The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay.
Interpretation
Great leaders empower their teams by removing obstacles and providing support.
In this quote, Steve Jobs emphasizes the crucial role of leadership in enabling a team's success. He suggests that it is the people who actively contribute to the work who drive progress, and it is the leader's responsibility to create a conducive environment by minimizing distractions and interference from the larger organization. Effective leadership is about supporting and facilitating the efforts of passionate individuals, allowing their creativity and productivity to flourish.
In practice
In a business meeting, to inspire your team about the importance of leadership and teamwork.
Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service. The iMac is not just the color or translucence or the shape of the shell. The essence of the iMac is to be the finest possible consumer computer in which each element plays together.
It is piracy, not overt online music stores, which is our main competitor.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.
Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It's not about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led, and how much you get it.
For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.
When you get to be President, there are all those things, the honors, the twenty-one gun salutes, all those things. You have to remember it isn't for you. It's for the Presidency.
On a Chinese film you just give orders, no one questions you. Here, you have to convince people, you have to tell them why you want to do it a certain way, and they argue with you. Democracy.
We found that the most exciting environments, that treated people very well, are also tough as nails. There is no bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo... excellent companies provide two things simultaneously: tough environments and very supportive environments.
I am sure that the mistakes of that time will not be repeated; we should probably make another set of mistakes.
When I ran for Presidency of the United States, I knew that this country faced serious challenges, but I could not realize - nor could any man realize who does not bear the burdens of this office - how heavy and constant would be those burdens
The ability to plan for what has not yet happened, for a future that has only been imagined, is one of the hallmarks of leadership.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.