Apple’s new CEO and a new iPad - A Change in Leadership

For those of you who watched the recent Apple special event (7 March 2012), you were witnessing an event which involved too kinds of leadership. First, Apple was aiming to secure its leadership of the global tablet computer market with the launch of the “new iPad”. Secondly, the event was a showcase for a new kind of leadership at Apple. It provided quite a few clues to the leadership style of Tim Cook, leading the presentation for the first time since the death of Steve Jobs.

The market reaction to the “new iPad” has been a little mixed, although that might be as much about media and customer expectations as about the technological improvements added to the product.

And what of Tim Cook? How did he do? What has changed.

I like this short article in Management Today in which Nicky Little (a leadership development expert) analyses Cook’s approach and style. Overall she is pretty positive about Cook, making points such as:

- Cook appears to be a very collaborative leader, happy to share leadership responsibility and public recognition with them;

- Apple appears to be less reliant on the Steve Jobs “guru status”

- Cook wants to use a culture of shared leadership to drive continued innovation and performance

- Cook seems to be much more than a “safe pair of hands”

Despite being incredibly successful, Little points out that Apple is going through a period of significant change as a result of Jobs’ departure:

“CEO transition is a major issue for many organisations right now. Several, like Apple, are moving from the strong ‘heroic’ leader to the new ‘sharing’ version - from charisma to participation, from a solo style to a collaborative style of leadership.”