It took me more than 6-months each to read The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life few years ago, followed by Steve Jobs biography last year. Though, I reached the end of Steve Jobs’s bio, 50% of the book is still unread.
Then last week, I read two great articles, one in Wired magazine critiquing Steve Jobs’s ‘social-etiquettes-are-for-the-weak‘ style, titled, The Story of Steve Jobs: An Inspiration or a Cautionary Tale? followed by Fortune magazine’s feature on See’s candies (the iPad version has audio/video of Buffett) which alluded to Warren Buffett’s ‘always-looking-for-a-situation-to-crack-a-joke‘ management style.
Here are two great leaders whose works are impregnated into the minds of the entrepreneurs and are tested during trying times, and then with opposing styles.
I personally get conflicted of which approach is better. Some of the thoughts I keep pondering:
- Do you hire a missionary or mercenary?
- Empathy with people or metric-driven connectedness?
- Products over dead bodies?
- Micro-management vs. trusting your team?
- Honest with your opinion or diplomatic?
- Arrogance vs humility when dealing with employees vs customers?
Over the years, I have learnt that no single approach wins, and more than that it’s a matter of personal style, your own temperament, etc. However, we always look for case-studies in testing times. We learn from others and their mistakes. The challenge is which one to adopt and how do I know a specific behaviour is suited for a personal style.
Time will tell, but the torrent of conflict continues and the quest for wisdom is hungrier than never before.
Off-topic: I seriously feel that Walter Isaacson should do a bio on Buffett.
As the year 2009 comes to close, it’s time to reflect on what has been done and also the time to dream what the world is going to achieve. Personally, I came back to India after a gap of almost a decade and have been playing catchup; trying to understand the changing business here with a perspective. Dreaming of things what could be achieved here, I thought I would throw some predictions for 2010 in the desi kitchen bag. Here is my list: