Leadership Style Adopted by Apple Inc - Assignment Example

Leadership and Organisation behaviour Table of Contents Introduction 3 Analysis 3 Leadership style adopted by Apple Inc 4 Organisations should focus on this important area 7 Conclusion 9 References 10 Appendix 12 Introduction Organisation behaviour can be considered as the study of behaviour of the individuals in the organisational settings. Organisation behaviour mainly is the interface between the organisation and behaviour of the individuals within the organisation. Leadership can be recognized as an important aspect of Organisation behaviour. Leadership can be defined as a valuable process of social influence in which an individual supports other team-mates, sub-ordinates or group members in order to accomplish a developed common goal. Several leading multinational organisations generally focus on the adoption and implementation of effective leadership style in organisational structure in order to improve the performance of the employees. Apple Inc is one of the leading US based multinational corporations. The organisation always tries to enhance effective performance of the employees through the adoption and implementation of effective leadership style. The organisation has been known for its introduction of advanced technological products. Most importantly, effective visionary leadership style always helps to maintain employee friendly work environment. This visionary leadership aspect always influences the employees to perform effectively. Effective collaborative work performance of the employees helps the organisation to meet the developed organisational goal. This assignment will determine how the management of Apple Inc. improves employee performance through the application of visionary and charismatic leadership style. Analysis It is highly important for the readers to understand what visionary and charismatic leadership styles are all about before going into the detail analysis of the leadership style employed by Apple Inc in organisational culture to improve employee performance. Leaders generally develop a new dawn by the application of visionary leadership style. Visionary leaders work with insight, boldness and imagination to increase creativity and innovation in employees. Most importantly, leaders bring the sub-ordinates together and share a sense of purpose to meet the developed objective. Leaders can extract the best performance from employees through the application of visionary leadership style (Wang, Chich-Jen and Mei-Ling, 2010, p.3925). On the other hand, the application of charismatic leadership helps a leader to guide sub-ordinates and other individuals in an organisation through heroics and inspiring actions to meet the developed organisational objectives. Management of Apple Inc. always tries to implement these two leadership styles in order to improve employee performance. Leadership style adopted by Apple Inc Apple Inc is one of the leading multinational corporations headquartered in United States of America. The organisation always implements differentiation business level strategy in business operation processes in order to meet current market demand and customer satisfaction. According to the management of Apple Inc, employees are the real growth drivers of an organisation. Therefore, the organisational leaders always try to guide employees effectively to meet the business objectives. Former CEO of Apple Inc, Mr. Steve Jobs always believed in friendly work environment and influence for employees to improve the performances of employees (Razin and Kark, 2012, p.249). His personality, attitude and leadership skills always inspired his colleagues and sub-ordinates within the organisation to perform effectively and take innovative operational decisions. iPod, iPad, iPhone and Mac book are examples of the implementation of differentiation business level strategy within the organisation. According to management, it was impossible for the organisation and employees of the organisation to gain both personal and professional success without the adoption and implementation of visionary and charismatic leadership style. This specific market was highly competitive due to the presence of Microsoft. Therefore, it was highly important for the organisation to take some innovative decisions to become market leader. Steve Jobs had a strong vision in his mind that Apple Inc has the ability to lead the competitive market through innovation, creativity, vision and charisma. He was visionary in his nature. Therefore, he always tried to recruit and select workforce that has strong self-confidence and high vision in mind. It is true that vision followed by certain actions that can make an organisation successful in the perspective of business performance. Steve Jobs always regarded as magician due to his innovative creations of technological goods, he loved to share his thoughts and views with the sub-ordinates within the organisation. It actually helped the employees of the organisation to increase their knowledge and creativity. Training and development process can be considered as an important aspect under the leadership style. On the other hand, leadership style can be considered as a valuable aspect of organisational behaviour. Steve Jobs and other leaders of Apple Inc always ensured effective training and development process for the employees to increase their level of knowledge and skills (Winston, 2009, p.1). The top management of Apple implements both top down and bottom up communication approach within the organisational culture. It can be considered as a valuable part of the visionary leadership style. According to this communication approach, both employers and employees sit together and discuss about next product launch. It actually enhances effective decision making process. Most importantly, the legacy of Steve Job’s visionary approach goes on through this particular communication approach. The management of Apple Inc succeeded to maintain its creativity and innovation in market event after the death of Steve Jobs. Hiring of skilled employees, decentralised communication approach and employee engagement in decision making process helps the management of the organisation to improve the performance of the employees. The integration of managerial and visionary leadership style helped the organisation to gain immense success within the competitive global business environment. Steve Jobs had strong visionary and managerial skills to handle a team. His vision, effective leadership skill as well as managerial skills influenced employees to perform according to the developed plan by the team management of Apple Inc. Most significantly, integration of visionary and managerial skills helped apple to generate huge revenue within the limited period of time. Charismatic leadership style also can be considered as an effective strategic leadership approach employed by the management of Apple Inc in business operation process (Rose-Hulman, 2008, p.1). Steve Jobs and other stakeholders of Apple Inc were immensely talented and knowledgeable. They had the creative and innovative ideas to develop different concept and launch new differentiated products. Steve Jobs and other organisational leaders always tried to set some positive examples in front of their employees by some inspiring actions and activities. It has been mentioned earlier that the integration of visionary and managerial leadership styles always helped Apple Inc to gain success in both short-term and long-term time period. But, there are some obstacles too. Too much visionary approaches can create negative outcomes. For example, Apple faced some business issues in China due to inadequate skills and knowledge of employees. Moreover, wage distribution related employment issues affected the morale of employees. It has reflected in the business performance growth rate of Apple. Most importantly, these incidents occurred under the leadership of Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs decided to adopt and apply charismatic leadership style in the workplaces across the globe to set examples for the global employees (Carter, Ulrich and Goldsmith, 2005, p.1). Stakeholder engagement can be considered as an effective and important part of charismatic leadership style. Employees can be considered as important internal stakeholders of an organisation. Steve Jobs and other leaders understood the value of the self-confidence of employees. Slowly and gradually, the organisational leaders appointed experienced and skilled project managers in each teams and split a large team into small ones in order to enhance knowledge sharing process. It helped the organisation to improve internal organisational communication approach between employees and employers. Most importantly, each and every manager and leader was tasked with democratic managerial activities within each and every team. It increased the morale value of employees. Moreover, this charismatic leadership approach helped the employees of Apple to perform according to the expectation level. Effect team work and collaborative workplace performance was enhanced through the initialisation of charismatic leadership style. Organisations should focus on this important area Employees are considered as the real growth drivers of any organisation. Now-a-days, job market has become highly competitive as several organisations are adopting employee poaching activities in business operation process to sources skilled and experienced employees from other rivalries or organisations. Therefore, it is highly important for each and every organisation to implement effective leadership style to influence the skilled employees to stick to the organisation. Each and every employee as well as job seeker wants to be part of a prestigious organisation in which he or she has the scope to perform according to his or her views, innovations and creativities. The management of Apple Inc always takes care of this aspect. Moreover, each and every wants to excel their professional career under such a brand name in which the moral values and decision making ability will be credited. Apple Inc makes it possible through the adoption and implementation of both visionary and charismatic leadership style. Application of these leadership styles mitigates the risk of employee poaching. Skilled and effective employees generally want to leave an organisation due to several issues, such as inadequate work environment, lack of motivation, inadequate performance appraisal, low wage distribution and limited social recognition. Adoption and implementation of charismatic and visionary leadership style reduces the possibility of these issues. People generally want to excel their personal lives beside of professional life. Effective visionary leadership skills generally help employees to perform independently and creatively. Creativity and innovation are the major mantras of this specific leadership style (Management help, 2014, p.1). Most importantly, the leaders always entertain the sub-ordinates and employees in an organisation regarding knowledge and vision sharing process. It actually excels team performance and decision making process. Each and every employee within an organisation expects real guidance and pathways from their leaders and managers. Apple did this rightly and appropriately. Therefore, each and every employee of Apple Inc never wants to leave this prestigious organisation. An organisation cannot sustain for a longer period of time in market place without having charismatic organisational leadership style. Steve jobs, the former CEO of Apple Inc is renowned as magician due to his innovative creations. He believed that employees can become creative, innovative, self-confident, hard working and high performing under charismatic democratic leadership style of the leaders. It is quite true. Employees find themselves less confident and low skilled if the leaders or the managers do not set any kind of examples for them (Waldron, Vsanthakumar and Arulraj, 2013, p.1). Most importantly, this process boosts the performance level of the employees when an employee takes effective suggestions from his or her skilled and experienced superior boss. Each and every leading multinational organisation is trying to develop and implement unique leadership strategies to enhance team performance. Therefore, democratic charismatic and visionary managerial leadership process should be considered by each and every organisation in this competitive business environment in order to improve performance of employees within the organisation. Conclusion It is clear from above analysis and examples that leadership can be considered as an effective and important aspect of organisation behaviour. Performance of employees in an organisation used to depend upon several factors. Effective leadership style can be considered as one of those factors that influence the employees within an organisation to perform effectively. Example of Apple Inc has been considered in this study. It is clear from the analysis that Apple Inc always tries to implement visionary and charismatic leadership style in order to improve the performance of the employees. Being one of the leading multinational organisations, the management of the organisation always gives values to the vision, innovation and creativity of the employees. This aspect generally helps the organisation to enhance effective decision making process. Steve Jobs was visionary in his nature. He had excellent managerial skills. Most importantly, he transformed his nature into the organisational culture that enhances employee performance and employee engagement in strategy development and decision making process. Global business environment is becoming highly competitive as several organisations are trying to strengthen their workforce through the poaching of skilled and experienced employees from other organisations. In this competitive global business environment, it is highly important for organisations to adopt and implement effective visionary and charismatic leadership styles in organisational culture in order to improve the performances of the employees. References Carter, L., Ulrich, D., and Goldsmith, M., 2005. Best Practices in Leadership Development and Organization Change. [PDF]. Available at: < https://lib.nu.edu.sa/uploads/m1/11.pdf>. [Accessed on October 27, 2014]. Management help., 2014. All about leadership. [Online]. Available at: < http://managementhelp.org/leadership/>. [Accessed on October 27, 2014]. Razin, M., and Kark, R., 2012. The Apple does not Fall Far from the Tree: Steve Jobs’s Leadership as Simultaneously Distant and Close. [Online]. Available at: < https://www.academia.edu/1543032/The_Apple_does_not_fall_far_from_the_tree_Steve_Jobss_leadership_as_simultaneously_distant_and_close>. [Accessed on October 27, 2014]. Rose-Hulman., 2008. Leadership styles. [PDF]. Available at: < http://www.rose-hulman.edu/StudentAffairs/ra/files/CLSK/PDF/Section%20Three%20Campus%20Involvement%20&%20Leadership/Leadership%20Styles.pdf>. [Accessed on October 27, 2014]. Waldron, M., Vsanthakumar, J., and Arulraj, S., 2013. Improving the organization and management of extension. [Online]. Available at: < http://www.fao.org/docrep/w5830e/w5830e0f.htm>. [Accessed on October 27, 2014]. Wang, F., Chich-Jen, S., and Mei-Ling, T., 2010. Effect of leadership style on organizational performance as viewed from human resource management strategy. [PDF]. Available at: < http://www.academicjournals.org/article/article1380534513_Wang%20et%20al%202222.pdf>. [Accessed on October 27, 2014]. Winston, E. B., 2009. An integrative definition of Leadership. [Online]. Available at: < http://www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/ijls/new/vol1iss2/winston_patterson.doc/winston_patterson.htm>. [Accessed on October 27, 2014]. Appendix Impact of Different leadership style on organisational performance Read More