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Discussion: Jobs vs. Cook Case Steve job was and remains to be one of the greatest business leaders of the free world. Steve is the only man who founded a company only to be chased away. Upon his return, Job’s created what would be one of the most profitable companies in the world. Six weeks before Job’s death, little known Tim Cook became the new Apple CEO. Cook was able to carry on with Job’s legacies that had seen the company achieve the one trillion dollar market cap. Many ways can be used to measure the quality of the chief executive officer, market share, patents filed, stock price, evaluation, brand equity and so forth. There is however one metric that is arguably more important than the rest, leadership style. Both leaders were great leaders, but there were glaring differences as well as similarities. For instance, Steve jobs deployed an autocratic style of management. In autocratic leadership, a leader exerts power over his employees. The employees are hardly given an opportunity to make suggestions even if they favor the company. This was the type of leadership practiced by Steve Jobs. Steve was known for denying his subordinates an opportunity to participate in decision making. According to Steve Jobs biographer, it is the same reason that he was kicked out of Apple. On the contrary, Tim Cook leadership style encouraged collaborative style. Cook came in time to eliminate internal silos that had been created by Steve Jobs. Steve was known to keep secrets especially those surrounding top secret projects. The high profile ouster of former chief of staff, Forstall was in the name of collaboration (Lussier & Achua, 2015). Steve Jobs leadership mainly focused on results which was a trait characterized by transactional leadership. It is a leadership style where the leaders set parameters for their employees. This type of leadership allowed Steve jobs to drive innovation at Apple. Leaders possessing transactional leadership are known to be a tyrant who is difficult to handle, and Steve was not exceptional. He would confront employees whenever there was a misunderstanding.

Discussion: Jobs vs. Cook Case Unlike Steve, Tim allowed the employees to be themselves. Tim placed more value on the employees than the company’s products which enabled him to create a collaborative environment at Apple. Tim Cook realized that Apple’s talent was an arsenal to move the company to the next step. He utilized participative or democratic leadership style to advance corporation among the apple’s employees. Participative leadership revolves around collaboration between team members and their leaders. Lussier & Achua (2015) defined participative leadership as the distribution of responsibility among the team members which promote the process of decision making. Tim Cook leadership style would also be considered to be achievement oriented (Lussier & Achua, 2015). The leaders set goals and encourage continuous improvement among their teams, the way Tim cook does it. By doing this, the employees feel empowered and strive to do their best for the benefit of the company. Given Tim’s focus on the shareholder's returns and business performance, he fits well in the category of achievement-oriented leaders. The employees applauded Tim’s leadership style since he could run a meeting for approximately 5 hours to ensure that each of the members present has voiced their concern about the issue being discussed. It is difficult to compare between the two since Steve Jobs was the CEO for a much longer period than Tim’s current tenure. However, I believe Steve job implemented the most effective strategic plan. The decision by Jobs to focus on innovation was the most effective strategy to have ever been implemented by any organization. It is the innovation culture that has made the company churns out a new product every time. According to Isaacson (2012), were it not for the Apple’s innovative culture, it would have been declared bankrupt a long time ago. He

Discussion: Jobs vs. Cook Case goes on to say that, it may not long since the current leadership does not put more emphasis on innovation.

References Isaacson, W. (2012). The real leadership lessons of Steve Jobs. Harvard business review, 90(4), 92-102. Lussier, R. N., & Achua, C. F. (2015). Leadership: Theory, application, & skill development. Nelson Education....