Leadership and Management in Apple Inc.
Discuss about the Leadership and management and power of politics impact the organization Apple Inc.
The main aim of this report is to find out how leadership and management and power of politics impact the organization Apple Inc. Furthermore, this report discusses the incredible leadership qualities of Steve Jobs and the resultant effectiveness of the organization.
This report further aims to critically identify and discuss leadership and management styles, theories, qualities, leadership behaviors and types of authority/power adopted by Tim Cook for the purpose of managing the organization. Moreover, this report also analyses how the office politics gets influenced by respective power and the impact caused on organization effectiveness and culture.
Overview of the Organization
Apple Inc. is a multinational technology company from America having its headquarters situated in Cupertino, California and is engaged in the designing, developing and selling of computer software, consumer electronics and online services. The popular hardware products of Apple include iPhone smartphone, Mac personal computer, iPad tablet computer, Apple smartwatch and Apple TV, etc. (Apple Inc., 2018).
Apple is considered to be one of the highly successful organizations of the world. Its success is the result of the recognition of best of the employees. The announcement of Apple iPhone proved to be the game changer for the industry as the company sold nearly 270,000 units of iPhone in the initial 30 hours of sales (Apple Inc., 2018). Slowly and gradually, Apple achieved widespread success with the help of iPod Touch, iPad and iPhone products as all these products were based on innovations portable music players, personal computers and mobile phones respectively. The launch of iTunes music store, App Store attained immense success in the industry among the consumers.
Background of the Leader
A leader can be defined as the person who has the capability of holding a superior or leading place in the given field and is capable of exercising a high grade of power or control over others (Vaid, 2015). In other words, a leader is an individual who influences a group towards the accomplishment of a common goal. A leader has its own competence, principles, sensitivity, consciousness and willingness to be concerned regarding the ups and downs of the followers. Therefore, the need arises for studying regarding the most successful leader of the world i.e. Steve Jobs for the purpose of understanding the level of expertise. Such expertise made effective contribution in overcoming the difficulties faced by him as an effective leader for establishing Apple Inc. as a successful organization (Schlender & Tetzeli, 2015).
Steve Jobs – An Effective Leader
Steve Jobs was an American entrepreneur who was best known for being the former Chief Executive officer (CEO) of Apple Inc. He has also served as the member of the board in the Walt Disney Company and as the chairman of Pixar Animation Studio.
After graduation, Jobs started working at Atari for earning money. In 1975, he further attended Homebrew Computer Club meetings which later on proved to be the stepping stone for the development and promotion of first Apple computer. In the year 1976, Steve Jobs founded Apple with Ronald Wayne and Steve Wozniak (Becraft, 2016).
The success of Apple can be traced to Steve Jobs. It is its history of innovation which is continuously contributing towards its success till date (Kelley, 2016). He adopted a strategy of getting out of the building for looking around to see what other start- ups and competing businesses are working on. Player- coach leadership model was adopted by Steve Jobs. He is remembered for his player brilliance and for being rough on the people as a leader. As a player, he made innovations related to smartphones, computers, tablets, etc. along with playing the role of a coach by constantly lading the organization. Therefore, it provided effective leadership to the organization for keep on looking for new technologies at all times. He further emphasized that the organization should not be afraid of leaving the old business models for the adoption of new and innovative business models paired with new technologies.
Identification of the Leadership Style from Qualities, Behaviors and Characteristics of the Leader
Leadership can be defined as leading a group of people by way of influencing their thoughts and feelings along with the related actions. The leadership style of a leader can be interpreted by studying the behavior and characteristics of depicted while managing the organization and group of people (Goleman, 2017).
Steve Jobs had a charismatic personality which significantly assisted in pulling Apple out of the crisis and compelled the employees to work joyfully for 90 works a week for the purpose of meeting the impossible deadlines. A new leadership style was brought by Jobs by way of leveraging a revolutionary vision for the purpose of creating a corporation with following similar to a cult invoking emotional and personal appeals combined with drastic, world changing vision. He made the use of his charisma for leading and therefore became a strong charismatic leader in the entertainment and technology industry (Heracleous & Klaering, 2014).
Leadership Styles Adopted by Steve Jobs
This leadership style adopted by Steve Jobs is known as charismatic leadership. The term charisma can be defined as the ‘divinely inspired’ characteristic of personality that primarily emerges at the time of crisis situations. Steve Jobs have always been a charismatic leader who inculcated trust, loyalty and affection among the followers along with allowing them to experience a high- sense of self- worth and involvement by aligning with his own ideology, value system and ambitions. He shared work- role identities and values of the group by way of invoking self- vision. This in turn assisted in evoking the feeling of pride amongst the followers regarding the importance and meaning of their roles. Jobs offered key charismatic behaviors in the form of world shaping visions within the company for the purpose of changing the structure to world changing framework. Outstanding leadership qualities were exhibited by Steve Jobs which in turn assisted in arresting the financial bleeding of the company and stabilizing its bottom line (Klein, S., 2015).
Significance of Style of Leadership and Identification of Management Style
The passion that the consumers have regarding Apple and Steve Jobs is rare to be found in the corporate world. This is basically due to the leadership and management style. For the purpose of effective management of Apple, Steve Jobs recognized that Apple could be either directed by culture or by controls (Kollenscher, Popper & Ronen, 2016).
Autocratic management style was adopted by Steve Jobs for conducting micromanagement at Apple. There were an incredible number of individuals who reported directly to Jobs due to which he was perceived as autocratic. Such large number of people reporting directly to Jobs depicts that he had eagerness and will of holding every string in his own hands. Therefore, the autocratic management style leads Jobs to control all the decisions on his own and includes a very little input of the group members. Steve Jobs used judgements and ideas for making choices and rarely accepted the advice of the followers (Barnes, 2015). His leadership was, therefore, based on total control. By keeping control over others, he tried to attain realistic objectives and targets by making efficient utilization of resources. In other words, there was a low degree of participative leadership adopted by Steve Jobs. Participative management style demanded the adoption of teamwork approach where there is no intent of the leader to dominate the group. However, Steve Jobs made the use of a blend between autocratic and charismatic leadership style. The charismatic leadership was undertaken based on emotions where the followers also had some power over the leader. On the other hand, the management style of autocratic where the decision making power was not left with the employees (Chen, 2014).
Management Style Adopted by Steve Jobs
Identification of the Power/ Authority in context of Leadership Style
It is vital to gain understanding of how power was acquired by Steve Jobs by way of using charismatic leadership style for exercising influence over the followers. It is often said that power is related with leadership as no one can become a leader without power. The term power can be defined as the potential ability of an individual for influencing others to perform an act which they would not have performed otherwise (Nikoloski, 2015).
The charismatic leadership style adopted by Steve Jobs created an interactive relationship between the followers and Steve Jobs. This is the reason why the leadership of Steve Jobs is considered to be one of the best leaderships in the world. Steve Jobs had power over the followers. The followers were required to obey in cases when their values were congruent with that of Steve Jobs. This used to be the voluntary action of the employees or followers and not coercion. Steve jobs gained power and authority only on the basis of his larger than life charm and personal appeal (Abraham, 2014). As a charismatic ruler, Steve Jobs was given legitimacy based on his extraordinary personal characteristics and not due to the qualification. The supporters of Jobs offered their devotion to him in the form of following his each and every instruction (Niebuhr, Vobe & Brem, 2016).
Impact of Power on Office Politics
The origination of politics is noticed in situations where there is exercising of power for the purpose of controlling the results, tasks, processes and respective decisions that result in the improvement of organizations, groups or individuals. Charismatic leadership style involves such power and traits which result in the creation of a positive office politics and encourage the employees for performing their jobs with full spirit. Similarly, Steve Jobs referent power has the characteristics which genuinely inspired the staff of Apple due to the motive of creation of team spirit and motivating the subordinates. This in turn forms positive politics in the organization (Cairns, 2017).
Steve Jobs never stepped back at the time of highlighting the points where he employees fell short at work. However, he always dealt the situation from the position of respect for the worker and their potential. His main focus was to assist everyone in reaching their best potential. For this, he introduced a performance evaluation process where the employees received semiannual review. This involved the determination of the strengths and weaknesses of the employees by the managers. The employees were encouraged in the process to discuss the issues faced by them in the organization. This in turn resulted in improving collaboration and communication within Apple. This is related to the relation- oriented concept of leadership which emphasizes on the importance of communication, implementation of reward systems and boosting of confidence and trust of the subordinates (Hoy & Adams, 2015). The adoption of this approach by Steve Jobs led to the creation of a positive environment within Apple. The employees having outstanding performance graphs were rewarded in order to motivate them to further improve their performance. In other words, there is the implementation of a reward power which includes only fair means of rewarding the employees and generates optimistic politicking among the employees and results in loyalty of the employees towards the organization (Saxena, 2014)
Power Politics at Apple Inc.
Effect of Leadership/ Management and Power/ Politics on the Organization Culture
The charismatic leadership adopted by Steve Jobs was positively related to the requirement of power motive and social influence. The charismatic leadership style impacted the culture of Apple by directing the behavior of each and every employee in the organization towards the values and vision of Steve Jobs. Being a charismatic leader, Steve Jobs was in a position to expand the harmony levels on the considered norms and values between supporters of his behavior. In this way, he was able to reinforce employee motivation and organizational performance. This is linked to the path-goal theory of leadership in which the motivation and productivity of employees is influenced and impacted by the leadership style (Northouse, 2012). Jobs played an effective role in the transfer of the organizational values to their employees and therefore shaped the organizational culture that promotes the realization of the goals and objectives of the company. In other words, the organizational culture is the ultimate result of the charismatic leadership of Steve Jobs and is critical for the purpose of creating shared values. Consensus is increased by the charismatic leaders regarding the values among the followers through his behavior (Owens, Wallace & Waldman, 2015).
Influence of Leadership/ Management and Power/ Politics on the Organizational Effectiveness
The effectiveness of the organization can be measured under a number of criteria by using various indicators. The effectiveness of Apple Inc. is studied here by using the non- financial measures such as profitability and revenue under the power and leadership of Steve Jobs.
The expertise and commitment of Steve Jobs have played an important role in the effectiveness of Apple from its origination to becoming a branded company. The charismatic leadership of Steve Jobs was able to inspire and motivate the employees of Apple for performing at higher levels and to be commitment to the organization. With the passage of time, this commitment resulted in immense popularity of the company. From the launch of first Apple computer in the year 1976 to the launch of iPhone X in 2017, the company has been witnessed to be continuously moving forward. However, Steve Jobs died in 2011 but this extraordinary success of Apple is still traced to Steve Jobs. Apple is considered among the most valuable brands of the world. It has also been awarded as the ‘Brand of the Year’ for iPhone, MacBook and iPad.
Impact of Power Politics on Apple Inc.
Despite of being the highly priced phone, its revenue has constantly increased year after year due to the strategies adopted by Steve Jobs. Tim Cook, the new CEO of Apple is following the path adopted by Steve Jobs and has been able to take the organization to new heights. Apple’s iPhone is considered to be a money making machine and has acquired nearly 51% of the global smartphone market share in the last quarter of the year 2017 (Jennings, 2017). Steve Jobs is no more, the company is still known by his name and has attained the position of one of the top companies of the world.
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded that charismatic leadership style is the most suitable style in the contemporary world, which contributes towards the performance and effectiveness of the organization and reinforcement of employee motivation in the organizational culture.
A number of organization whether working on small or large scale adopt the leadership style of Steve Jobs for attaining same heights as acquired by Apple Inc. The right approach of leadership and management style adopted by Steve Jobs along with the most appropriate use of influence and power has led to the progression of the organization and has altogether transformed Apple and his team to the next level within a short frame of time
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