| I think this is something a lot of people who haven't managed others before find hard to understand The easiest example I've found is comparing a manager to a conductor in an orchestra. Most people will only see a conductor on the night of the performance, and they don't look like they do much, but a lot of the work is actually done before the night. The main issue is that because there are so many musicians in an orchestra, it's hard to have an overall view of what everyone's doing and if a piece sounds good. The main job of the conductor is to be the person who has that big picture. They make sure everyone is playing in time and in key. And if they're tricky parts of the piece - they make sure it's played properly. If it isn't, they hold individual practice sessions to make those parts smoother. If some musicians aren't performing well, they have conversations with them and maybe let them go. If there aren't enough musicians they hire more. And if the pieces aren't working they change them from the millions of pieces available to play. And they have to do it in a way so as not to make the orchestra angry and all quit! So to answer your question what does Tim Cook actually do? Does he tell his staff the priority is moving xyz units, does he come up with the core strategy, does he pick up good ideas from his staff. The answer is most likely yes to all the above - but that's such a small part of it. The big thing he needs to do is have a vision for how he wants the business to be, and then do those parts you mentioned, plus the hundreds of other tasks and decisions to get it there. |