Can Being Overconfident Make You a Better Leader?

• Main Authors: PHUA, Kenny, THAM, T. Mandy, WEI, Chi Shen
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2018
• Subjects: leadership; confidence; overconfidence; Leadership Studies; Strategic Management Policy
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/6414; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/lkcsb_research/article/7413/viewcontent/Overconfident_leader_2018_hbr_av.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

When Apple CEO Steve Jobs approached AT&T about partnering on a new kind of mobile phone — a touchscreen computer that would fit in your pocket — Apple had no expertise in the mobile market. Yet AT&T executives quickly came to believe so strongly in Job’s vision that they skipped internal process protocols to land the deal. Randall Stephenson, then CEO of AT&T, famously said, “I told people you weren’t betting on a device. You were betting on Steve Jobs.” Apple went on to secure massive commitments from AT&T’s suppliers, who spent hundreds of millions to build factories for iPhone-specific parts.