Associations aren’t Apple. But Tim Cook’s tenure has a few lessons for what leadership of any sort looks like.
There isn’t much that associations have in common with Apple. Associations generally aren’t typically in the business of manufacturing, don’t have to appeal to the masses, or have millions of dollars handy to test out new ideas.
But with longtime Apple CEO Tim Cook announcing this week that he intends to step down, his tenure does have a few things to say about matters that are core concerns to associations—stewardship of a mission, treatment of core constituencies, and navigating difficult transitions. Associations can still be stuck in “we’ve always done it that way” thinking, and Apple was in many ways the ultimate “we’ve always done it that way” company—its vision was closely tied to whatever Steve Jobs, its cofounder and previous CEO, said it was.
So, unsurprisingly, many predicted that Cook would fail when he took the reins after Jobs’ death in 2011. But an analysis in the Wall Street Journal points to a few things Cook did well right out of the gate. Some were crowd-pleasing gestures (paying out stock dividends, something Jobs resisted), while some were personality-driven (he made a point not to try to imitate Jobs’ often-brash leadership style).
But Cook’s successes were more often built on a straightforward servant-leadership approach that works whether you have a six-figure budget or a $4 trillion market cap. As the Journal notes, Cook was a savvy delegator—he empowered his creative teams to take the lead on certain product decisions, and gave deputies the spotlight as well.
Cook’s servant-leadership approach works whether you have a six-figure budget or a $4 trillion market cap.
Moreover, he made it clear what principles the company intended to adhere to through his tenure. Cook emphasized user privacy as a key component of everything the company did, establishing a guide for staff and an appealing message for consumers who’d grown increasingly skeptical of Big Tech’s handling of personal data.
As former Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly told the Journal: “There’s going to be all sorts of curveballs thrown at you, sometimes faster than you hope. A true North Star is so essential.”
Cook has had his missteps—it turns out you can’t say you’re a champion of individual autonomy and then force everyone to own a U2 album. But Cook’s tenure can serve as a meaningful model for leaders of all sorts—and particularly associations, which have their own issues with difficult stakeholders clamoring for attention, and a need for steady leadership.
Cook’s tenure is also evidence that charismatic leadership like Jobs’ has its limitations. What looks to some like an aura of genius can be a fog of confusion to others. (Or, as Walter Isaacson often put it in his biography of Jobs, a “reality distortion field.”) Cook demonstrated the virtue of never leaving people confused about what you’re doing and why.
As Yale business professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld told the Journal, “Steve Jobs did create a mystique, but also some misleading haze. Cook was always transparent.” Regardless of how big an organization you’re running, “always transparent” is a good legacy to strive for.
The post A Top CEO’s Playbook for Association Leaders appeared first on Associations Now.
