Apple Inc

1. Introduction

1.1. Introduction of Apple Inc

Apple Inc., which is a US-based multinational firm, deals in the designs, develops as well as sells computer software, online services, and computer software (Apple, 2020). The firm has its headquarter in Cupertino, California, United States, and was founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs and the other two co-founders but currently run by Tim Cook as the CEO (Apple, 2020). The company is considered to be among the big four technology firms alongside Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, as well as the leading luxury brand selling its products at a premium process (Apple, 2020). The company has more 500 stores globally and approximately 137,000 employees across various countries in the world (Apple, 2020). Moreover, the company has been experiencing great financial success; for instance, Apple generated a revenue of $260.174 billion and $55.256 billion as the net income in 2019 (Apple, 2020). Given that some of the success of Apple can be directly attributed to its leadership, this essay aims to evaluate the leadership of the company and how it approaches some of its challenges.

1.2. Introduction of leader and manager

Currently, the CEO and leader of Apple is Tim Cook (Apple, 2020). Prior to being appointed the CEO, he served in operations and sales as the senior vice president and later got promoted to the position of executive vice president of sales and operations worldwide (Apple, 2020). Based on the differentiation given between a manager and leader in Chiu et al. (2017), Tim Cook could be described as a leader as opposed to the manager given the roles he plays in the organization. According to Northouse (2018), leaders are different from managers in the sense that their role is mainly centred around influencing followers in attaining specified goals. There are several roles played by Tim Cook that makes him more of a leader than manager include. For instance, Tim Cook often encourages high-level employees to build consensus among themselves (Apple, 2020). The CEO also prefers to delegate most of his duties to his executive cabinet (Fortune, 2015). Furthermore, Cook also plays the role of a motivator as he likes motivating and inspiring employees to think innovatively (Washington, 2011). However, being the top manager of the company, Cook also executes other managerial roles such as organising, planning, and controlling.

The roles played by Tim Cook at Apple are instrumental in helping the company realise its mission and vision. For instance, the mission statement of the firm reads “to bringing the best user experience to its customers through its innovative hardware, software, and services” (Apple, 2020). As such, encouraging employees to be innovative in their thinking, the leader is aiming at the process resulting in innovative products. Moreover, the vision statement reads, “we believe that we are on the face of the earth to make great products, and that’s not changing” (Apple, 2020). Accordingly, the leader of the company is helping it realise the vision through encouraging consensus among high-level employees so as to develop great products.

1.3. Essay structure

In order to realise the aim of this essay, the remain parts have been divided into two main subsections. The first section focusses on how Apple is being led or managed. The section mainly looks into the leadership style used by Tim Cook, the challenge faced by the leader, and the aftermath of the said challenge. The second section focuses on critical analysis and evaluation of how Tim Cook has led during the challenge. Subsequently, the essay is concluded by highlighting the main points discussed.

2. Managing and leading Apple Inc.

2.1. Tim Cook’s leadership style

Tim Cook demonstrates a transformational style of leadership to lead the company. Based on transformational leadership theory, a leader who embraces this style of leadership often advocate for change by influencing the followers through creating a vision to guide the change and motivating them to realise the same (Turnidge and Côté, 2018). As such, the theory asserts that transformational leaders often use emotions, ethics, and values to inspire and motivate followers to exceedingly accomplishing their tasks beyond expectations. According to Ghasabeh (2015), the transformational leadership style has four components known as the 4Is, and they include inspiration motivation, idealised influence, intellectual stimulation, and individualised consideration. Correspondingly, Tim Cook has been able to demonstrate or employ at least two of these components, thereby making him a transformational leader. For instance, Tim Cook has personified a leader that is a good example or role model to the employees by getting involved in some of the engineering design or production of some of the products (Fortune, 2015). This corresponds to the component of idealised influence in which the transformational leader leads by example and portrays him/herself as the ideal role model, thereby making the followers view him/her as a model who can be imitated (Ghasabeh, 2015).

The leader also has demonstrated behaviours that points to inspirational motivation. According to Al-Husseini and Elbeltagi (2018), inspirational motivation is when the leader inspires commitments and develop a shared vision for the company. Moreover, inspirational motivation also implies that the leader maintains high expectations for their constituents and share optimism about the ability of the followers to meet the set goals (Al-Husseini and Elbeltagi). This corresponds to Tim Cook’s behaviour of motivating and inspiring the employees to think innovatively (Washington Post, 2011). Furthermore, the leader has also been maintaining high expectations of the employees by engaging them in the decision process so as to show that their capacity and ability to make decisions are valued (Washington Post, 2011). Generally, Cook has demonstrated attributes of transformational leadership by encouraging cooperation among employees as well as a delegation of duties to boost their trust and self-confidence (Fortune, 2015). The transformational leadership style adopted by Tim Cook at Apple has been instrumental in driving the performance and growth of the company into becoming one of the most valuable firms in the world.

2.2. Challenge faced by Tim Cook at Apple

There are various challenges that the leader face for being at the helm of the company, especially those relating to competition in the market; however, the gender issue is being considered to have far-reaching consequence. In the wake of gender equality, companies have been forced to take measures towards ensuring that both genders are treated equally as those firms deemed to act to the contrary suffer reputational damage (Griffin, 2018). In countries like the USA, companies with more than 250 employees are required to publicly disclose their issues so as to determine if there is a gap in pay, number of employees, and promotion opportunities (Griffin, 2018).

Though the gender pay gap figures from Apple indicates that it pays women better, the company fails in other measures such as equal promotion opportunities/reward and number of employees (Griffin, 2018). As such, the gender issues pertaining to unequal rewards and difference between the number of male and female employees present a major challenge to Tim Cook. Moreover, the gender issues are a challenge to the leader because it sends the signal that he is leading a company that does not embrace diversity with regards to men and women but also discriminates against women when it comes to rewards and bonuses. Furthermore, the fact that Apple is among the four most significant tech companies in terms of market valuation, lagging on the issues of gender, present aa major problem.

2.3. The consequences of the challenge

According to Kaur and Singh (2017), one of the most obvious consequences of gender inequality, regardless of the form it takes, is a bad corporate reputation. The perceptions and public allegations due to the gender issues gap often hurt the image of the firm and possibly the price of its stocks. For instance, Apple has been accused in the past for not caring enough to speed the process of reducing the gap between male and female employees in terms of promotions and employment opportunities (Gaudiano and Hunt, 2016). Furthermore, most critiques believe that the company should not be dragging its reputation by failing to act appropriately with the issues of gender as it has the resources to realise equality (Gaudiano and Hunt, 2016). To that end, the reputation of Apple has been dented on various occasions for lagging on reducing the gap existing in gender issues.

Tim Cook has also been forced to deal with the consequence of gender issues, especially that pertaining to increased turnover (Kobie, 2017). Though the company has had some of the best retention rates when compared to other tech giants, Apple experienced a high employee turnover in 2017 as its employees ditch it for its rivals (Kobie, 2017). Some of these turnovers, if not most, can be traced to gender inequality existing in the company. According to Frederiksen (2017), the negative effects on individual employee’s happiness and satisfaction due to inequality at the workplace increases the willingness of such employee to quit. As such, the rate of employee turnover, especially the female employees, points to trouble at the company.

3. Critical analysis and explanation of how manager/leader lead during the challenge

Despite the challenge of gender issues and its consequences on Apple, Tim Cook has employed his leadership skills to minimise the challenge of gender inequality at the company. For instance, the CEO led by example through adding three more female executives to his cabinet so as to not only increase the number of female employees at the company but also in top management (Rampen, 2019). In doing so, some departmental heads and managers have emulated that behaviour as they have also made attempts to increase the number of female employees in the various departments (Rampen, 2019). Moreover, the CEO has led in the face of the challenge by coming up with Diversity Network Associations whose main objective is to enhance diversity in terms of gender, race, and ethnicity, at Apple as well as in other tech firms (Business Insider, 2017). As such, Cook has led by creating practical policies and programmes that ensure that Apple is more inclusive to women. During this challenge, the leader has also exercised a transformational leadership style by showing women employees that he believes in them. For example, he has been quoted saying that diversity with regards to race, ethnicity, and gender is the future of Apple (Rampen, 2019). To that end, such statements assure women employees that their leader believes in them.

Despite the progress made Cook in ensuring that women are offered equal opportunities and pay, there are still a few issues that are still making Apple lag behind on the matter. Nevertheless, Tim Cook can speed up the process of closing the gender gap by refraining from asking employees, especially female ones, their salary history but rather pay employees based on their merit. Besides, Tim Cook should consider developing policies that would guarantee that there is equal gender representation with regards to the heads of various departments. That is, there should be more women managers and directors heading various departments at the company. Accordingly, Kaur and Singh (2017) argue that having women more women at the top management ensures that the needs of the female employees are met so as to increase job satisfaction as those female leaders understand them better.

4. Conclusion

Evidently, Tim cook being the leader of Apple Inc., uses the transformational leadership style in which he has exhibited behaviours such as idealised influence and inspirational motivation. Further, transformational leadership practised by Cook is present in the manner in which he delegates work and encourage cooperation among employees. The essay has determined that the main problem facing the leader is the challenge of the gender gap as male employees are favoured when it comes to promotions opportunities/rewards as well as employment opportunities. As a result of the challenge, the leader has been dealing with its consequences, such as bad corporate reputation and increased employee turnover. Finally, the leader should consider creating more policies that ensure more women are included in the top management as well as refrain from asking women employees about their salary history when hiring them. Nevertheless, it is essential to note that the transformational leadership practised by Tim Cook to lead Apple has been fundamental in putting the company on the map as the best luxury brand in terms of consumer electronics.