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CEO’s Analysis

Yuanqing Wang

Westcliff University

BUS 525

02/14/2021

Question 1

The CEO is the highest-ranking executive officer in any company and the major primary goals include making major corporate decisions, acting as the main point of communication, and managing the overall operations as well as resources. Every company has different roles for its CEO and this depends on the size, culture, and corporate structure being used. CEOs in large companies deal with very high-level strategic decisions while in smaller organizations CEOs are involved in the day-to-day functions. CEOs can set the tone, vision, and even the culture of the organization at some time. CEOs of large companies that are known around the world get to become famous because of the frequent dealings with the public (Hitt, Ireland & Hoskisson, 2017)

The CEO’s job may be complex because they are the main decision-makers in the organization and this means that making poor decisions may result in poor performance in the organization. Being involved in a variety of tasks like the execution of global strategies, innovating new products, and restructuring of products and brands can make their work to be complex. Besides, the fact that as a CEO you have to interact with many individuals in the organization also creates a difficult moment in most of the times. Some of the organizational members may be reluctant to perform their duties and this means that in case of organizational failure, the burden falls under the CEO who has to explain the same. The CEO must also have the right information about market trends and competition as well as understanding the various markets and make decisions that will promote the overall success of the company. In this case, Cook’s decision of innovation that is valued in the marketplace might be a complex action to undertake. Besides, Cook had to adjust some of the strategies used by Job and this was not an easy task for him (Cortes & Herrmann, 2020).

Question 2

In many scenarios organizations are faced with the dilemma of using internal or external labor market. Organizations that prefer hiring from the internal labor market tend to make hiring decisions with long term effects and have the idea of employees staying in the company for a long period. These organizations are interested in hiring from within to reward the employees. Theorists have always argued that the internal labor market would be advantageous to companies because it would allow workers in developing a highly motivated and specialized workforce. (Kang & Lee, 2017).Managers can create great efficiency through the reduction of the dependency on the external labor market. This independence helps in reducing the need for information about future external labor markets. In this case, using the internal managerial labor market is the best approach to follow when it comes to replacing Steve Jobs.

I would support this by saying that having a CEO who has been part of the company is very beneficial to the company because he understands so much about the company and how it operates. An internally acquired CEO will also be in a position to make viable decisions since they have had much experience with the organization. Having this strategy is also important since it will reduce employee turnover and it will be easy for the new CEO to work with the other employees since he is not new to them as compared to external hiring (Liang, Wang & Zhang, 2019). Although some argue that internal labor markets may prevent potential employees from entering into the organization, it is difficult to compare replacing a top CEO internally and getting one from external labor markets as employees recruited internally have a high capacity of performing better as compared to those from the external labor markets.

Question 3

The type of culture an organization decides to employ or use in its functions and processes has either positive impacts or negative ones. Organizational culture helps an organization in developing from one level to another. The culture in Apple Company under the leadership of Steve Job is very different from that experienced under Tim Cook. Job’s leadership style was considered to many as ruthless and quite impulsive and maniacal when it came to developing new products and making sure that high quality desired in the market were produced. On the other hand, Tom Cook's skills and knowledge do not make him qualify as an expert in product development, marketing, and design. In this case, Cook delegates those duties but remain as the overall leader and decision-maker in the organization. Cook also finds it important to hire other top managers with talent but who will fit in the Apple's culture. Besides, Cook considers less emotional approach than Steve Jobs. He encourages the team to manage their different functional areas and stresses the need to take a long-run perspective (Porter & Nohria, 2018).

Cook created a culture of being kinder and gentle as compared to Jobs who was too aggressive and tough and focused on fighting for the company to become the best technology company in the world. It is also noticeable that Cook brought a culture of employees being recognized compared to Job's concentration of only creating great products. This case shows that a leader should be concerned about the culture of the organization and be able to find which culture fits his organization and if the impacts that are going to be created are positive. One of the innovations created by Cook was the Apple watch which was received well in the market and resulted to demand being greater than supply (Al Khajeh, 2018).

Question 4

I would say that Tim Cook is a good CEO as per this case study. The way he manages the organization is highly exemplary and this translates to the success that is evident. For instance, Cook shares the limelight with the leadership team while on the other hand Jobs kept the light to himself. Cook is referred to as a good leader who builds a good and effective team around him. He is also leading the company to be more of a philanthropic company than it used to be in the past. Team Cook is therefore a strategic leader and this is shown by his ability to handle and empowering others to create a strategic change where necessary. Strategic leaders are also effective in decision making and have the ability to influence human behavior often.

Besides, strategic leaders create and support the context of the environment through which the organizations stakeholders can be able to perform at peak efficiency. Additionally, a strategic leader is involved with a large number of different tasks all of which relate to the effective use of a strategic management process. Tom Cook, therefore, stands out as a good leader and his leadership style can take the company to greater levels and help it develop more. With his leadership qualities, he is able to take the company to greater levels of growth and profit maximization.

References

Hitt, M. A., Ireland, R. D., & Hoskisson, R. E. (2017). Strategic Management Competitiveness & Globalization: Concepts and Cases 12e. Bostom: Cengage Learning.

Cortes, A. F., & Herrmann, P. (2020). Strategic Leadership of Innovation: A Framework for Future Research. International Journal of Management Reviews

Porter, M. E., & Nohria, N. (2018). How CEOs manage time. Harvard Business Review, 96(4), 42-51.

Al Khajeh, E. H. (2018). Impact of leadership styles on organizational performance. Journal of Human Resources Management Research, 2018, 1-10.

Gandolfi, F., & Stone, S. (2018). Leadership, leadership styles, and servant leadership. Journal of Management Research, 18(4), 261-269.

Kang, S., & Lee, J. Y. (2017). Internal Labor Markets and Firm Innovation. Seoul Journal of Business, 23.

Liang, J., Wang, X., & Zhang, H. (2019). Promotions in the internal labor market: New evidence from China. China Economic Review, 57, 101332