Leadership Style and Behaviour of Tim Cook

This assignment explores the leadership style and behaviour of Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, and the different leadership theories. Cook's democratic leadership style has helped Apple in bringing innovative product ideas. The article also provides valuable lessons in managing people.

Running head: MANAGING PEOPLE
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Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Introduction:
The main aim of this assignment is to explore the leadership style and behaviour.
Leadership is the process of guiding, directing and influencing the work and the behaviour of the
other employee to meet the goal and the objective that is set by the management (Crawford
2012). Leadership is basically the act of motivating and bringing out the best from an individual,
which will ultimately help the organization in creating a good position in the market. There are
many leaders in the world who have inspired us by their innovation, skill of leading, behavioural
style and so on. The selected leader for this assignment is Timothy Donald Cook (Hunter et al.
2012). Timothy Donald Cook was born in November 1, 1960 in Alabama, United States. Tim
cook did his graduation from Robertsdale High School. After that he studied Bachelor of
Science, industrial engineering from Auburn University in the year 1982. He did his masters of
business administration from Fuqua School of Business in 1988. In the year 1998, Tim Cook was
asked to join Apple by Steve Jobs and Cook didn’t let this opportunity to go away and joined
Apple as the senior vice president of Apple for maintaing the worldwide operations. After this he
was elected for the post of executive vice president to deal the worldwide operation and the
sales. Days before the demise of Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, Tim Cook was selected as the
Chief Executive Officer of Apple 24th August 2011. In his tenure as the Chief Executive Officer
of Apple he has made some political reformation of the domestic and the international
surveillance, corporate taxation, cyber security, American manufacturing and also emphasized
on the environmental preservation. Cook is also elected as the member of the board of directors
of National football foundation, Nike and he is also a trustee in the Duke University. Tim Cook
is one of the key figures for Apple and one of the key reasons why Apple is still one of the

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leading brands in the market. He has impressed everyone with his innovating skill, way of
leadership and how he manages his resources. He and Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple
have brought some devices that have helped them in increasing their profitability.
Leadership theories:
To understand the behaviour of the leader it is necessary to understand the leadership
theories. There are many leadership theories, which explain why some of the people excel and
become the leaders. The leadership theories are:
 Great man theory: This theory explains that successful leaders are born with the
necessary skills that will help them to flourish. They are born with the characteristics like
confidence, intelligence, charisma, and necessary social skills, which make them the
natural born leaders. The great man theory explains that these skills cannot be taught or
learnt by observation (Cherry 2012).
 Trait theory: The great man theory and the trait theory are quite similar. The trait theory
explains that to be a successful leader an individual must have some of the unique traits
or qualities that helps them to manage effectively. Traits are often identified as the
behavioural characteristics shared by the leaders. An individual may contain lots of traits
for example, good communication skill, confidence, good managerial skills. this theory
says that an individual is born with these traits, which helps them in becoming successful
in the industry (Colbert et al. 2012).
 Contingency theory: Contingency theory of leadership emphasizes on some of the
particular variables, which are related to environment (Waters 2013). This leadership
theory explains that no particular leadership style is perfect and it depends on the

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situation. This theory explains that the success not only depends on the leadership style
but it also depends on the quality of the followers and the present situation of the
environment. Assessing the current situation of the organization can help in leading and
directing the members of the organization.
 Situational theory: This theory explains that the leaders choose the best actions
depending on the situational variables. Different leadership style can be appropriate for
specific decision making. For example, if there is a situation where the leader is
experience and knowledgeable member in the group, then the authoritarian style of
leadership will suit the organization. The situational theory says that an individual should
assess the market effectively (McCleskey 2014).
 Behavioural theory: this leadership style explains that successful leaders are made not
born. The action of the leaders made them successful in the organization. The main focus
of this leadership theory is on the action of the leader than the internal states or the
mental quality. According to the behavioural theory, people can learn how to be great
leader by observation and teachings. This theory explains that the leader can learn by
observing the working of others and analysing where are they making their mistakes
(Hogg, Knippenberg and Rast 2012).
 Participative theory: This theory explains that the most effective leadership style is the
one in which all the employee and the key members of the organization comes under the
one roof and takes decision. The participative leaders encourage the employees to
participate and contribute so that they can share their ideas and do not feel that they have
no importance in the organization. This helps the organization by providing lots of
knowledge and also helps them to motivate their employees. The participative leadership

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style helps in motivating the customer and this leadership style improves the production
of the organization (Arnold and Loughlin 2013).
Leadership style of Tim Cook:
Leadership style is one of the key factors that influences the success and growth of the
organization. It is necessary to identify, which leadership style will be perfect for the
organization’s growth and should research whether there is all the resources that will help the
organization in implementing the leadership style. Tim Cook is one of the key figures when it
comes to leadership. After the demise of Steve Jobs, Cook led Apple to many milestones and
came up with products that helped them in expanding their business all over the world.
Rather than staying in the complete contrast of the former CEO of Apple Steve Jobs,
Cook appeared to be having adopted a leadership style, which is the blend of the different
leadership style followed by the different leaders. There was a high level of criticism and
everyone thought that Tim Cook was missing the bold visionary of the former Apple CEO, Steve
Jobs. However, he established his own style of leading Apple. Tim Cook is often described as
thoughtful and charismatic by the Apple Inc. employees. Instead of following the legacy of Steve
Jobs and adopting the autocratic leadership style, Tim cook focused on his strengths and adopted
the democratic leadership style. This leadership style helps in the building consensus among the
higher level of employees. Democratic leadership style is also known as the participative
leadership style. In which the leaders open the door for other employees to share ideas in the
decision making process, this helps in gathering lots of ideas and which can help the
management to make accurate operational decisions. This leadership style helps in understanding
everyone’s views, which reduce the risks of misunderstanding among the employees and also

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helps in reducing the communication gap between the management and the employees. This
management style helps in reducing the conflict. Researchers have shown that the most effective
leadership style among all other leadership style is the democratic leadership style. This
leadership style has helped Apple in bringing innovative product ideas in their devices. Under
the tenure of Cook, Apple has brought some of the greatest Apple product for example, Iphone
X, Apple watch, Air Pods, Air power. Iphone X is one of the best smartphones that is trending in
the market. It is Apple’s first bezel less smartphones (Agarwal, Atasu and Ittersum 2015). Apart
from this Apple watch has also gathered the attention of the customer. These are some of the
products that helped Apple in gaining such a large number of market shares.
Leadership lessons from Tim Cook:
 Take risks: Tim Cook thinks that taking risks is important in order to get success.
According to him, taking risks can lead an individual to fail sometimes, but without
failure there can be no success. Cook has taken many risks with their products for
example when he removed the fingerprint ID and introduced the face ID, which is
accurate and more secured (Ertac and Gurdal 2012).
 Diversity: Tim Cook is a leader who believed in innovation and thinks that he needs
employees who are innovative and can provide different insight. Cook helps the
employees to bring the best out of them, which is one of the traits of a successful leader.
 Listen attentively: Tim Cook believes and follows that the leader should be quite and
attentive towards what others are saying. Cook has been successful because of his nature
and listening skills. This has helped them in bringing innovative ideas, which helped
Apple in earning the market share (Doody and Noonan 2013).

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 Trust is necessary: Tim Cook is an effective leader because of his unique skill of
trusting the voices and the opinion of the team he is working with. He is lucky enough to
get so many successful executives around him who will help him in sharing the
workload of the organization. He understands that these executives are talented people
with brilliant and innovative ideas and often allows these people to take the centre stage
while discussing ideas (Tschannen-Moran 2014).
 Admit the wrongs: A successful leader is the one who admit when he is wrong. Tim
Cook believes that admitting the wrongs can help the organisation in solving many
issues and reduce the conflicts in the organization.
 Believe in yourself: For becoming a successful leader an individual should believe in
himself. A leader should believe in his instinct and should believe that whatever he is
going to do will help in getting success. Tim cook has a tremendous amount of self
belief. For example, when the stock of the Apple was falling, Cook forfeited upto 1/3rd of
the stock based on the compensation which was then amounted as $130 million (Lipkin
and Haddad 2018).

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Conclusion:
Leadership is the art of directing, managing and influencing the behaviour of the
employee to achieve the desired result within the allotted time. Leadership is the most important
factor, which also influences the production of the organization and helps to run the organization
smoothly. Without effective leadership the organization will fail to deliver the expected results
and will affect the organization. The selected leader in this assignment is Tim Cook. Tim cook is
the present CEO of Apple. After the demise of Steve jobs the founder of Apple Inc. Cook led
Apple to a remarkable position and helped them to gain a huge market share. There are many
leadership theories which explain the leadership in different ways. The trait theory is one of the
famous theories, which explains that a leader is born with some specific traits that help them to
be successful in the market. This theory explains that the leadership cannot be taught. On the
other hand the behavioural theory explains that the earned by observing. Cook uses the
democratic leadership style which is also known as the participative leadership style. In this style
of leadership all the members are free to share their ideas in the organization. This leadership
style has proved to be the most effective leadership style. There are some lessons which we can
learn from Tim cook that will prove to be fruitful for managing the organization. For example, a
leader must be able to take risks, listen attentively in the organization, admit when he is wrong
and etc.

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References:
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