Was Steve Jobs A Great Leader?

I got an email today from a client with that question, with the rider: if so, why?

Here is part of my reply: A great question, my answer, an unequivocal yes! Why? There is a book here but I'll opt for the cliff notes:

1. His track record of accomplishment for one — the evidence of serial success in being great in leading others:
1. Transforming a group of independent amateur geeks, who worked for fun and for free in the early days of computers, including his friend Woz into business people selling their creations — many of whom, as a result founded successful companies
2. He cofounder Apple with Woz and led a revolution in our thinking about, and attitude toward, computers 
3. He led an industry to think about "the end user" the consumer rather than the arcane thinking of an in group — the GUI as an example  
4. After being fired from Apple he created NeXT and led a team that built a business that he subsequently sold to Apple for $429 million which was the platform (the OS) for Apple's recovery
5. He bought The Graphics Group from Lucas films and turned it into Pixar. At the time he sold it to Disney it was valued at $7.4 billion, it had won 26 Academy award, 7 Golden Globes and displaced Disney as the leader in animation films. Working with creatives of the calibre of Pixar's team required consummate leadership
6. The turnaround of Apple from 1997 - unprecedented in corporate history, which in addition to unequalled returns to share-owners, transformed:
1. The music industry
2. The cellphone industry
3. The retail industry with unmatched sales growth and industry beating sales per store
4. The school textbook industry
5. ...
2. His attraction and retention of top talent — one measure of leadership is who is following and what do they accomplish. Great leaders have great leaders as followers, Steve Jobs had more than any comparable leader. Look at Apple's leaders, how long they have been in place, and their accomplishments. For example: Jonathan Ive (Now Sir Jonathan Ive) - 15 years — acknowledged design guru — awards galore, Tim Cook now CEO - acknowledged logistic and supply chain guru, Ron Johnson former retail guru – 11 years — now CEO of JC Penney
3. He led the way in enrolling and retaining strategic alliance partners:
1. Music labels in joining up with iTunes
2. AT&T with the iPhone
3. Thousands of App developers
4. Book publishers for iBooks
5. Even Microsoft in '97 as an investor and before and since as software developer 
6. ...
4. He was a stand for genius, design and perfection and enrolled other in Being that and providing that – great leaders do this masterfully:
1. He hired geniuses:
1. He was a stand that that was so
2. He asserted that was so — which means he could provide the evidence if asked, and had tons
3. His assessment was that was so — which means in those instances he didn't have evidence, it was so but he just intuitively knew
2. He interacted with people from they are geniuses:
1. If he got mediocre or less than perfect output from someone he considered to be a genius he would pull no punches in telling them what they produced was crap and more fitting of the output of an idiot [subtext — and you're not an idiot and it pisses me off you are trying to pass yourself off as one and further, it royally pisses me off that you think for a second that I am an idiot and would accept this crap from you as good design and perfection] In other words, the relationship of genius interacting with genius in the service of the mission, design and perfection — as a result, the individual's relationship with him or herself as genius happily restored! 
5. He inspired loyalty, love and relationship:
1. He loved - Apple, the people who worked for Apple and the people who loved Apple's products
2. When he upset, or hurt people – and he did — the stories are legion of his cleaning up and his apologies. Even the ones that took longer to handle than, he acknowledged, they should have
3. The outpouring at his death is evidence enough that he was loved in his turn, that he had build a loyal following in and out of Apple.
6. He was acknowledges by his peers as a great leader
7. The majority of those who study leadership and have some standing in opining on the subject acknowledge he was a great leader.

In case I have been too equivocal, let me just reiterate – Yes, I think Steve Jobs was a great leader.