Although Steve Jobs was legendary in many ways for his creativity, innovation, hard work, and dedication he could also be a hard leader to work for, opinionated and sometimes mean to the people around him. In short he was a human being with both strengths and weaknesses. 

From Walter Isaacson’s book “Steve Jobs” here are some leadership lessons that Steve Jobs in my opinion could have learned:

1. Emotional Intelligence - from the biography on Steve Jobs  it seems like he had a hard time managing his emotions. He would either burst out in anger or be distant and emotionless. Either way of reacting to emotional situations can be destructive and hard to deal with for the people around him. Emotionally intelligent people can manage their emotions as well as gauge the emotional context of others which can be a great way to relate to others in an organization.

2. Empathy - Steve Jobs had a hard time being empathetic with others. He would be in his “Reality Distortion Field” and have an idea of how things could be without taking into account how others felt about it. In this way he sometimes pushed people to be better than they thought they could, but he often pushed people away as well. Empathy plays a strong role in understanding other people and creating rapport and trust with them which is key in building lasting and strong relationships.

3.  Creating an environment where people feel valued - in the book Steve Jobs was portrayed as someone who would yell at others, invoke fear in them, and communicate directly that he thought people’s ideas or products were stupid. A good leadership lesson is to treat people with respect which in turn inspires them to want to be better. Steve Jobs could have learned this lesson a bit better.

Steve Jobs had so many good qualities and yet had some key leadership traits that could have been enhanced. Overall history is already writing about him as a genius and a legend overshadowing the lessons he needed to still learn, but as a leader in your organization you can learn from his strengths as well as his weaknesses.