BUS301 Integrated Capstone Project Proof Reading Services

BUS301 Integrated Capstone Project Oz Assignments

BUS301 Integrated Capstone Project Proof Reading Services

Introduction

 

The role of a leader is extremely significant in the success of an organization’s business in the domestic as well as in the international market. The leaders of the modern time period acquire the two significant tools of leadership, i.e. Vision and Innovation. The needs of the market from the organizations have been changed drastically in the last few years, and the major reason behind it is the development of the new technologies day by day. There are several organizations like Apple that develops new products frequently on the basis of latest technologies. In the sector of technology, Apple is considered as a paramount organization development. The value of the organization is very high and thus it lies in the Fortune’s list of top 100 organizations of the world.

 

The vision of the Apple’s leaders led to the drastic transformation in the field of smart phones and gadgets. One of the most successful leaders in the sector of technology and business was Mr. Steve Jobs. He was the founder of Apple inc. and was the one who brought up a huge transformation in the area of technology. The concept of I-Phone was introduced by the Steve Jobs, and that concept of him has been proved to be the biggest transformation in the sector of Smartphone technology. After Steve Jobs, the subsequent CEO of Apple, i.e. Tim Cook has been also considered as a great leader. Although the Tim Cook’s way of working may differ from that of the Steve Jobs, but both of them shares a common aim of making and maintaining Apple as the leading brand in the sector of technology at the global level.

Background of the company

Apple inc. is one of the top most leading multinational organizations in the sector of technology, which are situated in Cupertino, California. The company was started in the year 1977 by the three partners named as; Steve Jobs, Ronald Wayne, and Steve Wozniak. The company was formerly known as the Apple Computer Company as it used to sell only computers at the time of its start up. The sales of the Apple’s computers caught up a very high momentum in its sales and thus, the growth rate of the organization in the international marked has been enhanced very drastically. Apple designs and sells computer software, online services, and consumer electronics. The most famous and successful products of the brand include; iPhone, iPads, iPod, etc.  A variety of different computer software is developed by the Apple. This computer software includes; iOS operating system, Safari web browser, iTunes media player, Apple Music, iOS App Store, etc.

 

The major hardware products that are designed and developed by Apple include; iPhone Smartphone, Home Pod smart speakers, Apple Watch, iPod media player, iPads, etc. There are more than 118000 employees working in approximately around 24 different countries of the world in around 500 retail stores. The revenue generation of the Apple inc. in the year 2016 was around 216.693 billion US dollars. The biggest strength of the company is its extremely high brand value, and thus the major aim of the Apple is to enhance and maintain that brand value in the international market effectively.

Issues that are analyzed in the leadership and management style of tim cook

The biggest challenge for Tim Cook in the Apple inc. is to fulfill the aims and objectives of the organization that are developed by the founder and best ever CEO of Apple, i.e. Steve Jobs (Xue, 2016). From the day onwards when Tim Cook was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer, he has always been compared with the Steve Jobs. There are different types of leadership styles and every leader follows it in a different way. The way of doing leadership by Tim Cook is very different from that of the Steve Jobs and thus there are some issues that arise in the leadership and management style of the Tim Cook. The major issues that are faced by the Tim Cook in order to create his own legacy in the Apple Corporation are the corporate culture issues. Along with the enhancement in the market competitors up to a very high extent, the responsibilities of the Tim Cook as a leader have been also enhanced (Umar, 2015).

 

Steps taken by tim cook to solve these issues

In order to solve the corporate cultural issues and to create a legacy in the organization, there are some steps that are needed to be followed by the Tim Cook. The analysis of the different leadership practices could prove to be beneficial for the Apple to solve those leadership and management issues of the Tim Cook. To analyze the different leadership practices, the Kouzes and Posner’s five leadership practices model can be taken into the consideration. The style of leadership that is adapted by Tim Cook at his workplace is Participative Leadership Style that is also known as Democratic Leadership Style (Shamim, et al. 2016). In this type of leadership style, the leader of the organization involves the members from the staff and the stakeholders in the process of decision making within the organization.

 

The biggest advantage of this leadership style is that, it enhances the trust among the team members towards the team leader and thus it improves the performance of the team members significantly. The employees who share a sense of responsibilities towards the work along with the sense of motivation are empowered by the leader so that the operations and projects of the team gets accomplished successfully without any kind of issues or concerns. The management committee of the Apple inc. along with the CEO, i.e. Tim Cook develops a variety of different strategies for the expansion of business in the global market rapidly as well as effectively. The five leadership practices that are proposed by the Kouzes and Posner with respect to the leadership and management qualities of the Tim Cook are as follows:

Five Practices of Leadership

Modeling the way

It is the initial practice of a successful leadership. A leader must model the way for its team members by setting an example and clarifying the required values for the work. A leader like Tim Cook leads the way of the employees working under him to show them the proper guideline that is required to be followed in order to complete the tasks or operations effectively.

 

Inspiring a shared vision

In the leadership practice of inspiring a shared vision, a leader must predict the future of the works within the workplace and the benefits of that work for the organization. Tim Cook inspires his teammates by sharing the company’s vision with them, and along with it he also joins the team in the imperative projects of the company (Piao, et al. 2015).

 

Challenging the procedure

It is very important for a leader to think out of the box and challenge the current procedure of the business in market. Apple is well known in the world for the innovative technologies it develops and serves to the market. The credit for these innovations by Apple goes to his successful leaders like Steve Jobs and Tim Cook. One of the major factors of this leadership practice is the taking of risks for the betterment of the company, and Tim Cook never lags in taking risks for the Apple’s betterment.

 

Enabling others to act

Tim Cook always enables the employees of the Apple to take active participation in the company’s decision making procedures, so as to ensure the development of trust and loyalty within the employees for the organization and its management committee. The major factors of this leadership practice are the strengthening of the staff members and the foster collaboration within the workplace (Perry, 2016).

 

Encouraging the hearts

The last leadership practice according to the leadership practices model of Kouzes and Posner is the encouraging of the hearts. This practice depicts the importance of encouraging or motivating the employees within the workplace in an efficient manner so that the productivity as well as the success rate of the company’s operations rises continuously and swiftly. Tim Cook motivates the workforce by the means of several different methodologies, in order to ensure the continuous development and expansion of the Apple’s business in the global market without any kind of issues. Thus, these are the five practices of leadership that are proposed by the Kouzes and Posner in their leadership model (Kane, et al. 2015).

 

One of the major issues that were faced by the Tim Cook at the beginning of his career as the Chief Executive Officer of Apple was the convincing and compelling of the company’s stakeholders as well as the market investors after the Steve Jobs. The stakeholders of the Apple were not truly satisfied by the propositions of the Tim Cook and the way he manages the company (Higgs, et al. 2016). But later on, the strategies that were developed by the Tim Cook by his own ideologies regarding the new innovations in the designing and development of the electronic gadgets, were proved to be extremely successful and this led to the regaining of the trust and loyalty of the stakeholders back to the organization as it used to be at the time of Steve Jobs. In the last six years of his services to the Apple, Tim Cook launched several new products on the basis of the latest technologies in the market, and thus by the means of this innovations and ideologies he became successful in achieving one of his objectives regarding the company’s welfare, i.e. generation of double revenue for the organization. The revenue generation of Apple in the financial year of 2015-16 was around 200 billion US dollars, which was double from that of the previous fiscal years (DuBrin, 2017).

 

During the financial year of 2012-2013, the graph of the company’s profit slightly bends down, but the extremely successful and grand launching of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6+ took the share of the company up to its maximum heights ever. IPhone 6 is considered as the biggest success for the Tim Cook and his team, and thus after the tremendous sensation of the product in the markets of all across the world, Apple overtook the Exxon Mobiles and became the leading technical organization of the world in terms of value and profit (      Cornelissen, 2017). Thus, the typical leadership and management style of Tim Cook proves to be advantageous and favourable for the company.

Issues of underage or immature employees within the organization under the management of Tim Cook

Another major issue that Apple faces is the issue of hiring underage and immature employees within the organization. An organization like Apple is expanded in a very vast context with respect to every physical entity. One of the entities is the human resources of the company. Apple employs a very huge amount of workforce at different sectors of its business in all over the world, and some of those employees are found to be either underage or immature (Chikhale, 2015). The selection or recruitment procedure by the department of Human Resource Management of the Apple is undoubtedly one of the best procedures of the hiring, and the employees who get selected to work in Apple definitely acquires skills and talents that are needed by the organization, but still the hiring of underage employees creates several different types of issues within the workplace.

 

The major issue that is generated within an organization due to the presence of underage employees is the conflict among the employees as well as among the underage employees and the stakeholders of the company. Although these conflicts does not affects the business of the Apple on a large scale, but still the internal conflicts and poor employee relations within the company could result in a long term loss for the Apple’s business and its value in the international market (Chan, 2013).

 

Steps taken by tim cook to solve this issues within the organization

One of the best ways to treat underage employees positively at the workplace, so that their performance gets enhanced and no kind of concerns or issues rises because of them is by motivating them by exploiting various different means at different levels. Tim Cook identifies the needs of the company’s human resources and thus implements different types of motivational strategies for inspiring them. By the means of motivation, the endeavors of the human beings towards finishing the tasks and attaining all the aims and objectives of the life could be achieved. In order to determine the needs of the employees, Tim Cook analyzes the Maslow’s motivational theory and thus, comprehends about the five types of needs that are proposed by the Maslow. These five types of needs of Maslow are described as follows:

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Psysiological needs

These are the basic needs that are required by an individual in his/her life for the better living. The basic or physiological needs include; food, shelter, clothes, money, water, air, sex, etc.

 

Safety needs

With reference to the underage employees at Apple, the safety needs are imperative needs that the employees seek for. In order to motivate the employees, Tim Cook provides safe and secure working environment at the Apple, and along with it he also provides various health related policies to each and every employee of the organization (Betz, 2016).

 

Love and belonging

The social needs of the employees lies under this category. Every employee of an organization seeks for the love and support from the co-workers as well as from the superior authorities of the company. Thus, Tim Cook provides preeminent working atmosphere in the Apple in such a way that all the employees including the immature employees work together in different teams for fulfilling the aims and objectives of the company effectively.

 

Esteem needs

The esteem needs of the workforce at Apple include; respect for the team members, promotion for the better job performance, attention towards every individual, self-development, etc. (Arocha, 2017).

 

Self- actualization needs

These are the needs of the employees that are required to be self- fulfilled. Tim Cook along with the management committee of the Apple thus evaluates the different types of the needs of their employees and by the means of different actions like; providing incentives, rewards, promotions, healthy competitions, etc., they motivate their underage or immature employees too so as to avoid any kind of conflicts or adverse situations within the company.

Conclusion

From this project management report it can be concluded that the style of leadership and management that is acquired by the Tim Cook at Apple has proved to be extremely successful as the company has been succeed to double the generation of the revenue as well as to become the leading organization in the world in terms of values and brand name. Tim Cook has also succeeded to create his own business legacy at the Apple that would be followed by the others effectively.

References

1. Abraham, M., 2014. Five Leadership skills that made Steve Jobs transform Apple.
2. Arocha, J.B., 2017. Getting to the Core: A Case Study on the Company Culture of Apple Inc.
3. Betz, F., 2016. Strategic Thinking: A Comprehensive Guide. Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
4. Chan, J., Pun, N. and Selden, M., 2013. The politics of global production: Apple, Foxconn and China's new working class. New Technology, Work and Employment28(2), pp.100-115.
5. Chikhale, M.M. and Mansouri, M., 201 An Agile and Collaborative Framework for Effective Governance to Enhance Management in Large-Scale Enterprise Business Systems: The Case of Apple Inc. Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management16(3), pp.283-293.
6. Cornelissen, J. and Cornelissen, J.P., 2017. Corporate Marketing Communication: A guide to theory and practice. Sage.
7. DuBrin, A.J., 201 Leadership: Research findings, practice, and skills. Nelson Education.
8. Higgs, M. and Dulewicz, V., 2016. Developments in leadership thinking. In Leading with Emotional Intelligence (pp. 75-103). Springer International Publishing.
9. Kane, G.C., Palmer, D., Phillips, A.N., Kiron, D. and Buckley, N., 2015. Strategy, not technology, drives digital transformation. MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte University Press14.
10. Perry, S., 2016. Tim Cook, a Case Study on the Effects of Transformational Leadership on Privacy and IT Security.