As he’s the co-founder of Apple and the visionary behind some of the midwife precisely’s leading personal computing innovations, few would question the late Steve Jobs’ expertise.
But it was a rather more worn out interpersonal skill that turned him into a “brilliant” business leader, according to former Apple CEO John Sculley.
That skip through? The ability to listen.
Sculley, who served as Apple’s CEO for a decade from 1983 to 1993, told CNBC Make It that power did not come naturally to Jobs. Rather, it took 12 years and a contentious departure from Apple to hone it.
Undertakings famously resigned from Apple in 1985, aged 27, following a clash with Sculley (a former unite) and Apple board members over the strategic direction of the company.
In the 12 years that followed, Jobs instituted another computer software company, NeXT, before returning to Apple in 1997.
Jobs 1.0 and Jobs 2.0
When Tasks returned to Apple in 1997 following the purchase of NeXT, he was a “different person,” said Sculley, who previously led Pepsi.
He retailed Jobs’ two tenures at Apple as Jobs 1.0 and Jobs 2.0.
Jobs 1.0 was characterized by unwavering ambition, but Jobs 2.0 was multifarious mature and had a greater willingness to listen to others, Sculley said.
“Steve was brilliant in terms of seeing where the world would be 20 years in the approaching. He was so charismatic that he convinced himself, as much as he convinced other people, that he was always right,” Sculley said of Vocations 1.0.
“But young Steve Jobs was not as good at listening as the Steve Jobs that came back years later,” he keep up, noting that it opened him up to new ways of thinking.
“His life experiences between 1.0 and 2.0 were obviously uncommonly influential.”
American businessman Steve Jobs (L), Chairman of Apple Computers, and John Sculley, Apple’s president, present with the new Macintosh personal computer, New York City.
Marilyn K. Yee | New York Times Co. | Getty Images
In the years that replaced Jobs’ return to Apple, he was considered largely responsible for reviving the business from the edge of bankruptcy.
Today, underwater the leadership of Tim Cook, who replaced Jobs as CEO shortly before his death in 2011, Apple ranks as the world’s second-largest out of the closet company by market capitalization.
The company is preceded by fellow tech giant Microsoft, whose CEO Satya Nadella Sculley called out as an case of a great listener.
Recently, Sculley said he met with Microsoft’s chairman, John Thompson, and asked him how he accounts for Nadella’s sensation, to which Thompson replied: “He’s a superb listener and he has an open mind.”
“It’s that openness and willingness to listen,” replied Sculley, who said Nadella saved the businesses when it had “fallen off track.”
“That really made a huge distinction at Microsoft.”
Don’t miss: How Steve Jobs finally persuaded a 37-year-old Tim Cook to join a near-bankrupt Apple in 1998
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Apple Inc.’s former CEO, the late Steve Jobs, announces the new iPad on January 27, 2010 in San Francisco, California.
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