Analysing Leadership and Ethical Issues: A Case Study of Tim Cook

This case study provides an analysis of Tim Cook's leadership style as the CEO of Apple Inc., examining his leadership practices in the global environment, his strengths and weaknesses, and the ethical issues he has faced. The report contrasts Cook's managerial and democratic leadership style with that of his predecessor, Steve Jobs, highlighting Cook's focus on employee relationships and corporate success. It evaluates the suitability of Cook's leadership practices, noting his emphasis on people management and community contributions. The case study also addresses ethical dilemmas, such as labor issues at supplier companies, and concludes with recommendations for Cook to balance people management with necessary controls and to consider the working culture of new markets. This document is available on Desklib, where students can find past papers and solved assignments.

ANALYSING A LEADER

Executive summary
The concept of leadership is a success-critical aspect in business context. The current study
attempts to analyse the leadership styles of Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple Inc. Moreover, it also
determines the leadership practices Tim Cook follows in the global environment to create a
better impact in the market. The above evaluation is also followed by his strengths and
weaknesses. The ethical issue Cook has faced through his leadership directions has also been
discussed. Based on which a recommendation would be derived. Finally, the researcher wraps up
the discussion by way of concluding statements.
Page 2 of 16

Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................4
2.0 Leadership practice in global environment................................................................................5
3.0 Leadership theory and practices................................................................................................7
4.0 Suitability of its followed leadership practices..........................................................................8
5.0 Strengths and weaknesses of the leader...................................................................................10
6.0 Ethical issues in leadership......................................................................................................11
7.0 Recommendations....................................................................................................................12
8.0 Conclusion...............................................................................................................................13
References:....................................................................................................................................14
Page 3 of 16

1.0 Introduction
Leadership is considered one of the most important management functions that may facilitate
organisations to maximise internal efficiency and attain organisational goals (Nienaber &
Svensson, 2017). Hence, it is specifically imperative for an organisation to have effective and
knowledgeable leaders, who would have the competencies to communication organisational
policies to subordinates and letting the works to actually start. Renz (2016) stated that a leader’s
work is not only to supervise yet also to act as a guiding role for its team members. They are
required to evaluate the potentials, strengths and weakness of its team members and guide them
accordingly so that each one can work on their weak points and utilise strengths to maximum.
Therefore, leadership plays the most vital role in motivating subordinates and encouraging them
to give their best efforts while performing (Bolman & Deal, 2017). The present report aims to
evaluate the leadership styles of Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple Inc. It would determine the
leadership practices Tim Cook follows in the global environment, followed by his strengths and
weaknesses. The ethical issues Cook has faced through his leadership directions would be
discussed. Based on which a conclusion would be derived.
Page 4 of 16

2.0 Leadership practice in the global environment
Cook has managed to separate him and his leadership practices from that of Jobs in countless
ways, and the efforts are not simply restricted to his willingness of speaking societal issues.
Cook, had previously joined the company Apple from Compaq Computer in the year1998,
belonged from operations milieu and had also spent some of the influential years of his
occupation in IBM (Colvin, 2018). At Apple, he effectively behaves much like a coach or
teacher who trusts his players to the ultimate and encourage to them to prove their potentials with
his involvements.
As per the consideration of Balon (2014), Tim Cook is generally an achievement centric leaders
who usually focuses more on shareholders’ returns and based on which he generate the business
performance other than having just a visionary nature. There has been no doubt regarding Steve
Jobs product visionary abilities. Even though the quality has raised the cost of a product, yet,
innovative designs and user experience had always been his ultimate focus. On the other hand,
Tim Cook’s approaches were mostly towards business. Aspects like profit margins, cash flows
and corporate success had been his ultimate objectives (Car & Atun, 2017).
Cook also believes in the significance of diversity. As per Bolden (2016), Apple is always
defined as the company at the forefront of innovation. Therefore, it also requires an indifferent
mindset and unique thinking abilities to retain the tag of the most innovative company in the
future as well (Kok & McDonald, 2017). Hence, Cook claimed the company to always have the
requirements of diversified mindset and different insights. Thus, he welcomes employees having
a diversity of style and through who can think differently and continuously propose their creative
ideas to the management. Thorpe (2016) denoted that extracting the best quality out of
Page 5 of 16

employees is an excellence Tim Cook as a leader has and functioning to process these expertise
offers resources with the self-assurance to follow their thoughts.
Page 6 of 16

3.0 Leadership theory and practices
It has been identified that Tim Cook, CEO of Apple generally follows a managerial leadership
style, which can also be broadly defined as a democratic style. Other than standing in absolute
disparity to the previous Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs, Tom Cook emerged to have implemented few
of the renowned entrepreneur's obtainable leadership efforts and established an exclusively
intermingled leadership mantra (Investopedia, 2018). This has been a tremendously analytic of
his democratic leadership style of management, which influenced consent construction,
predominantly amongst the high-level resources preceding to reciprocally assented decision
making (Whaley & Gillis, 2018).
It has been assessed that many of the stakeholders were concerned with the fact that Tim Cook
somewhere lacked the intrepid visionary leadership style of the former CEO. However, in the
practical scenario, he encloses strengths of his own (Investopedia, 2018).
Tim Cook is frequently considered as considerate and charismatic by the Apple’s employees. By
far, Cook’s leadership tenure has been exemplified by a superior emphasis on obtainable
products and nurturing of the company as well as with employee relationships. Furthermore,
Cook always prefers being less occupied in the particulars regarding product lines engineering.
As an alternative, Cook handed over the product particular responsibilities to his executive
cabinet members (Investopedia, 2018). His remarkably understated leadership style has increased
the overall sector and employees’ goodwill. When the current style is compared to Steve Jobs'
abrupt methods and autocratic styles, Cook's existing mantra has also resulted in sluggish
decision making and an apparent slaughter of inventive constrain.
Page 7 of 16

4.0 Suitability of its followed leadership practices
Tim Cook is more concerned about his people and provides a considerate emphasis on people
management process and handling their queries as well. Employee management and their interest
have become one of the major interests of Tim Cook. He believes that employees are the most
valuable assets of the organisation, which help him to retain the tag of innovation and come up
with creative designs and specifications every year and creating a market disruption with such
ease (Spiegelman, 2018). He conducts programs like offering employees discounts on Apple’s
product lines and matching up gift and vouchers for community donations. He also praises his
employee on the public platform and appreciates their contribution to the organisation. This
specifically boosts their motivation and employees effectively feel valued by the CEO against
the efforts given to the organisation. This helped the brand to outperform in the highly
competitive market and keeping its methods secret before the competitors. Jobs replacement with
Cook had benefited the company to enhance its stock shares by 80% (University, E2018).
Information gathered from the similar source underscores the fact that industry experts define
Cook as a more humble leader who less likely prefers stealing the spotlight when compared to
the predecessor.
Moreover, Tim Cook’s action of donating $2 million to support Charlottesville, $1 million to
Southern Poverty Law Center and $1 million Anti-Defamation League had benefited the
company to enhance its Goodwill before the potential stakeholders (Mejia, 2018). He is much
into donating a considerable amount of his profit to human rights and other welfare programs.
His contribution to the community and charitable purposes has definitely improved its brand
image in the market, which also resulted enormously in the final productivity. With the
transformation in the leadership styles from autocratic to democratic, both the internal and
Page 8 of 16

external stakeholders were relatively pleased to be a part of Apple and contribute their best
efforts to evolve with the organization for the long run.
Page 9 of 16

5.0 Strengths and weaknesses of the leader
Strengths
The major strength of Tim Cook is his efforts to create his individual present and not blindly
following the trends of former CEO. This has effectively helped the employees to gain adequate
trust on the confidence Tim Cook showed regarding business dealings (McCaffery, 2018).
Moreover, his quality of helping employees to learn while working rather than just directing and
instructing them with several do’s and don’ts (Ramchunder & Martins, 2014). The former CEO
followed an autocratic style, which indicated the employees with each of their actions. Under
that leadership, the employees never felt free to conduct their responsibility in their own way.
However, Tim Cook has well observed the lagging aspects of Jobs that could be modified in the
future (Thorpe, 2016). Therefore, he had been smart enough in freeing the employees to impose
their individual ideas on tasks and come up with the innovative outcome. This helped employees
to retain their degree of self-confidence and motivation to perform the best for the company.
Weaknesses
Tim Cook has the major expertise to handle the function of logistics and operations. Thus, in the
maximum times, he defaults towards that thought process, which sometimes stiffs the creative
space inside Apple (Bolden, 2016). He can be a game changer in the company, but his excessive
focus on employee satisfaction can sometimes backfire.
Page 10 of 16

6.0 Ethical issues in leadership
Tim Cook had faced ethical dilemmas in a supplier company of Wuhan, where labours had
threatened him with suicide protests against the hectic working condition. Near about 150
Chinese labours at the Foxconn, which is considered as the world’s major electronics producer,
have threatened Tim Cook to commit suicide by soaring from the production plan roof in
objection against the pressurized working environment (Leaders We Deserve, 2018). The labours
were ultimately enticed after the completion of two days strikes on the very top of the Wuhan
plant by Foxconn leaders and the domestic Chinese Communist officials. Apple is, in reality, had
managed to well place its working condition by considering the interest of the workers at
Foxconn to leave a better influence on them (Leaders We Deserve, 2018). Regardless of the
assertions from Apple on its corporate website regarding its high commitment towards the
greatest principles of social conscientiousness crossways its universal supply chain, the
confirmation presented underscores that employees of Foxconn were sincerely hurt regarding its
working conditions, which somehow failed to blend with their working and living styles.
Furthermore, investors are raising questions about the leadership abilities of Tim Cook.
Investors are decreasing the level of approximation of Apple's value. In 2015, the investors
claimed the company’s worth was equal to $740 billion (Lashinsky, 2018). However, in 2016, as
per their estimations, their company’s worth value had lowered to $568 billion than that of its
previous year. The reason behind their belief is that Apple has turned up to an iPhone company
without coming up any incredible hit product for a considerable tenure of the period, which leads
the iPhone segment to accounts for only 66% of its entire sales.
Page 11 of 16

7.0 Recommendations
Focus on people management is definitely a noteworthy activity that can help the organization to
retain its employee motivation. Yet, sometimes this can lead to excessive employee demands and
expectations, which management finds difficulties in the meeting (Răducan & Răducan, 2014).
Therefore, Tim Cook shall sometimes restrict its people management process, where employees
can be controlled in the required time with the necessary actions. In addition, Cook also needs to
identify the working culture of a new market before setting up the operation (Northouse, 2014).
This can help him cut down the ethical issue raised by workers, which ultimately hampers the
company brand image and goodwill.
Page 12 of 16