Leadership Styles in Apple Inc.: A Critical Evaluation

Leadership

Executive Summary
Leadership of an organisation is stated to play a phenomenal role in the success and growth of an
enterprise, because the leaders set the overall objectives of an organisation and influence the
members to achieve the same. The following work was an attempt to define the relationship
between the advancement of the goals of the entity Apple and contribution of various leaders in
the same. While the success of Apple is largely attributed to Steve Jobs, the work would shed
light on how his leadership style differed from other leaders of the organisation who rendered
value addition to success of Apple in their own ways. Nevertheless, it would be right to state that
the vision of Jobs to build the unconventional products is what has made entity apart from its
competitors till now. The latter part of the work suggested some of the means through which the
overall functions and communications could have been improved at Apple.

Contents
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................2
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Part 1: critical evaluation of the styles of leadership and management within the organisation.....5
Part 2: Evaluation of whether the leadership styles exhibited were relevant within the
organisation......................................................................................................................................8
Part 3: A proposal of an appropriate leadership development intervention..................................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................12
References......................................................................................................................................13

Introduction
With the increased globalization, the organisational activities have become even more complex
and thereby making the need of the effective implementation of the various principles of the
strategic management crucial. One of the primary concepts of the strategic management that is of
paramount importance for the efficient functioning of an organisation and long term success and
growth is the leadership. Leadership is referred to as the interpersonal process that comprises of
influencing the followers to drive them to achieve the objectives of the entity willingly and
enthusiastically (Daft, 2014).The leaders of an entity are entrusted with the prime responsibility
of providing the blue print of strategies to be adopted and the activities to be conducted, in order
to achieve the aim and the overall mission of the enterprise.
The following report is aimed at analysing the various aspects of leadership from the real life
case study of movie “Steve Jobs, 2015.” The report will comprise of critical evaluation of
leadership and management styles of the main character Steve Jobs and two sub characters
namely the Steve Wozniak and John Sculley within the organisation Apple Inc. Further the
report will shed light on the relevancy of the leadership styles of the various characters in the
context of the organisational context. The final section of the work will conclude on the
suggestions that can be implemented to drive change and improve the leadership styles of the
characters.

Part 1: critical evaluation of the styles of leadership and management within the
organisation
The nature of leadership is ever evolving in the organisational context (Northouse, 2013). The
two terms “leadership” and “management” are often used interchangeably in the business setting.
However, it must be noted that there is a difference between the two concepts. Leadership in
organisation is defined to be dealing majorly with two concepts listed as follows. Firstly, it deals
with the communication of the mission of the entity to the members of the organisation, and
thereby making use of the influence to guide and motivate people to achieve them. Secondly, it is
followed by the provision of the skills and the management to enable the members to deal with
the changes in the organisational objectives and business environment. Contrast to that, the
management is the typical reflection of the various functions in an organisation (Hunt et. al,
2013). The management function in an organisation is referred to as the combination of planning,
organising, controlling, budgeting, staffing, resolution of conflicts and the carrying of other
fundamental tasks as necessary to carry on the business.
The analysis of the leadership and management style of the characters in the movie, as in the real
life organisation Apple Inc. is stated as follows. The main character of the movie that is Steve
Jobs can be stated to be having a transactional leadership style. The transactional leadership is
based on the role of supervision, organization, and group performance. Some of the
characteristics of a transactional leadership is that these leaders are consistently looking for the
opportunities and taking risks (Deichmann and Stam, 2015). It is significant to note that the
transactional leaders focus on specific tasks and use rewards and punishments to motivate
followers. In addition, the primary tasks of the followers of such a leader is to Obeying the

instructions and commands of the leader, as the leaders area staunch believer of the vision and
often engage in the demonstration of his ideas and beliefs to the members of the entity (Storey,
2016). The movie is descriptive of the fact that Steve Jobs has three firm qualities namely the
creativity, passion for his goal, and vision to achieve the same. One of the examples from the
movie that highlights how clear and firm Steve Jobs was in his vision was during the perfection
in the small things during the product launch of Apple Macintosh computer. The vision is further
carried by the founding of the computer company NeXT in 1986, post getting fired from his own
established company. Further, after being reinstated in the company Apple Computer again, Jobs
helped reviving the company from the fiscal distress and lower market share. The vision of Jobs
for the company to be a market leader and providing exceptional products led the company to be
the pioneer in the iMac, which debuted in 1998, followed by the opening of the worldwide Apple
Stores, and the debut of iPod, in year 2001. The company had launched its first iPhone in 2007
and iPad in the year 2010. Further to state, the innovative vision of Steve Jobs led to the
revolution of a number of incidental industries namely the tablet computing, animated film,
music, retail stores, digital publishing; apart from the telephones and personal computers. As a
leader, Steve Jobs had a vision and he made sure that the followers follow the same. The fact that
as a leader Steve Jobs demanded high performance from the employees and was specific in his
goals as stated to Joanna Hoffman and Andy Hertzfeld are few instances of his transactional
leadership. Thus, to conclude on the leadership style of Steve Jobs it can be stated that his clarity
in the visions and unconventional ways is what had set them apart from the other leaders and
enabled the organisation Apple to reach heights.
The leadership style of John Sculley can be stated to be “moral leadership” because of the
following reasons. The chief traits of moral leadership can be stated as follows. Firstly, the moral