Apple is one of the most successful electronic companies globally, whose culture is based on moderate combativeness, creativity, top-notch excellence, and innovation. The organization's needed change includes hiring more women as well as individuals from different ethnic groups in the executive positions, conducting a periodical campaign to raise awareness regarding, ensuring adherence to the diversity in recruitment policy, continuing with evaluation and assessment strategies, and acting according to the organization's mission statement.
Leadership is a fluid practice, meaning that leaders are constantly changing their strategies to help in the development of the company and the talents and abilities of employees. Different leaders have different leadership styles, and leadership plays a crucial role in cultural development in an organization. A leader encourages team participation in a democratic leadership style and considers employee or team feedback when making decisions. This promotes organizational culture through excellence and creativity encouragement. Democratic leaders are flexible and rational, and foster employee satisfaction and engagement. On the other hand, autocratic leaders are focused on achieving results and being efficient ( Val, 2012 ). In this style, leaders either make personal decisions or involve a small group of people they trust and follow precise guidelines. Apple's organizational culture is based on, among other aspects, secrecy, which can be achieved through this style. Autocratic leaders are self-motivated, self-confident, and dependable.
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There is minimal supervision in the laissez-faire leadership style, and leaders mainly make decisions after delegating with team members. These leaders believe in freedom of choice, constructive criticism, minimal control, effective delegation, and spending time on other projects. They mainly deal with well-trained, experienced, and focused team members. A transformational style of leadership is based on goal-setting, clear communication, and the motivation of employees. This may develop Apple's culture through accessible communication. Transformational leaders focus mainly on achieving the firm's objectives, intellectually challenge their team, and have mutual respect for team members. On the other hand, a transactional leader is similar to a pacesetter leader. They are focused on achieving results. In this style, managers establish rewards for success and punishments for failure. Transactional leadership styles also focus on mentoring, instructing, and training employees to achieve their goals so they can be rewarded. They value the corporate structure, value hitting goals, and are practical.
As stated earlier, pacesetters are focused on performance. This style involves setting high standards and holding their employees accountable for their goals and may not be effective with employees who need mentorship. This can develop Apple's culture by achieving top-notch excellence. In the bureaucratic leadership style, leaders are similar to autocratic leaders in that they expect rules and procedures to be followed precisely ( Val, 2012 ). Employees are assigned duties and responsibilities, and there is almost no need for creativity and collaboration. Lastly, in the visionary style, leaders aim to inspire their employees and embrace new ideas. They focus on strengthening organizational bonds and the confidence of team members. This style of leadership can be used to improve creativity in Apple's organization.
The visionary leadership style would be best suited for Apple's organizational change because it focuses on change. In this leadership style, leaders can steer team members towards progress and ensure that change is achieved. Visionary leaders inspire employees to develop new ideas and share them. This style involves taking risks, being optimistic and strategic, bold, innovative, and persistent. If this leadership style is incorporated in the organization, it will achieve the desired changes while also improving the outdated practices. Visionary leadership is about desiring a better future, and it encourages employees to work towards a common goal. Based on this leadership style, leaders can plan for the organization's future. Visionary leaders can enhance sustainability by helping available team members and developing successors who will effectively foster sustainability. It will be best suited to achieve sustainability because visions last long, seek to preserve other than harm the environment, promotes company diversity, conserves resourcefulness, and promotes deep learning for every relationship in the company. The contingency theory would also be suitable for organizational cultural change, mainly if the firm uses a visionary leadership style (Bratton, 2020). According to this theory, the change would be achieved effectively based on the leadership style, which determines whether the leader embraces diversity and change.
Employees play a vital role in customer satisfaction. Visionary leadership thus may determine whether employees promote customer satisfaction by integrating the organization's vision and mission. Visionary leaders create achievable, challenging, and exciting visions, such as Apple's vision, to create the best products and improve the world (Apple, 2021). Because the leaders are innovative, enthusiastic, and persistent, take risks when necessary, and are always willing to listen to their employees, they create an environment that enables team members to meet the vision and inspires employees to work towards meeting the mission, which is ensuring customers have the best experience. Consequently, the style helps the organization meet customer's needs and enhance satisfaction.
The visionary leadership style increases value for stakeholders by giving them an opportunity to learn, providing them with a clear direction, and ensuring they are accountable for their performance. It provides them with a safe, cooperative, and trusting environment. By promoting a culture of inclusion in the organization, the style embraces diverse backgrounds, creativity, skills, ideas, knowledge, and motivation. Through the style, the organization values every individual that has a stake in the firm, including stockholders, the community, customers, team members, and everyone else who may be affected by the firm's actions. This leadership style also provides motivation and recognition of individual participation while also committing to employees' engagement and development.
References
Apple Mission, Vision & Values. (2021). Retrieved 2 March 2021, from https://www.comparably.com/companies/apple/mission
Bratton, J. (2020). TRAIT, BEHAVIOUR, AND CONTINGENCY THEORIES OF LEADERSHIP. Organizational Leadership, 125.
Val, C., & Kemp, J. (2012). Leadership Styles. Pathways: the Ontario journal of outdoor education , 24 (3), 28-31.
