Importance of Leadership
The report provides an insight into the ways in which leadership practice and theory impacts organizational sustainability. The organization chosen here is Apple. Leadership acts as the capacity of translating the vision into the reality. It is also the procedure of social influence that seem to maximize the efforts of the others in the achievement of goals. It can be said that in absence of leadership all the business elements seem to be dormant. Stronger leaders aid an organization in maximizing the productivity and in achieving the business goals while weak leadership seem to hurt productivity thereby putting business health into jeopardy. In order to keep the business going, leaders so play a role in creating the organizational purpose, vision and the goals which everyone seem to achieve. They not only inspire the team to believe in mission but achieve the milestones and the target. Leadership skills requires to be honed on a constant basis.
Leadership theory represent explanations regarding why and how some people seem to become leaders (Dinh et al. 2014). They seem to focus on the behavior and traits that people might adopt for raising their capabilities of leadership. Leadership practice represents any practice that seem to offer direction to an organization or group. The report provides an insight into the critical evaluation of a leadership theory focusing on how the concerned theory relate to the leadership practice across chosen organization. The theory chosen here is the transformational leadership theory. The three-leadership practice to be focused on include power and influence, leadership, gender and the diversity and leadership development
Critical Evaluation of One Leadership Theory and Demonstration of How Theory Relates to Leadership Practices Occurring within Chosen Organization.
Leadership happens to be one of most enigmatic and the eclectic aspect in determining the organizational sustainability. According to Colbert and Kurucz (2007) sustainability implies ‘keeping a business going’ while Wales (2013) defines sustainability in context of ‘future proofing’ of the organizations. It is to be noted here that hallmark of a particular leadership style happens to be the carbon copy of one’s predecessor. Irrespective of the difficulty in defining the exact roadmap, thoughtful steps of strengthening the leadership and extending its efficacy as well as impact aids employees in feeling empowered towards improving the organization instead of going through motions.
This section of the research study focuses on the transformational leadership theory. Steve Jobs can be considered as an example of leader who seem to be related with the transformational leadership specifically whenever it comes to the inspirational and the charismatic qualities (Bonau 2017). According to the transformational leadership theory, leadership take place when the leaders seem to broaden as well as elevate the interest of the employees, generate awareness, accept the mission and the purpose of the group and stir the employees in looking beyond the self interest of a group. According to Mathew and Gupta (2015), transformational leaders seem to achieve the results by not only being charismatic to the followers but also inspirational, meeting emotional needs of each of the follower and thereby stimulating them intellectually. The four components that defines the transformational leadership theory include individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation and the idealized influenced.
Leadership Theory and Practice
According to Martin (2017), transformational leaders are considered by their employees and colleagues as effective and satisfying compared to the transactional leaders. The transactional leadership theory indicates that the transactional leadership also known as the managerial leadership basically represents a leadership style where the executive seems to rely on the punishment and rewards for the performance of the optimal job from their subordinates. As pointed out (Breevaart et al. 2014) transformational leadership also seem to share better relationship with the followers that allows them in contributing more towards the organization in comparison to the follower who have been working under the transactional leaders. Besides, employees claim that they seem to exert immense effort on behalf of the transformational leaders.
Transformational leadership have various advantages over the transactional leadership however, Eisenberg, Post and DiTomaso (2019) pointed out various various arguments against the transformational leadership. One of the components which is the idealized influence seems to be most criticized components of the transformational leadership theory since the transformational leaders with higher charisma might misuse privilege and power and might neglect supporting the followers. As put forward by Yulk (2013), there exist certain negative consequences of the charismatic leaders such as the reduction in the good suggestions and the criticism put forward by the followers, increase in the excessive confidence and the optimism by the leader, stepdown in the development of the competent successor, rejection of the failures and problems by the leader, decrease in the capacity of foreseeing the possible dangers and the future expectations.
As put forward by Steinwart, and Ziegler (2014), Steve Jobs was once again handed over the duties CEO of Apple in year 2011. Steve Jobs can be marked as an iconist who brought about a change in the ways in which people did everything, right from watching the videos to the listening of the music. Based on the leadership style followed by Steve Jobs, Kotlyar and Karakowsky (2007), defined the transformational leadership as one that altered the lives of the people.
According to Sosik (2015), some of the characteristics put across by the transformational leadership theory as portrayed by Steve Jobs has been perfectionism. For instance, engineers at Apple were asked to design chips for Apple which looked nice. The engineers had been surprised as it was difficult for them to believe that the customers will look inside PC. Nevertheless, Jobs cared about the smaller touches and held the belief that material things should must be beautiful inside as well as outside. The pursuit of perfection made Jobs harsh and irritated with his own employees. One of the co-founders of Apple however mentioned that rudeness and impoliteness of Steve Jobs acted as key inspirations for the team.
The case of Steve Jobs can also be linked to the destructive and dysfunctional side of the transformational leadership. Workers at Apple described how fear have forced them to work beyond the expectations. Steve Jobs also portrayed moments where he has been belittling and aggressive when it came to treating his superiors, peers and the subordinates. One of his senior colleagues mentioned that he had an uncanny capacity of making people smaller. Another colleague described Job’s leadership as the management by assassination of character. These stories however question the literature on transformational leadership that is described as good and benign. Many people who faced that wrath of the aggression as well as bullying of Steve Jobs considered themselves lucky to have shared a workplace with him. This hardly did sound like stimulation or individualized consideration portrayed by transformational leadership. The nature of Steve Jobs leadership thus portrayed an accurate and relevant measure of complex reality as to how the transformational leader gets the people towards working harder.
Practice of Power and Influence: Power represents the ability of influencing behavior of the others through resistance by making use of varied tactics towards pushing or prompting action. Power represents the ability of getting things done. People having power remains in the position of influencing the behavior off the others for achieving the goal or the objective. There are instances where the others will resist the attempt in making them do particular things. An effective leader is able to overcome the resistance. Although people might regard the power as corrupt or evil, it represents an organizational life and is neither bad or good. Leaders might use the power in not only benefitting the others or towards constraining them towards serving the goals of the organization.A different way of viewing power is as the resource which people might use in the relationships. Whenever the leader influences a subordinate, it is known as the downward power. This can also be considered as someone having power over another individual. It is to be noted that subordinates might even show upward power through trying to influence decisions of leader. Leaders however depend on the teams in getting the things done and, in that manner, remains subjected towards the power of the team members. Influence occurs when the emotion, opinion or the behavior of a person are influenced by the others. It is a vital component of ethe ability of leadership in using power and in maintaining the respect within organization. Influence seems to be visible in form of socialization, peer pressure, obedience, persuasion and conformity. The capability of influencing happens to be a key asset for the leaders and it is also considered a vital skill. In the year 1958, Herbert Kelman, the Harvard based psychologist made an observation on three broader varieties of the social influence which is identification, compliance and the internationalization. Identification occurs when individuals seem to accordingly behave as what they consider as valued by people who are respected as well as well-liked like a celebrity. Status is considered as one of the means of identification. When people seem to purchase certain things as hugely coveted by the others like the smartphone, they happen to under influence of the identification. Compliance involves the people behaving in the manner which the other expects them irrespective of whether they agree upon doing it or not. Obeying instructions of a figure in authority represents the example of the compliance. Internationalization occurs when an individual accepts either privately or explicitly set of beliefs or values which might lead to the behavior which seem to reflect the values.
Transformational Leadership Theory
Niebuhr, Voße and Brem, (2016) noted that the followers of Steve Jobs portrayed the impressive or exceptional behaviors towards power and influence. As a traditional leader Steve Jobs had the charisma which led the employees in believing to simplest suggestion for altering the product design. For instance, those who seemed to have worked with Steve Jobs initially interpreted the field of reality distorting as the sign of the harassment. Nevertheless, as a transformational leader his character seems to have influenced the employees at Apple in achieving unusual feats like change in course of the computer history with limited resources. It was believed that Steve Jobs could do the impossible since he never believed it to be impossible.
Thus, within an organization, leaders such as Steve Jobs can make use of these three kinds of influence for motivating the people and in achieving objectives. For instance, a compliance would indicate a means of sustaining order within workplace like when the employees seem to follow rules put across by supervisors. On a similar note, identification can occur when the individuals seek to follow and imitate the actions of the leader whom they not only respect but also look up to. Internalization takes place when the employees seem to embrace the values and the vision of the leader and develop commitment towards accomplishing them.
Practice of Leadership, Gender and Diversity:
Apple experienced effective transformational leadership due to Steve Jobs’ focus on clear expectations, open communication, believing in values and the spell of charisma. He tried to create a new kind of culture which is basically a no compromise culture which would not attempt towards being the best in whatever it did. This had been his motto throughout his life. As far as the clear expectations were concerned, the talks of Steve Jobs had been impressive rhetoric piece that seem to have defined the outlook of Apple and the desires of the employees as well as the general public. As a leader he had not only been clear despite being an egocentric personality behind the closed door. His expectations had always been clearly articulated and in certain times quite viciously. Under his leadership, employees were provided with a particular direction and had been rebuked for not adhering to it. Steve Jobs also believed in open communication. He was the person who had never been sugarcoated or moved around bush. This helped him to make plenty of enemies. When it came to living values, for Steve Jobs, everything that Apple would do served the core value of making best products within the market. He thus believed, that served as the long-standing aspect of the firm’s legacy and such an attitude infused throughout organization. For Steve Jobs, Charisma came in all the forms and the shape and the employees at Apple respected him as their leader. As a transformational leader he followed a clear path of winning respect (Kettl 2015). Employees competed for Jobs approval and some even rose to higher standards. It however always came back to the company values of Apple.
Advantages of Transformational Leadership
Under the leadership of Steve Jobs, Apple has been one of the successful firms. As a leader Steve Job did take drastic move in reaching the point. Steve Jobs thus taught individuals that one needs to express the willingness in order to face the unpopular decisions. This indicates clear communication of the unpopular decision rooted in the strategy and culture.
When it came to gender and diversity, Apple seemed to hold a commitment towards making the company increasingly inclusive as well as just (apple.com 2021). Under the leadership development, Apple seems to become better reflection of a world that people reside in. The employees from the underrepresented communities have been raised by about 64 percent or more than 18000 people thereby making up close to 50 percent of the workforce of Apple. The number of the black employees across US has grown by over 50 percent that represents only 60 percent of the rise in leadership. The number of Latinx/ Hispanic employees across US grew by over 80 percent with close to 90 percent rise in the leadership. The representation of the female employees across the world rose by over 70 percent along with an 85 percent rise in the leadership. In the past couple of years, Apple seem to have made progress towards inclusive leadership through bringing people into the Apple and also recruiting from within.
It has been found that close to 43 percent of the open roles in leadership are being filled by the people from the unrepresented communities in United States. Closer to 29 percent of the open research and development roles has been filled by the people from the underrepresented communities. Around 37 percent of the open roles in leadership has been globally filled by women and close to 26 percent of the research and the development roles has been globally filled by the people belonging to the underrepresented communities.
Leadership development refers to the procedure that aids the expansion of the capacity of the individuals towards performing the leadership roles within the organization (Day and Dragoni 2015). Leadership roles facilitates the execution of the strategy of the organization through establishing an alignment, winning a mindshare and growing capabilities of the others (Tang 2019). Leadership development helps in boosting the engagement of the employee, increase of the organizational ability in dealing with the gaps across talent pipeline while reducing the cost and the headaches related to turnover. Greater leaders seem to hire, attract as well as inspire the greater people.
The passing away of an extraordinary visionary such as the Steve Jobs has drawn attention towards recognizing the significance of developing the next generational leaders (cmoe.com 2021). It had been speculated that the unfortunate loss might leave Apple to struggle if leader who are able to carry the innovative thinking of the predecessor does not emerge. It would be interesting to discover how things seem to unfold in the coming few yeas at Apple. Given Apple’s situation some of the things that the present leaders seem to do for preparing the leaders of the next generation. The actions and the decisions made regarding the identification of the talent as well as development shall have lasting impact on organization. Few things that have been done for ensuring the process of leadership development within the organization are as follows:
- Seeking out and fostering development of the existing talent an urgency. Finding time in the schedule for doing it
- Using the development process which can serve as the guide and aid in sustaining the efforts
- Conduction of regular development of the planning discussion with the team members and the futuristic leadership talent
- Using the communication tools and the frequent coaching conversation for following up and fueling the development efforts.
- Supporting the plans for employee development and initiate the efforts by providing resources and removing the barriers to the success
- Demonstrating the personal commitment towards the development of the employees through engaging in the developmental initiatives and building one’s own developmental plan.
- Creation of a development culture where people seem to strive for maximizing the individual preference.
Disadvantages of Transformational Leadership
Therefore, contributing towards the development of the next generation of the leaders in certain ways may lead one of the greatest legacies in leadership that can be left to the organization.
Thus, it can be mentioned that the need for the development of leadership has been so urgent. Firms of every kind recognize that survival in today’s uncertain, complex, volatile and the ambiguous environment calls for the need of the organizational capabilities and the leadership skills. There also lies an increasing recognition that indicates that development of leadership must not remain restricted to the handful who remains closer to c-suite. The propagation of the collaborative platforms of problem solving along with the digital adhocracies which emphasizes on the individual initiative enables the employees across board in making consequential decisions which seem to align with the culture and the corporate strategy. Therefore, it is vital for equipping them with the pertinent relational, technical and the communication skills.
It has however been noted that there are three key reasons for a disjointed state of the leadership development. The first refers to the gap in the motivations. The second refers to gap between skills which executive programs for development build and the ones that the firms require especially interpersonal skills necessary for thriving within the networked, flat and the highly collaborative organizations. The gap of skill transfer is basically the third reason. It is only the fewer executive who seem to implement what they usually learn within classroom thereby applying it to the jobs. This removed the learning locus from locus of the application thereby enlarging the gap. Thus, to develop managerial talent and the essential leadership, it is vital for ethe organizations in bridging the above three gaps.
Conclusion
On a concluding note, it can be said that organizations and companies are usually managed by the transformational leaders who seem to be increasingly successful compared to the others. The report indicates how a stronger ethical guideline seems to be vital for every organization. It is found that most of the criticism about the transformational leadership are primarily about the moral values and the ethics of the leaders that might lead to the abuse of the power and the undesirable consequence. The performance and the quality of the transformational leadership might be improved through the integration of the morality to all the human beings for revealing a greater number of ethical leaders, empowerment and the development of the followers, improvement of the structure and the culture of the organization. Such actions help in eliminating the criticisms with time thereby leading to the greater transformational leaders. The paper also illustrates transformational leadership adopted by Steve Jobs with respect to the various definitions of the leadership that has been put across by previous theorist along with the review of the associated traits of leadership such as innovation, motivation and charisma. The report also illustrates how Apple had been co-founded by the Steve Jobs. The firm had further been reviewed in terms of the achievements of Jobs. The report also describes the transformational leadership with the focus on its dimensions such as the idealized influence, individualized consideration, inspirational motivation and the intellectual stimulation. The paper seems to have explored both the practical and the theoretical instances of charisma, power and influence with regard to Steve Jobs contribution towards the transformational leadership.
Practices of leadership has also been described using achievement of Steve Jobs in context of the Apple.
Case Study: Steve Jobs and Apple
The report also provided an insight into how power represents the ability of individuals in controlling the activities of the other individuals. Leadership represents the ability of inspiring the people in following the instructions of the leader voluntarily and thereby managing completion of the project without even exercising any kind of force. In fact, leadership power refers to the influence that the leaders have on the followers. It also persuades the others in supporting the efforts and perform as per the orders. Power refers to the influence which a person has over other individuals. It indicates the ability of accomplishing the goal with the aid of the others. Authority indicates the right of exercising the influence. The report also shows how the leaders like Steve Jobs can use various kinds of influence for motivating the action and the behavior required for not only accomplishing the task but also achieving the goals. Through the report one also develops the idea as to how some of the workers seem to care a greater deal regarding what the others think about them and thereby be more amenable in identifying the cues of the ways to behave. The other individuals might want in hold a strong belief in whatever they seem to do and thereby seek towards internalizing values for guiding them. In the organizations and in life, source of influence always seems to be around us. The report also sheds light into the leadership development which is basically the process that aids in expanding the capacity of the individuals in performing the leadership roles within the organizations.
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