Apple’s Leadership Transition

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Apple Leadership Transition
Question One. I would consider the co-founder of Apple Corporation as more of a manager than a leader based on his personality, mode of operation and achievements made. Job’s enthusiastic and goal oriented spirit, makes him one who mainly had people working for him rather than following him. Leaders primarily focus on building relationships while managers, on the other hand, develop systems and processes. Steve Jobs for instance focused mainly on establishing policies that would ensure that Apple remained relevant in the market and improved on sales. Less attention was given to relationship with the employees. Consequently, he was a feared boss whom nobody wished to have confrontations with; any mistake from the employees would possibly lead to loss of job (Isaacson n.p).
Steve gave attention to performance and achieving results, an act that leads to more profitability of the company making him a billionaire. Through the input brought by Job, Apple which was initially planned for selling just printed circuit boards become an essential player in the Industry of selling personal computers. As a manager, Job drove innovation and sales to higher levels making every employer of the company more result oriented. The aggressive and demanding personality of Job though may not be liked by many, lead the business to be one of the best in the market. He would micromanage the employees ensuring that they perform to the expectations and the overall benefit of the company.

Question Ten. I would consider Cook, a transformational leader rather than a transactional leader. Transformational leadership is a style of leadership where one works with the subordinates to determine the changes that are needed, and after that, he creates a vision that will ensure that the change is successfully executed. The transactional leader, on the other hand, focuses mainly on the supervision, organisation and performance. When Cook was appointed as the CEO of the Apple firm one of the direct inputs realized is increased number of employees. Cook’s calm personality and desire to bring as many as possible on board to accomplish success differentiates him with his predecessor (Isaacson n.p).
Every employee felt that they were responsible for every action taken in the workplace. When failure was realized in the onset of introducing the new Apple map app for the iPhone, the Apple executive was held responsible. Cook further took the step of apologizing to the public and specifically the users of the iPhone, which is a reflection of a transformational leader.
Being thoughtful and data-driven in his decision makes Cook a real transformational leader. The company at the initial stages of his leadership suffered loss, but as the team worked together with long-term vision, the results changed positively, and more sales were made. Notably are increased varieties of products that were developed during the tenure of Cook. For instance, mature products like iPhone 6 and 6 plus were introduced by the firm, a market that was initially flooded with product from either Samsung or Motorola firms. An additional unique product that was added to the market by Apple through Cook’s leadership is the Apple watch. The introduction of the watch was characterized by reorganization of the various departments such as marketing, finance, software and hardware from operating independently to being interdependent and forming interdisciplinary teams, an action that can only be taken by a transformational leader.
Work cited
Isaacson, Walter. Steve Jobs. Universal Studios, 2015.