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.
Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.
For Texas, a wise and prudent administration in the commencement of her national existence will be universally expected, imposing upon me the difficult and delicate task of setting in complete and successful operation a political body based upon principles so hazardously asserted and so gloriously maintained.
A great leader has the ability to instill within his people confidence in themselves.
Outsiders have the intuitive ability to continually view problems in fresh ways and to identify ineffective practices and traditions.
I am convinced that nothing we do is more important than hiring and developing people. At the end of the day you bet on people, not on strategies.
The great men of a nation reach out to all mankind. They are unifying, not divisive; internationally conciliating and still great nationally.
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