Chris Marcos
Apple Structure and Leadership Style Apple was established on April 1, 1976 by a three man team Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne. A couple months after the establishment of Apple it was incorporated as Apple Inc. In 1980, Apple launched their first public stock that gave them huge success. Apple computer inc. is known today for its innovative hardware and software. According to Deal and Kennedy’s organizational structure model, ‘People are a company’s greatest resource, and the way to manage them is not directly by computer reports, but by the subtle cues of a culture’. Their model suggested that if culture is strong, people don’t need orders. It’s safe to say that the culture of an organization is directly linked to its strategy, structure, leadership and performance. Apple inc. drifted away from traditional corporate structure that was been practiced at most companies and continued in a different and unique way of managing its organization. Apple had three structures in place; Adhocracy structure was one which was favored in the technology industry. Adhocracy is a more flexible, adaptable and informal organization structure without policies or procedures. Organization like Apple use, adhocracy because they have special need to be innovative, due to the strong competition. This structure helped Apple with solving difficult problems and matched its innovative culture. Apple was also known for a flat structure. A flat structure is an organization that has few or no levels of middle management between staff and executives. It was easier for Apple to implement policies using this structure. Apple did also use a functional structure, where people are put into groups based of their common expertise, experience, and resources. Each group member is given a set of task to do. This help Apple become more efficient, but it also lad into lack of communication between the groups in the organization. Apple’s ex CEO, Steve jobs was a charismatic leader who had a strong passion for creativity and motivation. Steve Jobs was known for being a transformational leader because he was able to motivate and influence the employees at Apple to be their very best. Transformational leaders are leaders who use their authority and power to reform the old way of doings
