Tim Cook’s Background
Leadership is considered one of the most important management functions that may facilitate organisations to maximise internal efficiency and attain organisational goals (Nienaber & Svensson, 2017). Hence, it is specifically imperative for an organisation to have effective and knowledgeable leaders, who would have the competencies to communication organisational policies to subordinates and letting the works to actually start. Renz (2016) stated that a leader’s work is not only to supervise yet also to act as a guiding role for its team members. They are required to evaluate the potentials, strengths and weakness of its team members and guide them accordingly so that each one can work on their weak points and utilise strengths to maximum. Therefore, leadership plays the most vital role in motivating subordinates and encouraging them to give their best efforts while performing (Bolman & Deal, 2017). The present report aims to evaluate the leadership styles of Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple Inc. It would determine the leadership practices Tim Cook follows in the global environment, followed by his strengths and weaknesses. The ethical issues Cook has faced through his leadership directions would be discussed. Based on which a conclusion would be derived.
Cook has managed to separate him and his leadership practices from that of Jobs in countless ways, and the efforts are not simply restricted to his willingness of speaking societal issues. Cook, had previously joined the company Apple from Compaq Computer in the year1998, belonged from operations milieu and had also spent some of the influential years of his occupation in IBM (Colvin, 2018). At Apple, he effectively behaves much like a coach or teacher who trusts his players to the ultimate and encourage to them to prove their potentials with his involvements.
As per the consideration of Balon (2014), Tim Cook is generally an achievement centric leaders who usually focuses more on shareholders’ returns and based on which he generate the business performance other than having just a visionary nature. There has been no doubt regarding Steve Jobs product visionary abilities. Even though the quality has raised the cost of a product, yet, innovative designs and user experience had always been his ultimate focus. On the other hand, Tim Cook’s approaches were mostly towards business. Aspects like profit margins, cash flows and corporate success had been his ultimate objectives (Car & Atun, 2017).
Cook also believes in the significance of diversity. As per Bolden (2016), Apple is always defined as the company at the forefront of innovation. Therefore, it also requires an indifferent mindset and unique thinking abilities to retain the tag of the most innovative company in the future as well (Kok & McDonald, 2017). Hence, Cook claimed the company to always have the requirements of diversified mindset and different insights. Thus, he welcomes employees having a diversity of style and through who can think differently and continuously propose their creative ideas to the management. Thorpe (2016) denoted that extracting the best quality out of employees is an excellence Tim Cook as a leader has and functioning to process these expertise offers resources with the self-assurance to follow their thoughts.
Leadership Theory and Practices
It has been identified that Tim Cook, CEO of Apple generally follows a managerial leadership style, which can also be broadly defined as a democratic style. Other than standing in absolute disparity to the previous Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs, Tom Cook emerged to have implemented few of the renowned entrepreneur’s obtainable leadership efforts and established an exclusively intermingled leadership mantra (Investopedia, 2018). This has been a tremendously analytic of his democratic leadership style of management, which influenced consent construction, predominantly amongst the high-level resources preceding to reciprocally assented decision making (Whaley & Gillis, 2018).
It has been assessed that many of the stakeholders were concerned with the fact that Tim Cook somewhere lacked the intrepid visionary leadership style of the former CEO. However, in the practical scenario, he encloses strengths of his own (Investopedia, 2018).
Tim Cook is frequently considered as considerate and charismatic by the Apple’s employees. By far, Cook’s leadership tenure has been exemplified by a superior emphasis on obtainable products and nurturing of the company as well as with employee relationships. Furthermore, Cook always prefers being less occupied in the particulars regarding product lines engineering. As an alternative, Cook handed over the product particular responsibilities to his executive cabinet members (Investopedia, 2018). His remarkably understated leadership style has increased the overall sector and employees’ goodwill. When the current style is compared to Steve Jobs’ abrupt methods and autocratic styles, Cook’s existing mantra has also resulted in sluggish decision making and an apparent slaughter of inventive constrain.
Tim Cook is more concerned about his people and provides a considerate emphasis on people management process and handling their queries as well. Employee management and their interest have become one of the major interests of Tim Cook. He believes that employees are the most valuable assets of the organisation, which help him to retain the tag of innovation and come up with creative designs and specifications every year and creating a market disruption with such ease (Spiegelman, 2018). He conducts programs like offering employees discounts on Apple’s product lines and matching up gift and vouchers for community donations. He also praises his employee on the public platform and appreciates their contribution to the organisation. This specifically boosts their motivation and employees effectively feel valued by the CEO against the efforts given to the organisation. This helped the brand to outperform in the highly competitive market and keeping its methods secret before the competitors. Jobs replacement with Cook had benefited the company to enhance its stock shares by 80% (University, E2018). Information gathered from the similar source underscores the fact that industry experts define Cook as a more humble leader who less likely prefers stealing the spotlight when compared to the predecessor.
Suitability of its followed leadership practices
Moreover, Tim Cook’s action of donating $2 million to support Charlottesville, $1 million to Southern Poverty Law Center and $1 million Anti-Defamation League had benefited the company to enhance its Goodwill before the potential stakeholders (Mejia, 2018). He is much into donating a considerable amount of his profit to human rights and other welfare programs. His contribution to the community and charitable purposes has definitely improved its brand image in the market, which also resulted enormously in the final productivity. With the transformation in the leadership styles from autocratic to democratic, both the internal and external stakeholders were relatively pleased to be a part of Apple and contribute their best efforts to evolve with the organization for the long run.
The major strength of Tim Cook is his efforts to create his individual present and not blindly following the trends of former CEO. This has effectively helped the employees to gain adequate trust on the confidence Tim Cook showed regarding business dealings (McCaffery, 2018). Moreover, his quality of helping employees to learn while working rather than just directing and instructing them with several do’s and don’ts (Ramchunder & Martins, 2014). The former CEO followed an autocratic style, which indicated the employees with each of their actions. Under that leadership, the employees never felt free to conduct their responsibility in their own way. However, Tim Cook has well observed the lagging aspects of Jobs that could be modified in the future (Thorpe, 2016). Therefore, he had been smart enough in freeing the employees to impose their individual ideas on tasks and come up with the innovative outcome. This helped employees to retain their degree of self-confidence and motivation to perform the best for the company.
Tim Cook has the major expertise to handle the function of logistics and operations. Thus, in the maximum times, he defaults towards that thought process, which sometimes stiffs the creative space inside Apple (Bolden, 2016). He can be a game changer in the company, but his excessive focus on employee satisfaction can sometimes backfire.
Tim Cook had faced ethical dilemmas in a supplier company of Wuhan, where labours had threatened him with suicide protests against the hectic working condition. Near about 150 Chinese labours at the Foxconn, which is considered as the world’s major electronics producer, have threatened Tim Cook to commit suicide by soaring from the production plan roof in objection against the pressurized working environment (Leaders We Deserve, 2018). The labours were ultimately enticed after the completion of two days strikes on the very top of the Wuhan plant by Foxconn leaders and the domestic Chinese Communist officials. Apple is, in reality, had managed to well place its working condition by considering the interest of the workers at Foxconn to leave a better influence on them (Leaders We Deserve, 2018). Regardless of the assertions from Apple on its corporate website regarding its high commitment towards the greatest principles of social conscientiousness crossways its universal supply chain, the confirmation presented underscores that employees of Foxconn were sincerely hurt regarding its working conditions, which somehow failed to blend with their working and living styles.
Furthermore, investors are raising questions about the leadership abilities of Tim Cook. Investors are decreasing the level of approximation of Apple’s value. In 2015, the investors claimed the company’s worth was equal to $740 billion (Lashinsky, 2018). However, in 2016, as per their estimations, their company’s worth value had lowered to $568 billion than that of its previous year. The reason behind their belief is that Apple has turned up to an iPhone company without coming up any incredible hit product for a considerable tenure of the period, which leads the iPhone segment to accounts for only 66% of its entire sales.
Focus on people management is definitely a noteworthy activity that can help the organization to retain its employee motivation. Yet, sometimes this can lead to excessive employee demands and expectations, which management finds difficulties in the meeting (R?ducan & R?ducan, 2014). Therefore, Tim Cook shall sometimes restrict its people management process, where employees can be controlled in the required time with the necessary actions. In addition, Cook also needs to identify the working culture of a new market before setting up the operation (Northouse, 2014). This can help him cut down the ethical issue raised by workers, which ultimately hampers the company brand image and goodwill.
Conclusion
Based on the discussion and analysis performed in the preceding sections of the report, it may be concluded that the leadership is utmost critical for the success or failure of a business. In the given case study of Tim Cook, as explained herein, the inference that can be derived from the previous evaluation is that Tim Cook’s leadership style is quite effective for the company to experience future profitability. However, like other leaders, Cook also lacks in certain aspects, which can be effectively met through his sincerities and thoughtfulness. Finally, it may be established that the leadership practices followed by Cook are strongly impactful as far as the business of Apple Inc. is considered. Under his effective leadership, Apple has achieved tremendous growth in the industry. Though, there have been allegations against the leadership style adopted by Cook, the innovative strategy of Cook may be considered to be significantly contributing towards the successful achievement of corporate goals of Apple Inc. in terms of sustainability in the market in the changing landscape of customers’ preferences and technology.
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