Apple Corporation: Products, Finance And Leadership Styles

Introduction to Apple

Apple Inc (Apple) is a worldwide company co- founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne (who later sold his share for $800 after 12 days) (Business Insider, 2020).

After several failed attempts of introducing products like the Apple III, Macintosh Portable etc led to the company being on the verge of bankruptcy. Thus, in they year of 1997, Microsoft’s CEO, Bill Gates and Jobs agreed to start a partnership with Gates investing $150 million into the company. This act proved to be successful and along with Job’s product direction now means that Apple is set for a $1 trillion valuation (Business Insider, 2020)

Nowadays, Apple designs, manufactures, and markets mobile communication and media devices, personal computers (PCs), and portable digital music players. They sell a variety of related software, services, accessories, networking solutions, and third- party digital content and applications (Market line, 2019).

How does Apple operate

The company’s head office resides in California in a campus known as ‘Apple Park’. Nevertheless, due to the company’s huge success Apple operates in over 25 countries including Taiwan, Germany, Nigeria and Hong Kong. Apple sells its products worldwide through its retail stores, online stores and direct sales force, as well as through third- party cellular network carriers, wholesales, retailers and resellers (Market line, 2019).

Apple products

Originally, Apple were known for releasing computers (the company was initially called the Apple Computer Company) with its first product being the Apple Computer 1. This was sold as just a board with customers having to buy the keyboard and their own monitors (Nik Rawlinson, 2017). Nowadays Apple is known for selling an array of products including the iPhone, iMac, iPod (which has now discontinued), iPad, Air Pods and other products. Apple also has services including the Apple store, Apple music, Safari, Facetime etc (Market line, 2019). The growth of Apple can be noted through the diversification of the range of products and services from just the simple Apple 1.

Financial Revenue (Data derived from Macro trends, 2020)

From the graph above, in the past 5 years, it can be noted that the annual revenue of Apple has increased by $40,800 billion from $233,715 billion (2015) to $274,515 billion (2020).

Leadership and Management

Management

David (2016) expresses management as a process of dealing with or controlling things or people through planning, organising and coordinating.

However, D’Amato (2020) describes management as a process of facilitating and dismisses the idea of management as being ‘directing and controlling’. He realises that managers need to change the way they manage by creating the right culture and environment in workplaces.

Leadership

Barrow (1977) expresses leadership as being the behavioural process of influencing individuals or groups toward set goals. Barrow is explaining how leadership is a way of encouraging groups to achieve higher so that they can reach their desired conclusion.

Whereas Western (2018) describes leadership as a process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives. This describes leadership as a form of authority that has the ability to establish what is wrong and right.

Leadership styles

Autocratic

An autocratic leader is someone who provides direct orders in a controlling manner (Ravikumar and Parks, 2020). The leader of the group has full control of the team and rarely relies on any input from members of the group; the leader has absolute power. This can be advantageous during times when decisions have to be abruptly however an autocratic leader can seem rude, bossy and dictatorial (Ravikumar and Parks, 2020)

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Democratic

A democratic leader is team orientated and values the thoughts and opinions of team members (Ravikumar and Parks, 2020). However, the leader still has a final say on the decision to be made. Due to the fact that members are more involved in the team they therefore feel more validated thus job satisfaction increases (Wilson, 2017). On the other hand, democratic leaders can be described as being tedious as well as not being direct with their subordinates (Chukwusa, 2019).

Laissez faire

This leader does not interfere with the works of the subordinates and instead leaves them free to act having prior given them some sort of information on what needs to be done (Abu Rassa and Lawrence Emeagwali, 2020). The group has greater independence and also have more freedom in what they do. This leadership works well in situations where the group are specialists in what they do and have more knowledge on a particular topic rather than the leader. However, the leader can be seen as being lazy and deadlines may be missed as the task is solely undertaken by individuals and not controlled or overlooked by the leader (Wilson, 2017).

Ethical

Ethical leadership is defined as a leader who simply does the right thing and who puts others above themselves (Bellingham, 2003). They act as role models for their team and others by setting ethical standards and values that they and their team have to follow (Aloustani et al., 2020). The team that the leader leads would themselves exhibit loyalty, and the same ethical values as their leader (Dimitriou et al., 2012) However, some people may view being ethical as a form of restriction.

Transformational

Transformational leaders transform their followers to rise above their self-interest by altering their interests, and values and motivating them to perform better than before (Stam et al 2010). This leadership has a number of positive effects on followers, such as more positive affect, less emotional exhaustion (Matta et al, 2018). Yet communicating with followers about visions and ideas requires time and energy from the leaders (Matta et al, 2018). Leaders may overlook reality.

Tim Cook’s Leadership style

Tim Cook’s leadership style can be described as being highly ethical as well as being transformational. This can be seen through the events after the 2016 San Bernardino shooting; the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) wanted Apple to unlock one of the suspects involved in the shotting, Syed Farook’s, iPhone 5C (Perry, 2016). However, Cook refused because Farrok was a customer of Apple. It would be highly unethical to exploit and rather take advantage of an Apple customer’s private data even when faced with such high pressure. Cook stood by the values of Apple being that ‘confidentiality’ and rather reinstated how Apple was a company which values the privacy of their customers. Cook became a role model for his own company and for the whole world as he was advocating privacy and encryption (Perry, 2016)

Another example of Cook showcasing his ethical leadership and ‘setting ethical standards’ is Cook’s commitment to making Apple a sustainable company by investing in sustainable energy. Cook wants to cut Apple’s greenhouse emissions by supplying its power from renewable sources. His passion for making this happen can be seen through his remark to the investors of Apple. He has told them that they can easily sell their share if they do not support his views (Shankleman, 2014).

Mr Cook also put ‘others above himself’ by sacrificing his privacy (even though he views it as a fundamental human right) in the year of 2014 by coming out as being gay. This was to help people who suffered from inequality due to their sexuality and he wanted to showcase to people that being gay ‘is not a life sentence’ (Cook, 2018). He has become the first CEO of a Fortune 500 company to openly coming out as gay (Mejia,2018)

Be- Remix Coaching Techniques

Fulfilment wheel

This wheel is designed to help anyone understand how ‘fulfilled’ they are with certain aspects of their life. A manager can use the fulfilment wheel when they want to evaluate their staff before hiring them. This can also be used when evaluating different segments of a team. The impact of this wheel is that individuals/ teams are able to understand themselves more as it helps them distinguish between their strengths and weaknesses (Graydin, 2020).

Values

Values are core beliefs held by an entity and are reflected by the actions that are undertaken by that entity (be that a person/ company). This technique is valuable for both managers and leaders. The impact of having clear values makes businesses stand out and makes it easier for managers looking for marketing opportunities that they would want to be part of. Staff and customers are also more attracted if they agree with the values that are projected. It helps managers and leaders recruit staff that would have the same values as them (Graydin, 2020).

Partnership Agreement

This technique is an agreement between partners which helps establish the roles and responsibilities of each party and is usually undertaken prior to any activities occurring between the partners. This coaching technique is useful for managers and leaders and can be used before hiring or transferring individuals from one segment of a business to another. The effect of this technique is that both parties are made aware of what to expect and what is expected from each other (Graydin,2020)

Mapping out A to B

This technique is used to map out where an individual is (A) and where they want to see themselves (B). This is helpful in terms of understanding your staff or team well enough. This has a positive impact on managers as they then would be able to guide their staff in the right direction. This technique can be used to monitor growth and also work out what additional training staff may need to reach B. This can be also used by leaders to self- assess themselves (Graydin,2020).