For a long time he was against making a phone, other executives had to convince him that Apple should make the phone, even doing risky things like running "secret" projects exploring possible technologies for the phone.
Job's talent seems to be more of a taskmaster: once he decided that phone needs to be done, he was able to organize people to do it, even if it meant great personal sacrifices.
He was also a fantastic editor. He was very good at saying "no" to things whether it was because they were just bad ideas, weren't fully done yet, were missing something important, where especially when some stuff that other people thought was important wasn't and needed to be removed.
Now we know he didn't always get it right, he could be swayed by personal emotions such as when he wanted to keep the iPod off Windows.
But clearly he got it right a number of times where it really mattered.
He was against a phone for good reasons, then when his employees solved those problems he became its greatest advocate, to the point of threatening to fire Schiller if he didn't get on the iPhone train.
But the whole "our CEO is a genius, the gift of the gods", is a standard trick in branding luxury products. Actually, one of the more interesting stories behind the iPhone would be of the marketing behind it. But i'll guess we'll never hear it, because there's always new stuff to sell.