Tim Cook’s Leadership and Management Style: Building his Own Legacy at Apple

Abstract

In March 2015, Tim Cook (Cook), the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of technology giant, Apple Inc.
(Apple), was named as the “world’s greatest leader” by Fortune magazine. The case study is about Cook
and his leadership at Apple.

Cook spent the early years of his career at IBM and Compaq Computer before joining Apple in 1998. The
case describes how Cook transformed himself from a soft-spoken operations manager into a high-profile
leader at Apple.

Questions:

Explain the role of a leader in giving strategic direction to a company and in initiating change.

What is the leadership and management style of Tim Cook and compare and contrast it with that of
his illustrious predecessor, Steve Jobs.

What are the personal characteristics and traits of Tim Cook that made him different from Jobs and
also contributed to his success.

Discuss and debate whether with Cook’s leadership, Apple would continue to remain at the helm of
tech innovation.

Introduction

In March 2015, Tim Cook (Cook), the CEO of technology giant, Apple Inc. (Apple), was named as the
“world’s greatest leader” by Fortune magazine. Apple, a US-based company, designed, manufactured,
and marketed mobile communication and media devices, personal computers, and portable digital
music players, and sold a variety of related software, services, peripherals, networking solutions, and
third-party digital content and applications.

Despite being regularly compared with the legendary founder CEO, Steve Jobs (Jobs), Cook had his own
strengths. Since becoming the CEO, Cook had transformed himself from a soft-spoken operations
manager to a high-profile leader at Apple.

Background Note

The history of Apple can be traced back to the mid-1970s, when three friends – Steve Jobs (Jobs), Ronald
Wayne (Wayne), and Steve Wozniak (Wozniak) decided to start a business of making personal
computers (PC). At that time, Jobs and Wayne worked for Atari and Wozniak was working at HP .

On April 1, 1976, Apple Computers was founded. Initially they assembled fifty personal computers (PC)
in the garage of Jobs’ father. The PCs were custom-built for a local computer store, and were sold at US$
666.66 per system. They named the system Apple I, and built another 200 PCs before working on the
next version. On January 03, 1977, Apple was incorporated… and you know the history ;)

TIM COOK: THE JOURNEY AT APPLE

Cook was born in 1960 in Mobile, Alabama. His father was a shipyard worker and his mother worked in a
drug store. He had two siblings. Tim Cook graduated from Auburn University in 1982 with a bachelor's
degree in industrial engineering.

He went on to earn an M.B.A. from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business in 1988. Talking about
his childhood days, Cook reminisced, “Growing up in Alabama in the 1960s I saw the devastating impact
of discrimination. Remarkable people were denied opportunity and were treated without basic human
dignity solely because of the color of their skin.” .

STEVE JOBS’S SHADOW

Analysts felt that Cook’s challenges as a CEO were compounded by the fact that he was succeeding Jobs,
whose name was inextricably associated with Apple. Alan Deutschman, in his book, The Second Coming
of Steve Jobs, wrote, “No one denied that Apple’s rise was aided immeasurably by his [Steve Jobs’]
astonishing energy and persuasiveness and charisma and chutzpah (a word that he loved). And it was his
personality that created the company’s culture and mystique.”.

COOK’S LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT STYLE

As the CEO of the technology giant Apple, Cook chose a democratic management approach. Instead of
being a complete contrast to Jobs, Cook adopted some of the legendary founder’s existing practices and
created a unique leadership style. Industry experts observed that the fact that Cook had filled in for Jobs
thrice during his medical leave of absence proved that Jobs had a lot of faith in him. Jobs had told Cook
that while leading Apple, he should never ask himself “What would Steve Jobs do?” Instead, he should
take decisions thinking of Apple as his own company. In an internal email, Cook declared that he would
stay true to the unique culture of Apple. “I want you to be confident that Apple is not going to change.

CHALLENGES

Cook had to face his share of criticism too. He was criticized for not preparing himself to face the media
glare and the analysis that came with succeeding a legend. He himself agreed with that criticism. While
commenting on the criticisms, he said, “I have thick skin, but it got thicker. What I learned after Steve
passed away, what I had known only at a theoretical level; an academic level maybe, was that he was an
incredible heat shield for us, his executive team.

LOOKING AHEAD

In 2014, Apple launched the large-screen iPhone 6 and the even bigger iPhone 6 Plus. The company also
introduced a new payment system, Apple Pay, and Apple Watch. The new iPhones’ sales were
impressive with 74.5 million of them being sold in the last quarter of 2014, and the company generating
US$18 billion in profits. Between October 2011 and March 2015, the stock price of Apple increased from
US$54 to US$126 and the market capitalization touched US$700 billion. Moreover, since 2010, under
Cook’s leadership, Apple’s cash hoarding had tripled to more than US$150 billion despite the fact that
the company had spent a total of US$92.6 billion in dividends and buybacks, something which was not
encouraged during Jobs’s era.