Leadership Change at Apple and its Implications on

Organisational Culture
Posted on May 4, 2013 by John Dudovskiy

Widely considered as a controversial genius and a charismatic leader, Steve Jobs has
served as chairman and CEO of Apple for 14 years and he is credited for the global
success of the company. The decease of Steve Jobs on October 5, 2011 because of
cancer implications resulted in grievances for millions of people around the globe, at the
same time casting concerns for the future of Apple Inc.
Although, a long-term Apple executive with impressive track record Tim Cook has been
named apple CEO several months before the decease of Steve Jobs, nevertheless,
there are concerns about the sustainability of Apples innovative corporate culture, as
this culture had been closely associated with the former CEO.
Contents

Apple Organisational Culture on Steve Jobs Era

Leadership and Organisational Culture

Change of Leadership at Apple and Its Implications on Organisational Culture

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Apple Organisational Culture on Steve Jobs Era

Late Apple chairman and CEO, Steve Jobs is widely perceived as unconventional leader
who was able to rally various stakeholders of the company for his vision and at the same
time demanded excellence from his staff and was known for his blunt delivery of
criticism (McInerney, 2011).
According to Harrisons Model of Culture (1972) Apple organisational culture when Steve
Jobs was in charge can be classified as a power culture. Accordingly, Steve Jobs had

concentrated most of the decision making powers at his hands, constantly challenging
subordinates for better performance, and criticising employees blatantly and
undiplomatically if their performances did not meet his expectations (Arneson, 2011).
Moreover, described as antithesis of servant leadership model (Katzenbach, 2012),
Steve Jobs was famous for pressurising teams and individuals to better performance and
creating a corporate culture of high level of performance where A list employees would
thrive, however B list employees, comprising the majority of workforce, would be
subjected to unnecessary level of stress.
According to Harrisons Model of Culture (1972) the power culture has both advantages,
as well as, disadvantages. High level of success achieved by Apple in the global
marketplace was contributed by the fact that advantages of power culture came into the
play that is associated with visionary leadership of Steve Jobs, as well as, his creativity,
intuition, self-confidence and overall competence as a leader.
In other words, Steve Jobs unique personality and leadership style has created a power
culture within Harrisons Model of Culture (1972) framework and this power culture has
contributed to Apple becoming the most valuable company in the world by market
capitalisation.

Leadership and Organisational Culture

Leadership can be defined as creating a vision that others want to be a part of, creating
a positive environment where great things can happen, and developing people to reach
their full potential (Arneson, 2011, p.68).
Implications of leadership and personality of the leader in the formation of organisational
culture is immense in a way that actions and behaviour of the leader is often emulated by
employees in lower management ranks. Therefore, organisational leaders usually set the
culture within their organisation through their communication skills, work ethics, methods
and general behaviour.
Equally, attempts to promote any type of culture within an organisation tend to be
ineffective if leader of the organisation does not exercise elements of the culture on a

daily basis in a extensive manner. Harrisons Model of Culture (1972) specifies the
nature and amount of influence of leader in four different forms of organisational culture.

Change of Leadership at Apple and Its Implications

on Organisational Culture
Due to the declining health of Steve Jobs and interference of the issue with the
performance of his duties at Apple, the position of CEO was taken over by Tim Cook on
August 2011, with Jobs remaining chairman of the company until his death on October 5,
2011. From then on, Tim Cook remained on CEO position on a permanent manner and
the role of Chairman of the Board has been assumed by Arthur D. Levinson (Executive
Profiles, 2012).
The departure of Steve Jobs from the top job creates certain issues for Apple related to
organisational culture. Specifically, according to Harrisons Model of Culture (1972), one
of the serious disadvantages of power culture relates to a situation where organisations
can experience drawbacks and performance drop if the organisational leader lacks
business and leadership competencies.
In other words, within Harrisons Model of Culture (1972) framework, in power culture
organisations employees are often de-motivated or even afraid to break bad news to the
organisational leader and decisions of the leader seldom meets criticism in lower
management ranks, and therefore a leader of a power culture organisation needs to be
highly competent in order for the organisation to succeed.
A high level of competency, effective business acumen and exceptional level of creativity
has enabled Steve Jobs to make Apple a highly successful company in a power culture
environment, despite obvious and significant potential disadvantages of that
environment.
However, the business and leadership skills of post Steve Jobs strategic level
management in general and current CEO Tim Cook in particular have to be proved yet
and thus, there is a justified concern regarding the disadvantages of power culture at
Apple having negative implications on companys further growth prospects.

To put it simply, the power culture in Apple developed during Steve Jobs era has a range
of disadvantages such as under-utilisation of employee creativeness and initiatives, high
level of risk associated with decisions taken, and decisions of a leader not facing
criticisms in lower management ranks. Accordingly, these disadvantages might have
serious negative effects for Apple because the business and leadership skills of the
current corporate leader of the company might not match the skills of Steve Jobs.

Recommendations
On the basis of discussions provided throughout the report the following three
recommendations can be made to Apples strategic level management
1. 1. Apple is recommended to move from power culture to a task culture.
Apples traditional power culture needs to be departed from because its obvious
disadvantages impose far greater risks than the benefits of its advantages. Harrisons
Model of Culture (1972) offers alternative culture types as task culture, person culture,
and role culture.
Among all of these alternatives adoption of a task culture represents the most
appropriate choice for Apple because this type of culture offers the advantages of a
greater level of freedom and flexibility for employees, decision making with an increased
level of speed, and creation of room for employee creativity and innovation.
1. 2. New Apple CEO needs to play in integral role in the promotion of a task culture
As it has been established in this report, an organisational leader plays a crucial role in
determination of the organisational culture in many ways.
Accordingly, new Apple CEO, Tim Cook needs to adopt a proactive approach in terms of
promoting task culture within the company through communicating relevant values to
various organisational stakeholders in an efficient manner. Moreover, Tim Cook is
recommended to assume the role of change agent in the shift from power culture to task
culture.
3. Innovativeness and creativity culture at Apple should be preserved at all costs.

It is important to understand that creativity and innovativeness has served as the core of
business strategy for Apple during Steve Jobs era and these important elements of
Apple corporate culture should be preserved in the future.
Regardless of the future business direction to be chosen by Apples new strategic level
management any compromise of the level of innovativeness and creativity of the
company would result in serious negative implications and decline on the level of brand
loyalty, and as such, specific measures and initiatives need to be devised by Apple new
management in order to achieve further integration of these principles with the corporate
culture.