{"id":167631,"date":"2025-11-30T13:29:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T13:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/167631\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T13:29:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T13:29:12","slug":"steve-jobs-taught-gaps-former-ceo-that-micromanaging-can-be-a-good-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/167631\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Jobs taught Gap\u2019s former CEO that micromanaging can be a good thing"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the great debates in leadership is how much managing is too much. Psychologists argue micromanagement is harmful<\/a>, saying it stifles creativity, dampens motivation, and reduces productivity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But some of the greats in business have shown micromanaging can lead to great success. Take Steve Jobs, for example. The former CEO of Apple<\/a>, who died in 2011 from pancreatic cancer, continues to be revered as one of the greatest leaders in business history, but he\u2019s also among some of the most famous micromanagers<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a corporate dictator who makes every critical decision\u2014and oodles of seemingly noncritical calls too, from the design of the shuttle buses that ferry employees to and from San Francisco to what food will be served in the cafeteria,\u201d Adam Lashinsky wrote in a Fortune article<\/a> about Jobs published just about a month before his death.<\/p>\n

But Jobs and other business leaders have shown micromanaging works and that it gets a bad rap. In an episode of the Opening Bid podcast<\/a> with Yahoo Finance executive editor Brian Sozzi, former Gap<\/a> CEO Mickey Drexler made the case for this management practice, saying it was one of his major leadership takeaways from working with Jobs on the board of Apple.<\/p>\n

Jobs was \u201cunique, once-in-a-lifetime, and [his death] a loss to America,\u201d Drexler said. \u201cHe was a difficult person, mercurial, incredibly creative, and made sure the screws on all the products were horizontal.\u201d Jobs also backed a \u201cno-bozos policy<\/a>,\u201d or hiring people who actually knew how to manage others and get results.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMicromanaging is what it is. If you\u2019re managing as a leader, set the tone. I\u2019m proud to be a micromanager for what a customer sees, feels, and hears,\u201d said Drexler, who also previously served as the CEO of J. Crew and currently serves as the chairman of Alex Mill. \u201cSo yes, I do micromanage, but [also] provide leadership. People know what is important.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Merchandising mastermind Drexler also previously worked at Ann Taylor, Bloomingdale\u2019s, and Macy\u2019s, and served on Apple\u2019s board from 1999 to 2015. <\/p>\n

When Drexler first started serving on the board at Apple, Gap was worth $15 billion, which was bigger than Apple at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Apple is now a behemoth worth $4 trillion, with Jobs\u2019 fingerprints still seen on its devices. Much of Jobs\u2019 success had to do with bringing products to the market customers didn\u2019t even know they wanted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people say, \u2018Give the customers what they want.\u2019 But that\u2019s not my approach,\u201d Jobs once said. \u201cOur job is to figure out what they\u2019re going to want before they do.\u201d<\/p>\n

By a slightly different token, Drexler is more focused on responding to customer concerns while also planning expectations for the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the world\u2019s become kind of average in its standards,\u201d Drexler said. \u201cBut average is not good enough to me. It\u2019s [about] managing a customer\u2019s expectations and what they should get: best-of-class. Don\u2019t give a customer a reason not to buy something.\u201d<\/p>\n

And while Drexler said he learned from Jobs, he\u2019s stayed true to his own leadership style.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t learn to be extremely demanding [from Jobs],\u201d Drexler said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I\u2019ve always been: a tough boss.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A version of this story appeared on Fortune.com on December 9, 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the great debates in leadership is how much managing is too much. Psychologists argue micromanagement is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[936,72,52679,61,60,17920],"class_list":["post-167631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-apple","tag-business","tag-gap","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-steve-jobs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}