<p>JOHN&nbsp;MATTONE, used to be the executive coach&nbsp;of Apple Inc.&rsquo;s late&nbsp;and iconic Co-founder Steve Jobs and is today rated among the top rung leadership coaches, second only to Marshall Goldsmith. Yet, it was a profession he adopted at the age of 55. In a&nbsp;t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te&nbsp;with&nbsp;<strong>Nina&nbsp;Kler</strong>,&nbsp;Mattone&nbsp;shares his perspective on leadership and his amazing life&rsquo;s journey .&nbsp;Excerpts:</p>

- Nina Kler

Mattone’s life journey 

I have a background in industrial psychology and began life as a human resources consultant. In 1996, I wrote a book. The book failed miserably. I said to myself that I am going to come back to this at some point. And I did. The whole notion that I use – it’s what I call the Intelligent Leadership Process – based upon my book of 2013, which ironically came out of my first book, Success Yourself, that didn’t do anything. My motto is: You just don’t ever give up.

I started coaching in 2008 and started to apply the concepts from the book, including the assessment that I created which was eventually taken by Steve Jobs as well (who was my first really big coaching assignment in 2010). And I realised that I was getting feedback from these people saying, ‘this is remarkable’. And I knew that I had something and that is when my coaching career got started ...

On Apple Inc.’s Co-founder, Steve Jobs 

Steve Jobs was a great speaker and a visionary genius, but not a very good leader at all. In fact he took my assessment and he really didn’t score very well on that. And if you look at the competencies that make up great leadership, he really wasn’t that great as a decision-maker − he wasn’t that great at decisiveness − not great at collaboration. A lot of areas where he wasn’t that great. But he was a creative genius and a visionary and a disruptor and a change agent.