Working to Be a Leader

Which leader is more powerful:  Apple Co-Founder and CEO Steve Jobs or U. S. President Barack Obama?

I asked that question while subbing for an ill instructor during her two classes in, “A Management Approach to Organizational Beahvior” at Zicklin School of Business.  The chapter we were discussing was “Power and Politics” and on the first slide of the instructor’s PowerPoint was a picture of Steve Jobs and one of President Obama.  After I posed the question, I got very mixed results and push back from the students.

Vocal people in the classes said that there is no real comparison.  Jobs is a business man and Obama a politician.  The range of power and influence these leaders had was different and wasn’t equal in the students’ minds.  And I agreed with that.  I also confirmed that asking such a provocative question was a good way to break the ice with a new class.

 The students agreed to disagree on which leader was the most powerful.  Many felt Jobs was the most powerful because of his innovative ideas and the influence of the array of products he had introduced to a global market.  (Although I request that all cell phones are put on vibrate and put out of sight during class, I did see a few iPhones on desks.)

 Almost equal was the number of votes for the President because he was the first African-American to be elected to the highest office in the U.S., got health care legislation passed, was focused on reigning in Wall Street, etc.

 Then I posed another question:  who was the President of the United States 60 years ago?  Although Nixon, Carter, and Roosevelt were suggested, it was Harry S. Truman who led the country in 1950.  Not one student had heard of Truman.

 The point I was making was that legislation or being the first at something will be remembered.  For instance, John F. Kennedy is the first and only Catholic and the first Irish American president.  However, in my mind and those of about half the classes I taught, it was the products of the genius developer of technology who is the most powerful person in 2010.

 Jobs?  Obama?  Which one do you think is the most powerful leader today?  Please post your response below.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 30th, 2010 at 12:19 pm and is filed under College, Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.