Leadership Style and Challenges Faced by Tim Cook at Apple

This essay discusses the leadership style of Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, and the challenges he faced in making Apple the most valuable company and competing on social media. It also offers suggestions to improve leadership and lessons learned from Tim Cook.

Tim Cook

Leadership
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................1
Background................................................................................................................................1
Tim Cook leadership style and leadership theory......................................................................2
Challenges faced by Tim Cook..................................................................................................3
Suggestions to improve leadership.............................................................................................4
Lessons learned from Tim Cook................................................................................................4
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................4
References..................................................................................................................................5
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Leadership
Introduction
Leader is the one who guides and motivates its subordinates to accomplish the set goals and
objectives (Antonakis and Day, 2017). In this essay, the discussion will be made on “Tim
Cook” who is considered as the CEO of Apple. Tim Cook is selected for the task as he is one
of the famous leaders and also there are various leadership lessons that are given by him that
inspires other individuals.
Tim Cook embodies democratic leadership style of management that boost consensus
building and also involves the employees in decision making process. The essay will also
discuss the challenges that are faced by him such as the first challenge was to make “Apple”
the most valuable company and the second challenge faced by him was to compete with the
competitors on social media platform.
Background
Timothy Donald Cook is known as an American business executive and he is also an
industrial engineer. He was born on 1st November 1960 in Alabama, United States. Tim Cook
completed his Master of business administration from Duke University Fuqua School of
business in 1988 (Biography, 2018).
Initially, Tim Cook was hired by IBM on the position of “Corporation North American
fulfilment director” and there he controlled manufacturing and distribution functions for
IBM’s personal computer company in North and Latin America. Tim Cook started working
for Apple in 1998. In 2018, he was known as the man behind the company with the world
biggest market capitalization of more than $930 Billion. Tim Cook is also considered as an
influential player in the field of technology, design and also entertainment (Biography, 2018).
Tim Cook is a born leader with extra ordinary skills that makes him different from others. He
considers the approach related with freedom of thought and action and he is committed
towards his goals. Tim Cook always assumes the responsibility to be a protector for those he
loves but on the other hand, he demands respect and attention. He is always concerned about
his status and also emphasizes on striving growth. It is analysed that Tim Cook base salary is
approximately $3 Million and $12 Million as bonus (Business today, 2019).
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Leadership
Tim Cook leadership style and leadership theory
Tim Cook has considered democratic leadership style which is considered as participative
leadership. This style of leadership is concerned on mutual respect and also involves all the
individuals with the shared goal. Democratic leadership style allows the workers to
participative in the decision making process of the organization and they are given equal
chance to share their views with the management (Crooke, Csikszentmihalyi and Bikel,
2015).
Tim Cook offers democracy by providing chance to the employees to share their ideas for the
growth of the organization. It has been examined that Apple is considered as the organization
that emphasizes on innovation and need different minded and unique individuals who can
assist in creating the future. Tim Cook as the leader of the organization emphasizes on the
thinkers who have different insights (Biography, 2018).
It has been said by him in the recent interview that “We want diversity of style and want the
individuals to be themselves”. Apple is considered as the first listed company to attain the
milestone of $1 Trillion in the market. Tim Cook also gave rewards to the employees and
stated that Steve Jobs established the company with the thought that power of human
creativity can resolve the different challenges.
He also said that despite of all the achievement, the emphasis should be given on future as it
can help the company to grow in the market. The achievement attained by the company is
also due to the participation level of the workers in decision making process of the company.
Tim Cook allowed the workers to share their opinions as he believes that it shows the
direction towards attaining the set goals in the competitive market (Dhiman, 2019).
One of the leadership theories considered by Tim Cook is situational leadership theory. He is
the face and the leader of Apple Company and also follows situational leadership theory
(Thompson and Glasø, 2015). The situational leadership theory relates with those leaders
who have proper knowledge of giving response at the right time. This leadership theory is
effective as it helps in considering the needs of the team and also balances the whole
organization. The situational leadership theory states that no leadership style is best but it
depends on the situation (Dhiman, 2019).
Tim Cook is considered as the leader who focuses on situational leadership theory. He always
leads the team members and gives them skills which can help in attaining growth and success
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Leadership
(Heracleous and Papachroni, 2016). One of the instances that states that Tim Cook is
situational leader is related with the US government. Tim Cook considered his situational
leadership skills at the time of addressing the US government when “demanding that
company take an unprecedented step which affect the security of the customers”.
In this case, Tim Cook opposed and did not considered the requests of FBI to make new
phone and bypass the security measures that put the customers at risk. So, it can be stated that
Tim Cook considered the issue and also offered the legislation that assist his directive stance.
Therefore, it can be stated that Tim Cook emphasized on situational leadership theory and
attain growth in the highly competitive business world (Nawaz and Khan_phd, 2016).
Challenges faced by Tim Cook
 To make Apple the most valuable one
There are also many challenges that are faced by Tim Cook at the time of achieving success
among the competitors. One of the challenges relates with making the Apple Company “the
most valuable one”. Steve jobs had done an excellent job in making the company a pioneer in
the mobile sector. To maintain the legacy, Tim Cook faced a pressure from the company and
also from the outside market (Khan et al., 2015).
Initially, Tim Cook faced hallenge of innovation and technology advancement. He was good
in supply chain management but did not have technology development. So, due to lack of
technology development he faced the challenge to replicate the success to create series of
products under the single umbrella. The products such as iPhone and Apple TV are sold as
stand-alone devices but these can also work together (Shah, 2019).
To be one of the valuable companies, Tim Cook emphasized in taking risks that has helped in
achieving the large market share. Tim Cook taking risks is equal to breaking the stereotypes.
To be the valuable company, he release more than one phone at the time and pushed the
company to attain growth in the market (Inc, 2019)
 Challenge relates to competing with the competitors on social media platform
The other challenge faced by Tim Cook was to compete with the competitors on social media
platform. In 2011, the weak point of the company was its social networking. Apple has its
own services such as Ping and Game centre but there is also a complicated relation with
Facebook which impacted the overall operations of the business. But at that time, Tim Cook
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Leadership
and his team faced the challenge to nail the company social strategy. Tim Cook has to face
the issue in creating social networks with the people (Inc, 2019).
Therefore, to compete in the market and to maintain the strong hold on social media
networking sites, he focused on reading the customers mails. To enhance the privacy of the
customers, Cook also launched the new feature which is called Sign In with Apple and VPN
– like feature that helps the users to sign in to the website with the generated fake address.
The fake address will help to stop websites from tracing the private data of the customers
(Haring, 2019).
So, to compete in the market, he emphasized on offering the benefit of maintaining the
privacy of the customer data. This has also boosted the goodwill among the customers and
enhanced the brand image among the customers. It can be said that it is one of the best step
which was took by Tim Cook to resolve the issue. In relation to maintain the privacy of the
customers, Tim Cook also enhanced the brand image in the market (Inc, 2019).
Suggestions to improve leadership
There are various suggestions that should be considered by Tim Cook to improve their
leadership. It is suggested that Tim Cook should emphasize on recruiting positive people as it
can help in boosting the value of organization in market. It is also necessary for Tim Cook, to
maintain trust among the employees as it can assist in achieving the set goals and targets
(Western, 2019).
Lessons learned from Tim Cook
There are various lessons that I have learned from Tim Cook. The first lesson is ability to
take risks as he said that we only take risks by knowing that the outcome will be failure but
sometimes without the possibility of failure there is no possibility to achieve success. So, it is
important to take risk so that the chance of achieving success can be enhanced. The next
lesson learned from him is the significance of diversity. It is important to maintain diversity
in the workplace as it assists in accomplishing the set goals (Kishore, 2019).
Conclusion
By analysing the paper, it can be concluded that Tim Cook is one of the popular leader who
has been an inspiration for many individuals. There are various challenges that are faced by
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him but all the challenges are resolved by him with a positive approach. Also, from him there
are various lessons that are learnt such as to take risk and also to know the significance of
diversity.
References
Antonakis, J. and Day, D.V. eds., 2017. The nature of leadership. Sage publications.
Biography., 2018. Tim Cook. [Online].Available at: https://deadline.com/2019/06/tim-cook-
apple-ceo-stanford-graduation-address-privacy-1202633390/ [Accessed on 17 September
2019].
Business today., 2019. Apple CEO Tim Cook gets big salary hike second year in a row.
[Online]. Available at: https://www.businesstoday.in/current/corporate/apple-ceo-tim-cook-
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gets-big-salary-hike-second-year-in-a-row/story/308369.html [Accessed on 17 September
2019].
Crooke, M., Csikszentmihalyi, M. and Bikel, R., 2015. Leadership in a complex
world. Organizational Dynamics, 44(2), pp.146-155.
Dhiman, S., 2019. Being-Centered Leadership: Leader as an Enlightened Sage. In Bhagavad
Gītā and Leadership (pp. 127-155). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Haring, B., 2019. Apple CEO Tim Cook Attacks Social Media Data Harvesting In Stanford
Grad Address. [Online].Available at: https://deadline.com/2019/06/tim-cook-apple-ceo-
stanford-graduation-address-privacy-1202633390/ [Accessed on 17 September 2019].
Heracleous, L. and Papachroni, A., 2016. Strategic Leadership and Innovation at Apple Inc.
SAGE Publications Ltd.
Inc., 2019. 5 Essential Leadership Lessons From Tim Cook. [Online].Available
at: https://www.inc.com/eric-markowitz/tim-cooks-message-for-ceos-admit-when-youre-
wrong.html [Accessed on 17 September 2019].
Khan, M.S., Khan, I., Qureshi, Q.A., Ismail, H.M., Rauf, H., Latif, A. and Tahir, M., 2015.
The styles of leadership: A critical review. Public Policy and Administration Research, 5(3),
pp.87-92.
Kishore, S., 2019. Leadership And Life Lessons To Learn From Tim Cook.
[Online].Available at: https://www.startupstories.in/tips/leadership-and-life-lessons-to-learn-
from-tim-cook. [Accessed on 17 September 2019].
Nawaz, Z.A.K.D.A. and Khan_ PhD, I., 2016. Leadership theories and styles: A literature
review. Leadership, 16(8), pp.1-7.
Shah, A., 2019. What challenges does Tim Cook's Apple face? [Online].Available
at: https://www.macworld.com/article/1161952/what_challenges_does_tim_cooks_apple_fac
e.html [Accessed on 17 September 2019].
Thompson, G. and Glasø, L., 2015. Situational leadership theory: a test from three
perspectives. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 36(5), pp.527-544.
Western, S., 2019. Leadership: A critical text. London: SAGE Publications Limited.
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