Leadership Style and Behaviour of Tim Cook

Running head: MANAGING PEOPLE
MANAGING PEOPLE
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