Role of a Leader & Function of Manager within Different Situational Context:

The role of leader and functions of corporate managers help companies in moving to a specific direction along with achievement of a goal. There are different functions that manager performs along with different roles that a leader play that help a company to function in different situations. Apple Inc. currently faces tremendous challenge of reducing revenue from sales of IPad and other electronics (Voorhees, 2019). Below figure show a striking slump in the revenue of the company and a crises situation of Apple Inc. Under the given situation, the leader of the company, Tim Cooks played role of a manager as well as leader. As a leader, he undertook transformational style by encouraging people to communicate with him, bringing more innovation and taking risks. Such style of leadership encourages ideas, communication, team work and improvement in revenue through better products and services (Chikhale and Mansouri, 2015). Tim Cook also became role model for the people as he has been very ethical and also encourages diversity. Tim became a role model for many workers as he accepted his gay sexuality openly. According to Cohen (2015) such openness of Tim inspires workers with diverse background and also motivated them to work towards corporate vision. Tim is highly visionary and plays crucial role of setting objectives, goals, taking risks and developing visions of corporate growth. While in given situation Tim serve as a leader, he is also a manager of the company. At Apple Inc. Tim carries out planning, controlling, coordinating, communicating, motivating and directing (Stephan, 2017).

Figure 1: Apple Inc. Revenue 2016 – 2019

Source: Voorhees (2019)

            While Tim Cook is one of the popular manager of Apple Inc. Steve Jobs is the former CEO of Apple Inc. He has been listed among top leaders of the world several times and has helped Apple Inc. in achieving corporate success (Voorhees, 2019). Steve Jobs was regarded as one of the most visionary man. He was dedicated to apple success that he took a very laughingly low salary, a strategy that later Google CEO and other CEOs adopted. During his time, Steve Jobs faced many challenges at Apple including the inability of Apple to acquire larger share in China in 2011, due to high competition, pricing struggles and other challenges (Chikhale and Mansouri, 2015). Steve Jobs that had proven himself as a role model also performed role of taking bold risks of introducing products in market that initially seemed as not needed. IPad was a funny innovation initially as people in China regarded it as an expensive regular laptop. Steve Jobs proved people wrong and the product soon became a huge hit in China along with other products that led to Apple market share growth (Cohen, 2015). Thus, role of Steve Jobs was risk taking, innovation, inspiration, motivation and being visionary. On the contrary, Steve Jobs served as manager by planning internal tasks, coordinating departments, controlling activities, staffing, and directing people. Miller and Laurie (2018) pointed that Steve Jobs adopted autocratic style of leadership where he would fire people even on slightest mistakes.

5.0 Strengths and Weaknesses of Different Approaches to Situations:

Considering the conduct of Steve Jobs as a leader and a manager within different situations, below table suggest the strengths and weaknesses;