Organizational Leadership: A Comparative Analysis of Apple and Samsung

This report provides a comparative analysis of leadership styles within Apple Inc. and Samsung. It defines leadership and explores the democratic style employed by Apple, contrasting it with the hybrid leadership approach of Samsung, which blends Western and Japanese management philosophies. The report examines the key features of each organization's leadership, including Tim Cook's democratic approach at Apple and Samsung's adoption of a hybrid model. The study recommends that Apple consider incorporating affiliative leadership to foster team harmony, while Samsung could benefit from a more transformational approach to enhance employee engagement. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of leadership in organizational management, highlighting the unique strategies of both companies and suggesting areas for improvement to drive future success. The report stresses the significance of adapting leadership styles to meet organizational goals and foster a positive work environment.

Running Head: ORGANISATIONS AND LEADERSHIP
ORGANISATIONS AND LEADERSHIP
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note:

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Introduction
To define the term leadership, it can be said that, it is a style of directing a group. The
leader is considered as the spearhead for the new direction. The department of management
controls the people of a particular group as mentioned by Einarsen, Aasland and Skogstad
(2017). There is no prescribed definition for the term leadership. According to Albert Einstein,
things should be as simple as possible but not simpler. Leaders lead a particular group and
employees follow is an example of oversimplification of the definition of leadership. Both the
concepts of leadership and management are connected with each other (Smircich and Morgan
2013). Both the terms reflects the activities of adjustment of the controlling procedure, managing
the human resources. In business management, leadership demonstrate the capacity of a leader to
define the desired goals of the organization. Employees of any particular organization require to
understand the way in which the organization is lead and the ideal personnel to follow to achieve
the individual and institutional goal.
According to the classic model of organizational leadership is the capability of a person
who monitors all the associated aspects of operations of the institution (Bush, Bell and
Middlewood 2019). The procedure of leadership exhibit in front of the employees, the level to be
implemented to enhance the organizational performance. To understand the different styles of
leadership, the study will analyze the leadership techniques of two popular organizations – Apple
and Samsung.
Discussion
Apple Inc. is one of the popular multinational companies grounded within the United
States of America. The company serves electronic goods including personal computers, media

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players, software for computer, multimedia players, smart phones, and accessories of the
electronic gadgets. The company was founded on the year 1976 by Steve Wozniak and Steve
Jobs (Farahani et al. 2014). The period of Steve Jobs (1997 – 2011), the organization was
observed to follow autocratic style of leadership. Jobs infused a wide range of institutional
operation (Bergvall-Kåreborn and Howcroft 2013). However, the leadership style was altered
after the authoritative body changed with Tim Cook as mentioned by the editing group of
World’s Greatest Leader by Fortune Magazine. The leadership strategy of Tim Cook was
effective from various aspects. It was appreciated and praised by the employees and termed as
one of the best way of leadership that helps the subordinates to be considered as a human being
(Oke, Munshi and Walumbwa 2019). The features of Apple Inc.’s leadership style is mentioned
as follows.
Democratic in nature – Contrasting the autocratic nature of leadership of late CEO Steve Jobs,
Tim Cook infused the democratic nature of leadership within the organization (Steinwart and
Ziegler 2014). Cook values the consensus between superior management in the field of strategic
decision considering the business. A greater sense of autonomy was granted by Cook for a new
product expansion team (Shamim et al. 2016). The intention was to decrease the linked
participation of the CEO for developing a new process.
In general, democratic leadership defines the concept of human resource theory from the
perspective of management. One of the main features of democratic leadership style that is
reflected within the organization is the importance of authority being formalized and providing
importance to individual growth (Boulgarides and Cohen 2014). In simple words, the leaders
equally distribute the responsibilities among all the employees of the organization. It is one of
the ways to empower all the employees of the organization. Democratic leadership techniques

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are the process to aid or enhance the decision-making procedure. The democratic leader ensure a
deliberation for making the decision for the betterment of the organization.
Quiet nature – Tim Cook’s leadership style is praised for the feature of silence. He was provided
with the nickname ‘silent leader’ by a group of anonymous analysts. The nature of Cook is
completely contradictory to the predecessor Steve Jobs (Oke, Munshi and Walumbwa 2019).
However, the leadership style of Cook is not free from criticism. Critics mentioned that apple is
becoming too much conscious to launch new products into the market. For example, the smart
watch launched by Apple is observed with a disappointing sales growth. At the same year,
another product namely Apple music was launched that was appreciated by more than 15 million
subscribers however with a decreased and low-margin of business.
Considering the current situation, the leadership style is facing several challenges. The
critics mentioned that Cook is undeniably efficient leader for the organization, however it is not
enough to meet the end of the organization’s future. Along with this, the senior leading team of
Apple is observed with lack of diversity.
The other focused organization selected for this discussion is Samsung. Samsung has the
strong ground of South Korea, which is one of the largest electronic goods producer covering the
entire world. The company has specialization in numerous types of electronic gadgets including
devices featuring digital media, appliances, memory chips, semiconductors, and other integrated
programs (Jung 2014). The name of the company has become a brand with extreme recognition
by millions of consumers covering the entire world. The company started their journey as a
grocery chain on March 1938. After the Korean War, Lee extended the business in textile
industry. They emerged within the electronics industry in the year 1969 and first product of the
company was black-and-white televisions (Hemmert 2019). Lee occupied the chairmanship of

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the Samsung Company in the year 1987. The features of leadership style of Samsung Company
are mentioned as following.
Samsung is observed with various changes for the transformation from merely grocery
industry to a famous electronics business industry (Yang et al. 2017). The leadership style of
Samsung has a strong Japanese root. The leadership style is based on compensation and
promotions according to the hierarchical seniority. For the strategy, Lee has adopted the open
management approach to manage the personnel (Hemmert 2019). It refers to providing respect
for autonomy and innovative capabilities of the employees. It was adopted to eliminate the
difficulties within the organization practices and enhance competitiveness.
Chang (2015) mentioned that, Samsung has adopted the leadership strategies of Japanese
and American style that provided the tag of a king of hybrid leadership technique. From the
Americans they adopted the HR style and from the Japanese they adopted style of operations and
management (Jung 2014). The Western approach of leadership provide importance to job
stimulation with expected behavior, beliefs and values, spreading openness and generating trust
among the entire organization (Atashfaraz and Abadi 2016). Mixing the Japanese and Western
approach in the leadership strategy positions the company among the strongest giants of the
corporate industry. The hybrid style of management pays attention on innovation within a
company that is optimizing for ongoing procedure of improvement.
From the above discussion, two types of leadership styles can be demonstrated. From
Apple Inc. one can easily define the democratic leadership style. From Samsung one can define
the hybrid leadership design (Shao, Feng and Hu 2016). In this regard, it is worth mentioning
that there is no existing love lost among these two organizations. There is a sort of ongoing
corporate battle between these two companies (Shamim et al. 2016). From the perspective of

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leadership within Apple, they cannot be consider as product business any further. They have
imposed their business totally on iPhone. This is the platform Apple and their style of leadership
dwells in continuous progress of the capability of their position (Atashfaraz and Abadi 2016). On
the other hand, Samsung has focused on the innovative technique of mixing the two different
nature of leadership. This innovative management style adopted by Samsung is one of the key
driving forces towards success.
Recommendation
No matter how efficiently the companies are performing, bringing change should always
be welcomed. In this section, both the companies will be provided with some recommendations
in regards to the leadership style to enhance the business model and perform with efficiency.
Apple is observed with democratic leadership style that is observed with declining nature
at the recent era. Instead of visionary approach, the management should incorporate the
affiliative approach of leadership. According to Daniel Goleman, the style of leadership is
essential for the entire workforce of the organization. It is fruitful for the organizations facing
difficulties in the area of leadership. The core responsibility of affiliative leaders is to bring
harmony and connection within the team members. It is aimed at providing help for the group
with the similar sort of collective image within the institution. It will help to reduce animosity,
reversed resentments and provides a scope to communicate the issues with the authority to bring
mutual empathy. The most important characteristic feature of affiliative leaders is to become a
natural empath. This is important to cultivate a fruitful relationship between the existing efficient
personnel.

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Similarly, the leadership style of Samsung can also bring some changes in the leadership
technique to run the business fruitfully. To be specific, it can be said that the leadership must
adopt the transformative approach of leadership. The leadership style should be more focused to
maintain a simple information flow from the authoritative body (Pucik and Lim 2016). They
should implement a diverse nature of management instead of the mixed approach of
management. For an instance, the company must opt for adopting the transformational style of
leadership. To define this style of leadership, it should be stated that, it is a procedure to bring
positive changes among those who are following. The leaders must be energetic and enthusiastic
to bring such transformations within the organization.
The transformative leaders need to focus on helping each employee of the organization to
become successful. It can provide several benefits to the organization. First of all, this leadership
style has a tendency to retain the employees more often in comparison to the other forms of
leadership. It means the leadership will turn down the organizational turnover costs. On the other
hand, this leadership technology infuses a technique that has the capability of making the
employees fully engaged. The existing leadership technique of Samsung is in need of change
and, transformation is an ideal method to bring and manage organizational changes. The
employees can be able to align the organization mission with the individual one.
The purpose of bringing change within the leadership style, is to create enthusiasm within
the existing framework of workplace. Both the organizations, Apple and Samsung are renowned
brand easily recognized in all parts covering the entire world. A fruitful change within the
current nature of leadership helps the leaders to encourage the ongoing style of training and
development. It helps the employees to maintain an excellent within the organization for a better

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future. Leadership is one of the managerial perception that leads the company towards a bright
and secured future.
Conclusion
As a conclusion, it can be said that, leadership is an integral part of organizational
management. Defining the term leadership, it can be said that it is the way to direct the
workforce of the organization towards success. Leadership is the means to make proper
orientation with organizational goal and also culture of the organization. The two profound
business organizations namely Apple and Samsung exhibit different nature of leadership. Apple
is following the democratic nature of leadership. As per the definition of democratic leadership,
it is also considered as participative leadership. It is hinting that all the employees of the
organization are observed and provided with equal opportunities from the managerial
perspective. On the other hand, Samsung is mainly a South Korea based company that exhibit a
mixed technique of leadership including the Western approach and Japanese approach.
Combining the two concepts together the leadership nature of Samsung is termed as hybrid style
of leadership. Both the leadership styles of the two companies are significant and beneficial for
the achievement of organizational goal. However, there are certain scopes to enhance the
leadership strategies of both the companies. Moreover, both the strategies of the organizations
can successfully lead them towards the desired goal with proper incorporation of the suggested
recommendation.

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