Tim Cook, Apple’s manager, is preferably the top influential CEO and individual globally. Cook has been frequently featured in worldwide rankings that list the most famous CEOs and influential personalities. Among such orders are TIME’s 2021 influential people that listed Cook in the category of the “Titans” and other significant characters like Timbaland, Swizz Beats, Shonda Rhimes, Simone Biles, and Tom Brady. Since 2011, Cook has held the position of CEO at Apple. Before being recognized with the top executive position of the company, Tim Cook worked in the Apple organization as a Chief Operating Officer, in which he supervised the organization’s global operations and sales, which comprised support, services, supply chain, and the organization’s sales activities (Forbes.com, 2021).
Apart from Apple, Tim Cook has also headed other prestigious executive ranks in other companies. For instance, before becoming a member of Apple in 1998, he held the Vice President position of Corporate Materials at Compaq. While holding the position, he was the supervisor of procurement and management of the products dealt in by Compaq (Apple.com, 2021), which means that Tim Cook has had an extensive and prosperous career in business management. From the entrance of his managerial career at Apple, Tim Cook has seen the organization’s development into a behemoth through unimaginable though verifiable metrics. For instance, the organization’s profits from 2011 to 2021 tripled ($6 billion to $ 28 billion, respectively). This work seeks to clarify what sets Tim Cook apart as the most successful and influential CEO.
Tim Cook has the personality trait of possessing excellent judgment and the ability of tactical and strategic thinking (Knight, 2021). These words have been extracted from Phil Knight, the Co-founder of Nike, in his description of Cook’s personality. Knight wrote for TIME on Tim Cook’s profile as he was awarded as among the most influential personalities in 2021. The statement demonstrates a significant reason explaining reason Cook was considered to be among the most successful CEOs and influential people in the world today. Managing a large organization like Apple is complicated and requires the manager to think strategically and critically to allow them to make excellent decisions on crucial issues that the organization deals with occasionally. Luckily for Tim Cook, he possesses this significant quality and applies it as a leading pillar in the organization’s leadership.
One of the top instances in which Tm Cook demonstrated tactical and strategical thinking was during the COVID-19 pandemic by leading Apple successfully through the pandemic. For instance, Apple.com (2020) asserts that Tim Cook directed Apple to collaborate with Google during the contact tracing process of COVID-19, which resulted in a significant population using Google and Apple products and thus assisted in the management of the pandemic. In the statement made by Knight in his description of Tim Cook, he also termed Cook as a passionate individual (Knight, 2021). It is as a result of his human personality trait that Cook uses a democratic style of leadership. Business executives who apply a democratic leadership style have proven to be very influential and successful in their work as they have substantial time to listen more to the customers and employees (Rahbi et al., 2017).
Through his democratic leadership style, Tim Cook concentrates more on showing a positive form of relationship with the organization’s workers; thus, the workers feel motivated and appreciated. Tim Cook also takes time and devotes himself to listening more to the worker’s issues and establishes ways of ensuring that the organization addresses their concerns. This understanding inspires Apple’s workers to be passionate about finding solutions to other people’s challenges. Tim Cook has also shown a passion for both the low-income and middle-income earners; thus, he has been at the forefront in making Apple deal in price-friendly commodities; hence, the products that Apple deals in are becoming more affordable. Such commodities include the iPod.
For several years, mainly during Steve Jobs, Apple was known for its expensive image; thus, several personalities believed in the impossibility of owning its commodities. Although, Tim Cook is slowly steering the organization to detach the expensive image and generate a new affordability image (Kim, 2020). This intelligently thought-put formula emerges from Cooks’s passion for individuals with low incomes and has consequently largely assisted in peddling Apple’s commodity sales. In the same measure, Cook’s capability of trusting others who surround him in the organization has contributed to his influential status and success (Actualidadiphone.com, 2021). Tim Cook is privileged to work with a team of well-qualified and strong top managers at Apple, who come in handy during tough decisions and also cooperate in sharing the considerable workload that many individuals would partake alone if they had been in the position by Tim Cook.
Although Tim Cook, in many circumstances, gives room for the executives to take the leadership role, he knows they possess brilliant ideas, are innovative, and have extensive experience. The outcome is that the top managers have assisted Cook in growing Apple into a large corporation, resulting in substantial global sales and a worldwide presence, in which the commodities it deals with are available in several nations across the globe. Holt (2018) believes in an essential constituent of business leadership, asserting that business executives with the ability to trust others in many circumstances are always influential and successful leaders. Business managers must have the knowledge they need to be more capable of doing everything for the organization and proving ideas concerning the organization’s leadership. Cook has this knowledge and chooses to give room for the executives to assist in management decisions, making it possible for the organization to formulate concepts concerning service delivery and product development.
Honest appreciation concerning diversity is the other concern that has dramatically led to Cook’s most successful and influential CEO status. Cook acknowledges that Apple is an organization that is majorly fueled by innovation. So, it needs several unique and diverse personalities who have great competence to assist in the creation of its future. He emphasizes individuals who possess a diversity of style and thought, as they can provide different insights (Holtzblatt & Marsden, 2018).
Similarly, Cook encourages Apple workers to deliver their best by invoking critical and strategic thought processes. These preferences have made Tim Cook the most influential and successful business executive, as they assist him in influencing the executives and workers to adopt innovations and think extensively to the organization’s advantage. Cook also recognizes diversity by ascertaining that the organization employs workers based on merit and qualifications. Thus anyone from any national background, race, or gender can work in the organization and show their creativity, which has made it possible for the organization to get quality talent across the world, driving its many technological achievements (Holtzblatt & Marsden, 2018). Recognizing persons from different diversities also upholds Cooks’ image as a progressive person, thus constructing his most successful and influential CEO status.
Following his ascension to the top managerial position at Apple, Cook had the luxury of continuing with the legacy of the previous CEO of an autocratic leadership style. Although, Tom Cook decided to build on his strengths instead of following another individual’s footsteps. The first strength he considered is building collaboration and teamwork among workers from the lowest levels to the top levels of the organization. This understanding has also had a vital responsibility in ensuring that Cook is the most influential and successful CEO. Tim Cook plays an essential responsibility in influencing the workers at Apple to cooperate and work in teams to accrue the best results in attaining the organizational objectives and goals. Cooperation and teamwork allow the workers at Apple to increase the speed of their work and inspire agreement creation, majorly among the top executives and high-level workers, enabling them to participate in agreed decision-making (Tasnim, 2018).
Business leaders and influential and successful CEOs encourage collaboration and teamwork among the workers, enhancing communication between the top executives and the workers by creating a shared support setting (Hall et al., 2018). It also decreases the needs and desires of the workers to compete in their roles, thus extensively decreasing workplace struggles. Several employees at Apple recognize Cook as a successful and influential CEO due to his emphasis on collaboration and teamwork among all the workers despite their levels. The style of engagement that Cook uses with stakeholders is the other factor influencing his critical success in the organization. Cook recognizes that the success of a CEO and an organization’s success majorly rely on how the manager engages with the stakeholders of an organization. Apple has many stakeholders, including governments, suppliers, local communities, customers, and employees. Cook has an insight and interest in the Apple Company’s stakeholders and shows a relentless focus on delivering the long-term and short-term objectives of the organization in conjunction with the interest of the company’s stakeholders.
Before making significant decisions about the operations of Apple, Cook ensures that he has formulated a stakeholder key map of who is interested in boarding before implementing the decision. He also establishes the issues perpetuated by the distractors of any vital projects the organization performs. He contemplates the manner of addressing such issues as efficiently as possible. Cook, in many circumstances, clarifies to the stakeholders, like the customers and employees, that they play a significant part in the organization’s procedures and lead to the organization’s wins, thus making them feel recognized by Apple.
Conclusively, Cook is a CEO and a business manager per excellence. Through the years, he has developed management skills, becoming the CEO of one of the leading worldwide organizations and growing into a titan, as described by TIME. Through the leadership of Tim Cook, Apple has developed and grown in a way that has surpassed a double-digit from 2011. The success that he has attained can be attributed to his capability of good judgment, ability to deliver reliably, implementation the new situations proactively, the required engagement with the stakeholders, collaboration among workers and building teamwork, honest appreciation of diversity, ability to trust others, and compassionate nature. Tim Cook’s accomplishment at the top of Apple’s administration makes it impossible to doubt that he, indeed, is the most influential and successful manager globally. As he progresses in starring the organization in the direction of attaining even more incredible accomplishments in technological innovation, there are high expectations that he will continue to be the most influential and successful business manager.
References
Actualidadiphone.com. (2021). https://www.actualidadiphone.com/en/tim-cook-nombrado-mejor-lider-del-mundo/
Apple.com. (2020). Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology. https://www.apple.com/ke/newsroom/2020/04/apple-and-google-partner-on-covid-19-contact-tracing-technology/
Apple.com. (2021). Apple Leadership. https://www.apple.com/ke/leadership/tim-cook/
Apple.com. (n.d). We are Carbon Neutral. https://www.apple.com/environment/
Forbes.com. (2021). Tim Cook. https://www.forbes.com/profile/tim-cook/?sh=270de3613ea4
Hollister, S. (2021). Tim Cook’s Apple, Ten Years Later. https://www.theverge.com/22639629/tim-cook-apple-ten-years-decade-steve-jobs-legacy
Holt, S., Hall, A., & Gilley, A. (2018). Essential components of leadership development programs. Journal of Managerial Issues, 30(2), 214–153.
Holtzblatt, K., & Marsden, N. (2018, April). Designathon to support women in tech. In Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-4).
Kim, H. (2020). Comparison of Strategic Leadership: Steve Jobs and Tim Cook. Business and Management Studies, 6(3), 17–25.
Knight, P. (2021). Tim Cook. https://time.com/collection/100-most-influential-people-2021/6096062/tim-cook/
Rahbi, D. A., Khalid, K., & Khan, M. (2017). The effects of leadership styles on team motivation. Academy of Strategic Management Journal, 16(3).
Tasnim, M. (2018). An Organizational Analysis on Apple. European Journal of Business and Management, 10(11).
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