Essay: Contemporary Management For Apple Inc. And Amazon.

Leadership style of Apple Inc.

Discuss about the Contemporary Management for Apple Inc. and Amazon.

This essay throws a light on the leadership style of two big multinational companies who have become the market leader in their respective market segment. The multinational companies that will be discussed are Apple Inc. and Amazon. The leaders of both the companies have a different style of management and established different ways of achieving the organizational goals. Leadership has become one of the most important which drives a modern day organization towards success. The two companies operate in the global market and have a culture that is diverse in nature. The two companies function very differently, Tim Cook the current CEO of the company named Apple Inc. follows the democratic form of leadership while Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon follows a leadership style, which is transformative in nature (Giltinane 2013). Even though they have differences in their leadership style, they have produced great results for their respective companies. The next part of the essay will describe the leadership of this two industry giants and its effects on the culture of the organization.

Apple has always followed the autocratic style of leadership during the period of Steve Jobs, which has provided great results for the company. The company had become one of the most profitable organizations under Steve Jobs (Hendriks and Karsten 2014). However, after the demise of the Charismatic leader like Steve Jobs the company has been taken over Tim Cook. Tim Cook has modified the style of leadership followed by Steve jobs and made some changes to nit. Tim Cook has adapted to the democratic style of leadership, which has some practices of the autocratic style of leadership followed by the company. Tim Cook has proven to be very successful and is considered as one of the bet5s leaders in the world (Dumdum, Lowe and Avolio 2013). The stock prices of the company have risen after Cook has taken over from the legend Steve Jobs and has become the first company to capitalize the market to such extent. The democratic form of leadership encourages employees to give inputs. The higher ups tries to provide guidance to the employees by accepting suggestions from them. This helps the employees to feel important as they are being considered an integral part of the company(McCleskey 2014). This style of leadership is highly popular and is being followed by a lot of companies in the market. The organizational structure of the company has been changed and there are no mid level managers. The higher ups and the lower level of managers perform the task performed by the mid level managers.

Organizational culture and performance

The company has made a remarkable progress and has become one of the major companies in the world. The credit is always been given to Steve Jobs but after his demise the company has made even more progress under the leadership of Tim Cook. Evangelism is one of the main aspects of the corporate culture of the organization where the organization have hired people for the promotion of their product (Vann, Coleman and Simpson 2014). This is one of the most common practices of the company where the employees use word of mouth to promote the products offered by the company.  The company is trying to gain the confidence of the consumers and is trying to create a cult. The employees share their belief with the consumers and other people who influence the people take liking for the brand. These practices have helped the company to create a customer base, which is very loyal and has emerged as the market leader in this particular market segment (Sandoval and Apple 2014). The motivational type of leadership followed by the company has made the employees zealous and dedicated who provide good reviews about the company to the outside world. The inputs of the employees are very important to the company and they are encouraged to speak their mind. The input of each people will help the company to create a business model that is more effective and the company will be able to gain a competitive advantage over the other competitors in the market. This helps the employees to grow and creates a sense of belonging among them. Moreover, this helps to improve the loyalty of the employees, which will act as a positive for the growth of the organization (Richtel and Chen 2014). Thus, the company has been able to create an organizational culture, which nurtures the present employees to improve their skills to become a contributing member in the organization. The company has created a culture which is innovative, fast paced and collaborative which is helping the organization to improve the operational productivity in the organization. The company is known for its innovation and this innovation has lead the company to the process of path breaking innovation. The organization is culturally diverse in nature and the company makes sure that the needs of the employees are looked and they are provided with benefits (Rogers and Lee 2016). The employees are provided with continuous training, which helps to grow individually and in turn help the organization.

Changes in leadership style

There is no correct way of leadership and the modern leaders will have to be dynamic in applying the leadership style. The leadership style has to be changed depending on the needs of the organization and that is the sole reason that Tim Cook has kept some of the practices followed by Steve Jobs (Umar 2015). There are such instance here the autocratic leadership style is required and there are some instances where the laissez faire is used to identify the hidden potential within the employees. The leadership that the company can adapt to is the transformative style of leadership. The transformative style of leadership is considered as the leadership for the future and the company can utilize to transform the whole working environment. Various research suggest that the employees are motivated by this kind of leadership style. The company can earn more profit if they adapt some f the features of the transformative type of leadership.

The company has through a lot of changes when the external and the internal environment of the company is considered. The company believes in the transformative type of leadership, which has helped the organization to expand their e commerce at such a level. Jeff Bezos the founder and the CEO of the organization has implemented tools to improve the internal management of the organization. Bezos believes that it takes to gain growth and it is a gradual process (Stone 2013). The company who is able to identify and determine the needs of the consumers will gain a competitive advantage in the market. Amazon is able to do this perfectly due to the guidance provided by their leader. Bezos is farsighted and is able to predict the changes in the market trends, which has given the company a competitive advantage in the market (Fuller, Galvin and Ashforth 2017). Thus, it can be seen that the company has implemented a transformational type of leadership, which has helped the company become the market leader in this segment.

The leadership style of the company is focused on the consumers while the other competitors are focused on the competitors in the market. The strategies of the company are made customer centric, which helps the company to customize the products depending on the needs of the consumers (Furr and Dyer 2014). The company believes in taking risk because the return will be higher when the risk is high. The culture in the organization is very competitive and the employees are evaluated on the basis of their performance. The company has developed immense competition among the employee, which has made the culture as a struggle for survival. The company fires employees who are unable to perform to the level set and the attrition rate in the company is very high (Kantor and Streitfeld 2015.). The average length of stay of an employee in the organization is one year, which shows that it is quite tough to survive in this organization. The progresses of the employees are regularly monitored and they are forced to criticize one another for their mistakes. This has generated fear among the employees and the employees are bound to sabotage each other. The organization culture is inhumane and hampers the personal welfare of the employees in the organization. The company uses purposeful Darwinism, which make the employee struggle very badly (Mattone and Vaidya 2016). Amazon has been able to make this type of management work but there are many companies who have failed. There are some companies who have changed their leadership style because it is against the moral code of ethics.  The company has divided the employees in three categories, which included the high performers, average performers and the underperformers. The employees who are exceptional performers are highly rewarded while the average performers are allowed to keep their jobs (Kelloway et al. 2017). The underperformers in the company are immediately fired and this has created a fear among the employees. The employees in the organization have become de motivated and it has affected their personal lives. The true potential of lot of employees cannot be discovered due to this method and there are lot of employees who quit. There is no bonding among the various and the company has developed a sense of animosity among the employees.

Leadership Style of Amazon

The leadership style of the company has to be changed otherwise the company may lose its sustainability. The company is able to acquire new employees because of their good reputation in the market but eventually no one will join the company as an employee. The leadership style company should adapt to is the democratic type of leadership and stopping this purposeful Darwinism (Kantor and Streitfeld 2015). The employees in an organization are assets to the organization and they should be motivated so that they can improve the productivity of the company. However, the company has failed to do so and the employees in the organization are not at all pleased with what they are going through at the current period. Many researchers for using such practices so the best leadership style for the company is democratic form of leadership have criticized the company. The employees should be free to speak and give new ideas to the higher ups; this will help the company to attain sense of belonging within the organization (Skogstad et al. 2014). The employees will regain their motivation level and will be more productive. The company should be more focused on innovation and creating a team which can work together. The inputs taken from various employees will help the company to improve their business model and gain a competitive advantage in the market. This method is very needed to maintain the sustainability in the organization. Moreover, the company will have to make sure that the higher ups are easily accessible by the lower level of employees so that they can understand the goals and objectives of the organization (Furr and Dyer 2014).

Conclusion

thus, after the evaluation of the leadership system of both the companies it can be identified that even though both of them are unique in nature they have been able to grab a large of share in the market. However, one type of leadership is not enough to mitigate all the problems in the organization and both the companies will have to be flexible so that they can solve all the problems. Apple Inc. does not need much of a change but there are lot of problems emerging in Amazon. The company will have to mitigate all the problems unless it will be difficult for the company maintain their sustainability. The modern industry is changing rapidly and so the human resource management system of a company will have to be changed accordingly. This will help the company to cope with the changes in the industry, The organizational culture of Apple Inc. is dynamic and the company is open to changes so it will not be problem for the company. However, Amazon has been very stringent about the rules and regulations followed by the company that may cause a problem later on.

Reference

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