This is a topic I think a lot about. While I agree with the intended message author wants to convey. But there are so many underlying and undefined assumptions here that people interpret it to fit their own worldview. There is so much to unpack here. A mini thread . https://twitter.com/abhishekarun09/status/1334344795427205122

Undefined terms: Success, Leader, Ego, Humility and of course all glued together by Steve Jobs. Let me start with a little story about Steve which touches all this. In 2012 I attended a meet and greet event with @WalterIsaacson organized by @AspenInstitute and @HachetteIndia

During Audience Q&A I got to ask a question. I asked " Your book gives an impression that steve was an extremely rude person. A lot of people use it as a justification for being rude to each other. Are you happy with that? is that the right thing to takeaway from your work ?"

He answered: "Steve was not perfect and this is not a HOW To book on life. This is a biography" . He moved on to nxt Q. I was not satisfied so I got hold of him after the event when he was heading back to his room. On the pretext of getting the book signed.

We walked 2 floors of stairs and the whole length of the lobby to his room. I asked Q again. He said:"His bad behavior was separate from his good work. He was successful in spite of his bad attitude not because of it. Look around you. you think you need to be Steve to be Rude?"

"So his sense of Ego has nothing to do with his achievements. " I asked. "Well, his ego was about how he saw himself. He never cared about how you saw him. He would have treated you the same if you were steve and he was nobody.

"That sounds a lot like a sociopath," I said."Yes Maybe, IDK. But a sociopath do transgression in full awareness. steve was not like that". He replied. "He was never thankful for the opportunity to do great things. He believed those things would not be done if he won't do it.

That's why he was working so furiously toward the end of his life. He has to live up to himself. So delusional is more accurate a term maybe. All great people I know have that belief to some extent but not all of them are rude"

Lesson: A high ego is neither cause nor an excuse for being rude or for having lack of humility. Like @EricRWeinstein says: "EGO is an Embedded Growth Obligation." Those who are rude will be rude with or without it.

Studying successful people is a lot like taking the Rorschach Inkblot Test. Most of the time what we look for and what we see is our own self image.

Leadership has one more component: identifying and recruiting "Compatible" followers. The operating word is Compatible, not right or wrong. Doing that requires self-awareness and acceptance which is rare.

Those who have that awareness fulfill their Embedded Growth Obligation and create a cult. others struggle to realize their potential (that constitute 90% of humanity ).

Even with self-aware EGO and compatible Leadership, success can be elusive. There is adaptability. Steve took money from arch-nemesis Bill Gates because his mission was bigger than his image. That's not how most people with a conventional understanding of EGO act.

This is different from luck. Luck is an idea we have invented to reconcile with the success of people we don't like.

The only definition of a leader that sits right with me is that "He /She enables you to enhance your Embedded Growth Obligation ( EGO) while bringing in self-awareness in a harmonious fashion. This is rarely a comfortable transformation "

That lack of comfort and transformation anxiety is the reason why people feel good in the company of a leader but don't really want to be like him/ her.

Another interesting aspect of this is that most great leaders don't want to be worshipped they want to be understood. But most followers do it other way round. That's why leader's inner circle keep changing every few years as worshipers fall by the wayside.