Steve Jobs would only pick managers out of people who didn't want the job — and his logic is irrefutable

When Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Inc., realized his company could become the next major tech giant, he decided to recruit what he called "professional managers" to handle his business. In fact, he did hire some people who had extensive management experience, but that, surprisingly, turned out to be his biggest hiring mistake. In a 1985 interview, Jobs discussed a specific quality he looked for while hiring managers, and it had nothing to do with their experience.

Jobs' initial plan to hire professional managers fell flat, as the ones he recruited could not contribute the way he wanted. "It didn’t work at all; most of them were bozos," he confessed. Jobs explained that though the professional management knew how to handle the business, or probably the people, they had no idea about the actual work that goes into operating Apple. Through his personal experience, Jobs realized that the best managers aren't the ones who are qualified to manage a group of people, or a business, for that matter, but the ones who never want to be on that pedestal. "They’re the great individual contributors who never, ever want to be a manager but decide they want to be a manager because no one else is going to be able to do as good a job as they," he explained.

Moreover, Jobs challenged the old, outdated notion of leadership that associates it with authority; in fact, he explained that true leadership lies in the ability to set clear goals and get your team on board with your vision. "We wanted people that were insanely great at what they did, but were not necessarily those seasoned professionals, but who had at the tips of their fingers and in their passion, the latest understanding of where technology was and what we could do with that technology," Jobs said. After firing two managers that he'd initially hired, Jobs found the perfect candidate: Debi Coleman. She was a 32-year-old English literature major with an MBA and no experience in handling the manufacturing department. "I mean, there is no way in the world that anybody else would give me this chance to run this kind of operation," Coleman shared. However, it was perhaps the fire within her to learn new things and take up new responsibilities that may have led Jobs to believe in her.

Jobs was indeed right; having managers who only believe in micromanaging without proper knowledge about the actual work can be frustrating. And that someone eager to learn, set clear goals, and work together with the team can eventually lead the company to greater heights. A survey found that 57% Americans believe their managers aren't properly trained to manage them; in fact, half of American workers said having skilled managers would help them improve their own work performance. Moreover, the ​Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) survey reported that 84% of Americans said that poorly trained managers create unnecessary work and stress.

Meanwhile, reacting to Steve Jobs' confession, @thebinxfella commented, "It is an absolutely true statement; professional managers don't know the job the team does or the best way to do it. So how can they deliver the best results if they don't know how to properly structure and organize a team?" Similarly, @kyokushinfighter78 shared, "So true. I am glad that I became an engineer before rising up the ladder to the CTO position. And I can still code, and I bet my a** that I can still beat my engineering team in a hackathon!" @yonnileung commented, "A great individual contributor works for his team, not for the company. He loves his team much, much more than the company. He will accept getting promoted for the team, but not for the company."

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