Can (or Should) Tim Cook Replace Steve Jobs?

The day after Steve Jobs resigned as CEO, Apple stocks dropped as much as 7%. Though shares have recovered since, concerns persist whether Jobs' long-time adviser and successor Tim Cook can step into his larger-than-life shoes, despite (or because?) Cook's reassurances that "Apple is not going to change." Can Cook replace Jobs? (Or, for that matter, would he want to?)

Steve Jobs, who resigned as Apple CEO on August 24, gave virtually no public limelight to Tim Cook, or anyone else for that matter, before moving into his new job as chairman of the company.

So who is Tim Cook? The 50-year-old, whose father was a shipyard worker, who grew up in Alabama and got his MBA from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, joined Apple in 1998 after stints at Compaq and IBM.

Initially Cook became Senior Vice President of Worldwide Operations. In that post, he was credited with helping to dramatically grow margins by closing factories and warehouses around the world, reducing inventories, and streamlining supply chains.

In 2007 he was promoted to COO.

Cook has already served as Apple (interim) CEO twice before: once in 2004 when Jobs was recovering from pancreatic cancer surgery, and again in 2009 while Jobs took a leave of absence for a liver transplant.

Of course both times lasted only a few months.

One can hardly imagine a bigger contrast than the one between Cook and Jobs.

Will the cerebral and operational behind-the-scenes man Cook, the quintessential manager, be able to replace the charismatic Jobs, the quintessential leader (see video)?



In his letter to Apple employees, Cook made clear that he is committed to continuity. "I want you to be confident that Apple is not going to change."

Certainly, in a world where even my two-year-old daughter cries out every day for her mother's and/or her sister's iPhone (the words "iPhone" and "iPod" were among the first words in her vocabulary), the sex appeal of Apple products will not disappear for a long time, if ever.

But should Cook promise continuity? Keeping Apple the same is precisely what Jobs never promised.

Leaders are not paid to extend the present (and therefore the past) into the future. Leaders are in charge of creating a new world, of bringing something about that does not exist today.

And in a highly competitive market where Samsung or Google have come as close to Apple as ever, or have even surpassed it with some products, staying the same could mean dangerous stagnation.
If every human being is unique, then by extension every leader is unique. Instead of trying to be like his predecessor, the new Apple CEO may want to give himself permission to be himself, and to create things that Jobs cannot even imagine.

As the Apple slogan put it, to "Think Different."

What do you think? Can, or should, Tim Cook replace Steve Jobs? Is Cook right to promise continuity and that "Apple is not going to change"? Or should he leave all options open and promise a future not given by Apple's past? I look forward to reading you on http://thomaszweifel.blogspot.com/.

P.S. As a roadmap for your own leadership, check out my latest book "Leadership in 100 Days."