Organizational leaders are expected to create realistic visions for their companies and the employees they guide, but these visions often have characteristics or properties that differ. There is,...

Introduction
Leadership is often refe
ed to as a process by which a leader influences and persuades
others by means of communication to achieve the goals and objectives of groups and
organizations. The leader persuades to change the attitude and behavior of the employees. The
style of leadership varies from company to company depending on several internal factors of the
company. There is no co
ect leadership style for guiding employees and achieving strategic
goals of the organization. The assignment reflects on the leadership style of Steve Jobs of Apple
and his performance based on effective communication and ethical conduct. It discusses the
culture and organization structure of Apple. Then it moves on to identify the best practices of
leaders to motivate employees and the challenges that leaders face in managing diversity. In the
end recommendations are put forward to address the challenges and issues discussed in the
paper.
Leadership style of Steve Jobs
There is no doubt in the fact that Steve Jobs (the late CEO of Apple Inc.) was an
excellent leaders and very effectively performed his tasks. Several leadership approaches apply
to Steve Jobs. One among them is charismatic leadership approach. Steve Jobs had a vision to
progress the company around through laying emphasis on producing software and “consumer
experience” (Ro
ins & Judge, 2007). Also, he was clearly geared up to take on personal risks
so as to accomplish his vision. For instance, his approach to previous enemy, Bill Gates and
alliance with Microsoft had a huge deal of risk. Additionally, Jobs illustrated a great level of
sensitivity for his followers through attributing the success to them at the time when he credited
the organization’s ability to keep focus on customers and innovation. Other theory which applies
to Steve Jobs, however to a lesser level, is the transactional leadership approach. Firstly, Jobs
developed the strategy for the organization’s chief objective i.e. to turn itself around. Then he
worked on motivating and guiding followers through assigning tasks and roles to make sure the
objective is accomplished.
Jobs was a visionary leader. Being a visionary, he effectively manifested his ideas,
transformed them into goals, worked towards the achievement of goals and encouraged others
participation. The qualities of a visionary leader are a balanced expression of the spiritual,
mental, emotional and physical attributes. He had the ability to transform people, companies and
the industry. He had always been a compelling and larger than life persona. Jobs has been a very
demanding leader and a perfectionist. His aspiration had been to establish his business as a
pioneer and forerunner of the information technology industry. For this, he applied his analytical
skills to analyse the market, and set new trends through innovation. .
Organizational structure and culture of the company
Presently Apple is considered the most innovative country globally. The success of Apple
lies in its ability to innovative constantly in a sustainable manner supported by gradual increase
in its spending on research and development activities and faster new product launches and
product upgrades (Muller, 2010). The key success factor of the company is constant focus on
generating new ideas faster. Innovation and creativity drives the success of the company. There
is a significant relationship between the nature and style of management and the success of a
company. People management plays an important role in encouraging innovation and this is
achieved through shared vision, willingness to be innovative, role of key personnel and
leadership, effective team efforts, a creative culture and organization structure (Muller, 2010).
The company operates on the basis of the conception of informal corporate culture in the
technology sector where it favors a apparently flat organizational ad hoc structure rather than the
tall structure. The administrative adhocracy takes place at the time when a company has a special
equirement to be innovative, because of high product competition or innovative technology.
This is the case at Apple Company. The company adopted adhocracy since it is the only
organizational structure suited for solving complex problem and could match well its
complicated innovative culture. The advantage of such kind of organizational structure at Apple
is its effectiveness with respect to empowerment and innovation. Policies are quicker and easier
to execute and...