Cohesive Leadership at Apple

I define a cohesive team as one that wants to work together, that is constantly learning how to work together, and focuses on leveraging the talents and strengths of every member of that team. I believe that Apple is lead by such a team.

Case in point: Tim Cook made his annual foray to the boardroom of Goldman Sachs on February 12 to give an Apple “State-of-the-Company” report. In this year’s talk, he made the following comments about his leadership team:

Now, in terms of leadership, when I look around the executive team table, I see superstars. I see people that are at the very top of their game, I see people like Jony Ive who I think has the best taste in the world, who’s the best designer in the world. He’s now bringing his talents to our software as well, I’m just ecstatic about this. I see people like Bob Mansfield, who I think is the top silicon expert in the world. I see people like Jeff Williams, who, there’s nobody better in operations, anywhere. And I see Phil, and I see Dan, and I see Craig—I see all of these guys that are so focused on product, and are at the very top of their game, and it’s a privilege to be a part of that.

Cohesive Leadership means everyone at the table brings their A-Game. There is a perfect compliment of talent and skills and everyone contributes with everything they have.

I believe that Steve Jobs’ ultimate legacy will be his ability to assemble a diverse team of talent and get the entire lot of them (all 60,000 employees) to do the best work of their lives. Tim Cook is part of that legacy and his testimony assures me that cohesive leadership is the secret sauce behind Apple’s current run of success.

You can see a full transcript of Tim’s comments on Macworld.