computer. The name of one of these films was Luxo Jr; the film dealt
with a pair of anthropomorphic Luxo brand lamps. The larger was an infuriated parent watching
the smaller lamp play with a toy ball that eventually popped.
Luxo Jr was exceptionally popular. It impressed computer scientists and the film industry. The
short was nominated for Best Short Animated Film at the 1986 Academy Awards. Pixar now had
influence in the film industry and hoped to use it to its advantage. After this Academy Award
nomination, Pixar was emboldened to release its second product called RenderMan. Jobs hoped
that products like RenderMan and Ringmaster would ignite a consumer uprising. He hoped to
encourage amateur people to create computer animation on their home computer, the same way
the Macintosh allowed untaught people to create professional-appearing documents like
newsletters and flyers.
Unfortunately for Jobs and the Pixar Company, these products did not garner a lot of interest.
Pixar sold slightly more than 100,000 RenderMan licenses. RenderMan received wide publicity
and respect when James Cameron became a loyal user with his films, The Abyss and Terminator
2. Revenues from RenderMan and the Pixar Image Computer were not enough to bring Pixar out
a financial slump. Another idea to boost profits was to begin producing commercials and
eventually a television show. Their most popular ads were for Life Savers candy and Listerine.
Pixar had many financial hardships. They saw hope when Lasseter's third short film, Tin Toy, was
released and received an Oscar for Best Short Animated Film. Tin Toy was centered on a group of
toys in an infant's room and was much more sophisticated than earlier productions. This success
took place around the same time as James Cameron's release of The Abyss, which featured a
RenderMan rendered character. Tin Toy was the precursor to Toy Story.
Disney's animation world was having amazing success in the late 80s. The Little Mermaid was a
huge financial triumph for them. Fortunately for Pixar, Lasseter maintained contact with Disney,
and pitched the idea of a Christmas television special. Katzenberg, the head of Disney film,
enjoyed all of Lasseter's shorts and offered Pixar a three film deal. Lasseter began working on
extending Tin Toy to a feature film now known as Toy Story.
When Steve Jobs heard this news from Lasseter, he rearranged the entire Pixar Company. He
shut down almost every sales office. After Steve Jobs reorganized the company, the only work for
the sales staff was to continue to sale the RenderMan product to other software makers. The
creative division of the company, headed by Lasseter, was tripled. Jobs put all his energy into
producing the film Toy Story. This was a risky investment on Steven Jobs' part. If this film failed,
the Pixar Company would not survive.
On opening weekend, Toy Story earned $39.1 million, enough to regain the production costs. By
the end of its theatrical release, the film netted over $200 million in box office receipts, an
inconceivable amount for an animated feature. Pixar became a household name, proving that
Jobs' vision was not an insane idea. Toy Story proved to be cutting edge filmmaking that led to
several profitable CGI films.
Under Job's leadership, the Pixar company produced Toy Story (1995), A Bug's Life (1998), Toy
Story 2 (1999), Monsters, Inc. (2001), Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), and Cars
(2006). When the contract with Disney came closer to its end, Jobs made plans to seek a new
contract with a new distributer. With the obvious success of computer animated films, he could
easily find another distributer or distribute them himself. The Disney chief executive, Michael
Eisner tried to prevent Jobs from leaving but Eisner failed.
This failure, among other things, cost Eisner his position. Bob Iger replaced Eisner at Disney; then,
Iger managed to work a deal with Jobs. In this deal, Disney would purchase Pixar in an all-stock
transaction worth 7.4 billion dollars. This deal made Jobs one of the most powerful leaders of the
century. Jobs became more powerful, as a shareholder to Disney, than Roy E. Disney himself.
After this deal was made, Jobs owned 7% of the companies stock and joined the company's board
of directors. Now Jobs not only oversees Pixar but Disney. He is one of only six men that sit on
this committee. Because of the success of Pixar animation, the Disney committee often looks to
Jobs for sage technological advice.
Conclusion
When the CEO of Apple computers rejected Steve Jobs' new innovative ideas, Steve Jobs could
have folded. He could have acquiesced to the way things were. Steve Jobs could have decided to
retire in his thirties but he did not. He had a desire to see computer technology do something it has
never done before. After leaving Apple Computers Steve Jobs did four key things. He:
- Sold all his shares in Apple Computers
- Managed to buy a 100 million dollar computer graphics company for 10 million
- Turned Pixar into a production company for computer animated feature films
- Sold Pixar to Disney which resulted in him having more shares of Disney than Roy E. Disney
himself
Now, the people at Apple Computers have welcomed Steve Jobs back with open arms. Some, like
Alan Deutschman, are even calling it "the second coming of Steve Jobs." These four key choices
that Jobs made with the Pixar Company, demonstrate both transactional and transformational
thinking; causing Jobs to be one of the most Charismatic leaders of our day.
written by
Chester Elijah Branch
WORK CITED
A Bug's Life. John Lasseter. Pixar, 1998.
Bass, Bernard M. & Riggio, Ronald E. Transformational Leaderships. New York: Routledge, 2006.
Boleman, Lee G. & Deal, Terrence E. Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice and Leadership.
(2 nd ed.) San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997.
Bossidy, L. et. al. Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done. New York: Crown Business,
2002.
Cars. John Lasseter. Pixar, 2006.
Conger, Jay. Charismatic Leadership in Organizations. London: Sage Publications, 1998.
Deutschman, Alan. The Second Coming of Steve Jobs. New York: Broadway Books, 2000.
Finding Nemo. Andrew Stanton. Pixar, 2003.
Kakabadse, Andrew. Working in Organizations. England: Penguin Publishing, 2005.
Kotter, John P. What Leaders Really Do. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002.
Linzmayer, Owen. Apple Confidential 2.0. California: No Starch Press Inc, 2004.
Mogel, Leonard. Creating Your Career in Communications and Entertainment. New Jersey:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1998.
Monster's Inc. Peter Docter. Pixar, 2001.
The Incredibles. Brad Bird. Pixar, 2004.
Tichy, Noel M. & Cohen, E. The Leadership Engine: How Winning Companies Build Leaders at
Every Level. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.
Toy Story. John Lasseter. Pixar, 1995.
Toy Story 2. John Lasseter. Pixar, 1999.
Vasconcellos, Julio. "Dr. Ed Catmull, Co-founder and President of Pixar Animation." IInnovate.
Stanford University. 20 Feb. 2007
http://parablestoday.blogspot.com/2010/01/rise-of-steve-jobs.html
Article Source:
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==== ====
Please check out my article on the founder of Apple Mr Steve Jobs.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1451648537/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=ivitv-
20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1451648537
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