in practice, leadership is the thing for which demand is much higher than supply, not team talent.
I'm not sure I buy that. I don't have strong evidence against it, but its a gut based on experience. What I've tended to see is that great leaders tend not to be able to replicate their success. But talented people/teams tend to be succesfull, regardless of the leader.
To put it another way, a great leader, moved to a new team often is not a success. In fact, when they are, it is usually somewhat unusual. A great talent moved to a new team is rarely not a success. And when they aren't is somewhat unusual.
And what I've found is that the great leaders who can replicate success are those with huge personalities that draw in great talent. Or their reputation from their first success gives them considerable leverage to use in new ventures.
For example, look at pro basketball coaches. Getting a great head coach almost never drastically changes the record of a team the following year or years, more than chance would. But getting a great player almost always increases a team's record. What a great coach does though is bring in top talent -- but usually slowly, given it has to be done via free agency.
Jobs could go anywhere and get top talent. His ability to lead is also his ability to recruit. I'm not saying he doesn't bring other things to the table, but I'd say that a good percentage of it is recruiting.
Let me put it another way... given two choices, what would you take:
1) Steve Jobs's mind transplanted to some average mid-level manager at HP. No one know him as Jobs, but he would have Jobs's managerial chops.
or
2) Steve Jobs body and name, but his mind replaced with some mid-level manager at Apple (who of course is aware of the fact that he needs to keep up the charade of being Jobs).
There's a reason why entreprenuers who are successful, but when they leave their domain (go into a completely new field) are no more successful in future endeavors than anyone else. The second hit borrows greatly from the fact that people recognize you have already hit it out the park once.
Jobs could go anywhere and get top talent. His ability to lead is also his ability to recruit. I'm not saying he doesn't bring other things to the table, but I'd say that a good percentage of it is recruiting.
I'm inclined to agree with you, but the problem with that claim is that it is practically unfalsifiable. Nobody has or is going to try an experiment where they put someone like Jobs elsewhere and deliberately constrain his recruitment access only to average or slightly mediocre people. So, we can assume it's because dynamic, powerful leaders attract good talent, but I don't think there's a solid empirical basis for that without consistently studying what happens when they are specifically denied good talent.
I'm not sure I buy that. I don't have strong evidence against it, but its a gut based on experience. What I've tended to see is that great leaders tend not to be able to replicate their success. But talented people/teams tend to be succesfull, regardless of the leader.
To put it another way, a great leader, moved to a new team often is not a success. In fact, when they are, it is usually somewhat unusual. A great talent moved to a new team is rarely not a success. And when they aren't is somewhat unusual.
And what I've found is that the great leaders who can replicate success are those with huge personalities that draw in great talent. Or their reputation from their first success gives them considerable leverage to use in new ventures.
For example, look at pro basketball coaches. Getting a great head coach almost never drastically changes the record of a team the following year or years, more than chance would. But getting a great player almost always increases a team's record. What a great coach does though is bring in top talent -- but usually slowly, given it has to be done via free agency.
Jobs could go anywhere and get top talent. His ability to lead is also his ability to recruit. I'm not saying he doesn't bring other things to the table, but I'd say that a good percentage of it is recruiting.
Let me put it another way... given two choices, what would you take:
1) Steve Jobs's mind transplanted to some average mid-level manager at HP. No one know him as Jobs, but he would have Jobs's managerial chops.
or
2) Steve Jobs body and name, but his mind replaced with some mid-level manager at Apple (who of course is aware of the fact that he needs to keep up the charade of being Jobs).
There's a reason why entreprenuers who are successful, but when they leave their domain (go into a completely new field) are no more successful in future endeavors than anyone else. The second hit borrows greatly from the fact that people recognize you have already hit it out the park once.