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Apple Company Leadership Change.

Students Name:
Professors
Name: Date.
1. The reasons and justification for the organizational change;

Apple Inc. is one of the prominent companies whose tremendous and enormous success
and achievements have been attributed to well-established leadership, organized workflow as
well as its culture that has always guided the employees and the entire apple staff to work
toward one common objective (Dudovskiy, 2019). Apple Inc. has been known for its
hierarchical organizational structure, which has been portraying easily notable divisional
characteristics with a weak functional matrix. The hierarchy in apple Inc. was based on most of
its traditional structural traits in all of its business organizations. Divisional characteristics in this
respect mean that apple product was based on groupings within the company. These divisional
characteristics included macos and iOS.
According to research conducted, Apple has been at the top due to its profound
organizational structure, more so during the reign of Steve Jobs, who by then firmly held his
autocratic leadership. Perhaps at his time in leadership, Steve Jobs, dictatorial leadership style
was greatly used over the other fellows (Dudovskiy, 2019). He was in charge of everything
ranging from decision making to initiation of any changes he felt was necessary without
consulting any of the colleagues. The guy led with power and authority; every person working
within the apple company real felt the presence of Steve Jobs. Though he was dictatorial, Steve
had impressive ways of executing his duties.
Worth understanding is that Jobs often met his executives almost every Mondays with his
executive management team to discuss all the results of the previous suggestions and perhaps
review the most crucial and critical areas as well as other projects that were relevant
undertaking; he always ensured all the status of the ongoing projects were also reviewed to
confirm that they are in line with the projected targets(Dudovskiy, 2019). On Wednesdays, he
also held meetings to
discuss various issues related to communication and marketing strategies. On Fridays, he also
a meeting to discuss design strategies and progress made by the company’s designers.
However productive Steve Job was, his leadership never involved many of the company’s
stakeholders nor the key leaders, he never entertained any form of consultation, nor did he
borrowed much of the opinions from other colleagues and employees at large. What he had in
mind was final. He was always unpredicted and perhaps never relied on any of the
conventional consultative models as that BCG Growth-Share Matrix nor the Mckinsey of 7S. he
always asked questions during meetings, an aspect that he used to gain much control of the
meeting as well as dominating the agendas through his directive questions that directly
influenced the type of discussion held.
With reference to the question, it was necessary to make changes more so to the
organizational leadership structure. The primary reasons for the Apple changes can be
attributed to remedying the initial challenges of the dictatorial leadership of Steve Jobs, as
illustrated in the discussions above (Klaiber, 2013). Another key reason why there must be a
change of the organization is that Job’s leadership was forceful, and the style of leading
generated unnecessary stress and psychological imbalances among most of the employees.
Additionally, the existence of unconventional leadership whereby Steve Job never tolerated nor
took time to understand the workforce demoralized many workers. This situation has been
greatly addressed by the current change of organizational leadership (Klaiber, 2013).
Moreover, the former culture of the organization that was driven by Steve Job's one-man say
vision. The leadership of Steve rallied various stakeholders of the Apple company for his mission
and visions, and above that, he demanded performance excellence from his employees. Another
good reason why the change is justifiable can be attributed to how the traditions of Steve Job
leadership seemed barbaric, as witnessed by many of the staff members; he used to address
the staff with arrogance and blunt delivery of criticism. His reign concentered much of the
organization's power to his own hands, dominating every sphere without respecting or
considering the existing principles of leadership as well as theories of management
(Martinsons, 2017). The leadership constantly challenged the staff whenever they failed to
meet the set criteria; the power leadership undiplomatically and blatantly criticized the
employees with much of professional approaches.
It is wise to mention that Apple, as an organization and a productive international
company, needs to change its organizational leadership because the culture introduced by
Steve Job was not all-inclusive in undertaking most of n the company's projects and
developmental strategies. Another reason why the change seems to be reasonable and
justifiable. Generally speaking, Steve Job’s power culture leadership disregarded modern
management principles and theories. The Apple company depended only on the
extraordinary leadership and vision of Steve ob and the two key leaders that is Jonathan Ive
and Tim Cook (Martinsons, 2017).
The organization assumed democratic leadership instead of initial autocratic leadership,
which never promoted employees' participatory aspect to facilitate the company's growth. The
reason for the change of leadership by apple company was to encourage an element of
inclusion, mutual respect, and participation in all the company's fraternity with shared goals
(Dudovskiy, 2019).
With Tim Cook's managerial style and change of total leadership framework., many employees
have perceived him as a charismatic leader whose focus is aimed at fostering apple business,
existing products, and the employee's farewell and relationship as well. It is worth initiating a
change of leadership and culture to avoid such kind of autocratic leadership style that vested
power and control to only one person; new change has brought limelight on the essence of
collaboration, and perhaps emphasized on the advancing cooperation all stakeholders,
employees and other Apples’ arsenal of talents. The organizational change is justifiable in the
sense that, unlike the former culture power and autocratic leadership, the current democratic
leadership has provided anew platform that encourages consensus reasoning and building
more so among the top-ranking employees and key stakeholders before decisions are made
(Myers, Hulks, & Wiggins, 2012). Above all, the new change of leadership has been found to be
more productive than the former because it inspires and motivates the employees and
encourages new ideas and innovation, a move that has taken the company to advanced levels
of development (MEYER, 2019).
Finally, I also wish to mention that the new apple's organizational change has tried to
balance work, objectives, development, and employee motivation. Unlike the former
leadership, the new change has highly recognized employees by providing both good pay,
compensation, and incentive among all the workers (Myers, Hulks, & Wiggins, 2012). This has
led to the current witnessed productivity and exemplary performance because the employees
feel recognized and have developed intrinsic motivation as the company supplements extrinsic
motivation. There has been a newly established employee’s welfare department that takes care
and perhaps oversees the working staff's needs. Indeed, change is accepted by the people
when they feel that there is societal value as well as concern. Extrinsic motivation as an
initiative of the change within apple company was established to address employee’s
challenges and serve as the best way employees are motivated to work or perform to affect
and effect change. In a nutshell, the new change has facilitated innovation within the company;
before the current changes, innovation was focused on Steve Jobs, whose vision and the
mission was one man say one man take all, new organizational changes have improved all the
Apples' working plan, and everything is open, and
each, member and affiliate of the company can be heard. This idea has brought together
various experts whose coordination and contribution have made Apple a more b successful
venture than during the reign of sleeve Jobs (Tycontent, 2017).
2. The barriers and drivers to the change initiative. Was there resistance to the change?

As many people say, change is inevitable, and any attempts to implement changes need a
skillful professional approach and communication to effect it to them later. Many of the change
processes are faced with several challenges more resistance from the existing working staff
who fear that change will adversely affect them due to the uncertainty of the proposed change.
However, it should be understood that resistance to change must be overcome at all costs to
effect change and perhaps make new progress as well as moving the change forward.
Therefore, leaders need special skills to deal with such opposing forces to overcome resistance
successfully. According to the coach's resistance to change, initiatives must be recognized and
as expected to bring people out of their cocoon or comfort zones (Tycontent, 2017). Therefore,
managers who are initiating change need to deploy skills that enlighten resistors on the
essence of the anticipated change and how the current situation may not be worth for
collaboration and teamwork.
Apple culture, as was seen in the Steve Jobs era, has strongly established a power culture
foundation, which led the company for around 14 years. Most of the employees had been used
to how the organization worked under Steve Jobs's autocratic leadership. Therefore, it was
hard for most people and staff members to shift their minds on accepting the new
organizational changes brought by Tim Cook's leadership. (Tycontent, 2017) Most employees
seemed to fear what be Cook present to the company; therefore, the fear of uncertainty was
one of the barriers to accepting change.
 Secondly, the most challenging barrier was the culture Steve Jobs had created while in
power. The initial apple leadership instilled fear, criticisms, and undiplomatically challenged
employees and aspects that negatively affected most of the employees. This effect on itself
contributed to the much of resistance witnessed during the time Apple turmoil in introducing a
change of leadership.

The drivers for leadership change initiation were triggered by a sharp decline and reduced
how apples performed in the international markets (Dudovskiy, 2019). Most democratic
managerial leadership advocators rebuked autocratic leadership and power culture. Steve
Jobs's approaches were seen as a barbaric and rather one-person vision that raised a lot of
concern even from the key stake holders who sought to initiate changes. There was significant
resistance to change since some individuals were already deep-rooted to the previous culture
and therefore feel comfortable with Steve’s power culture and autocratic leadership.
Approaches used to mitigate resistance forces internally and external;

The approach deployed involved all key players and sensitizations on the anticipated
change's essence (Tycontent, 2017). The apple organization introduced a change in the
humanistic approach with humanistic values, democratic and developmental approaches. The
employees through humanistic value approaches were encouraged to openness, honesty, and
integrity, as for democratic value they were given their social justice, freedom of choice and
contribution, as well as employee’s involvement and finally the democratic approach enhanced
the self-growth and self-realization an aspect that positively contributed to the easy acceptance
of the change.

3. The approach or strategy adopted to implement the change;

 As an organization, Apple used various methods and strategies; one of the main systems
deployed to implement the change was the use of top management support for change.
Apple's high levels of management critical showed their full support to the anticipated change.
The management demonstrated that they indeed supported the change by communicating
and interacting with Apple staff on the essence of the said change. The message sent to Apple
staff members was clear and articulated a single vision of change to avoid generating mixed
reactions from the employees (Tycontent, 2017). Another strategy that was extensively used is
fully staff involvement in the change process. The change efforts at several levels involve the
employee's representatives. This approach aimed to explain the kind of change, effects of
change, and perhaps the essence of the said change on both the employees and the
organization at large. The employees' involvement at some level serves as the best option
since most of them are closer to the company's daily activities and process. Their involvement
helped provide the limelight of what should be done to improve the organization's
productivity.

Besides that, the company communicates about the change in advance to key members.
This was one of the strategies used to reduce the effects of rumors and neutralize all the
possibilities of resistance to change. The organization was very proactive in communicating
with its staff on many occasions after Steve's leadership had been abolished to minimize
resistance and perhaps make the staff members feel they belong to the organization and are
part of the change process. Additionally, the organization worked hard to eliminate all the
change barriers during change implementation.

The approach used was a democratic leadership style that allowed all the key members of
apple and the employed to participate in the generation of successful ideas implemented
through
collaborative policy and a conducive working environment (Dudovskiy, 2019).

4. The impact of the change on the most important stakeholders (employees,

shareholders, Board of Directors, customers, media, etc.);
The change has promoted the inclusive participation of both employees and other
stakeholders to improve productivity. The change has captivated transparency and teamwork
as it offers a leadership style that is approachable and perhaps inspires every individual through
an open door policy that provides a collaborative environment at the Apple company. Most of
the employees at Apple's company describe the new leadership as one of the exceptional
leaders who know how to handle management, employees, and innovation at the same time.
The staff felt motivated and encouraged to continue working hard for the company, unlike
during autocratic leadership (Tycontent, 2017). The stakeholders are constantly involved in any
pertinent discussion and decision-making process; this has further positively impacted the
stakeholders as they feel recognized and part of the Apple company fraternity.

Moreover, the change has helped the employees collectively work together, solve the
company's challenges conjointly, and seek intervention whenever it deems necessary. The
change has also helped the employees to get frequent updates about their progress, after
which they are provided with progressive support to keep their knowledge and skills up-to-
date. Cook's interrogative nature has inspired and empowered some key leaders to initiate and
implement their own solutions on the areas that need much of their attention (Tycontent,
2017).
5. Recommendations and alternative perspectives for future change initiatives;

I feel that that it will be advisable for the company to adopt a variety of leadership styles
that are developmentally focused and perhaps include all key stakeholders as well as its
employees
when imitating changes to avoid situations where some feel rejected or opposing the intended
changes. Besides that, it is worth the company to adopt a string corporate control structure
that will support the organization's strong management and control. This will theoretically
empower leaders such as Tim Cook to control everything within the organization. By using such
a recommended structure, the organization will be able to effectively control business
functions and production-based groups (Tycontent, 2017).
Additionally, it will be advisable for the company to induce flexibility or promote unlimited
organizational flexibility. As witnessed currently, the company has limited organizational
flexibility and aspect that adversely downsides the manner in which some of the issues are
responded to. Moreover, limited flexibility has also prevented some of the low levels of the
structure from responding to the current business demands and needs within the market and
marketing platforms. For example, product-based divisions only depend on the CEO orders to
proceed to the implementation of changes. Therefore, it's wise for the company to reduce such
levels of rigidness to facilitate other leaders to execute such a function for easy decision
implementation and power-sharing for one common purpose (Tycontent, 2017).
It is also a great need to establish sound collaboration among and between departments and
stakeholders to improve ideas generation and organizational flexibility. Apple company is not
progressively improving due to its hierarchical leadership structure that needs to be validated at
every stage; such kind of leadership and corporate structure need to be revisited to ensure that
the system can support rapid changes and perhaps avoid directing everything to the new leader
Tim Cook (Tycontent, 2017). It should be known that this kind of leadership disrupts and impair
rapid changes since every decision is attributed or must go through the CEO and other top
management before they are successfully implemented. Inflexibility is one of the
major hindrances to progress and development at large.
6. Your own learning as a graduate student and/or prospective change leader and what
you would have done differently.

In my capacity, I would use the 7Rs of management change to initiate the appropriate
changes for the company's benefit. I would consider several questions based on 7Rs, such as
who Raised the anticipated change request? What might be the Reason for the said change?
What Returns of the change in question? What might be some of the Risks associated with the
requested change (Irwin, 2018)? Who will be Responsible for the creation, testing, and
implementing the change? What are some of the Resources that should be deployed for the said
change? And finally, what will be the Relationship between the expected change and the other
changes? With all this in mind, I will be able to uniquely establish the essence of urgency for the
organizational change of leadership and perhaps create a guiding coalition that will advocate for
the change to avoid or eliminate any resistance form. I will also develop a change vision bearing
in mind on the importance of the 7Rs as well as effectively communicating the intended
changing to all relevant stakeholders and inform each of the essence and great need of the
change initiative and how beneficial it will than the existing systems of operations (Irwin, 2018).
In my position, I also feel that I would have empowered broad-based actions and as well
generating short term wins, which will spearhead the changes intended to improve general
organizational functionality and team collaboration (Irwin, 2018).
 It was worth it for the organization to conduct a situational analysis. Since the organizational
culture had been doing well initially, I would have provided continuous leadership training to
improve the organizational culture rather than changing leadership style (Klaiber, 2013).
 References

Dudovskiy, J. (2019, April 3). Apple Leadership: a brief overview - Research-Methodology.

Retrieved from https://research-methodology.net/apple-leadership-and-

apple- organizational-structure/
Irwin, D. (2018, September 19). 7 Rs of Change Management. Seven Rs of Change
Management is a… | by Daniel Irwin | Medium. Retrieved from
https://medium.com/@marketing_99371/7-rs-of-change-management-
7c5cde17c36a
Klaiber, B. (2013). Anatomy of an Apple - The Lessons Steve Taught Us. Pennsauken:
BookBaby.
Martinsons, M. (2017, January 23). What was the organizational model that Apple used to
follow at the time of Steve Jobs? Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_was_the_organizational_model_that_Apple
_us ed_to_follow_at_the_time_of_Steve_Jobs
MEYER, P. (2019, 14). Apple Inc.’s Organizational Structure & Its Characteristics (An
Analysis) - Panmore Institute. Retrieved from http://panmore.com/apple-inc-
organizational-structure-features-pros-cons
Myers, P., Hulks, S., & Wiggins, L. (2012). Organizational Change: Perspectives on Theory
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Tycontent. (2017, March). Ty Content - Apple, Inc.: Motivation and Organizational Change.
Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/view/tycontent/topics/business-
strategy/apple- inc-motivation-and-organizational-change