Evaluation of Leadership at Google - Case Study Example

Leadership at Google Name Institution Question 1 Sergey Brin Larry Page Eric Schmidt Planning and budgeting As the president of technology it is paramount he oversees that marketing initiatives are effectively done Whereas he oversees the success of the company he oversees that things are done at a timely manner and effectively. Dubbed as a master of strategy, Schimidt is thought t have been brought to the company given his prowess in operating the company. Simply put he offers guidance to Page and Bin on overwhelming issues Organizing and staffing Through his skill set. Page oversees that the staff are well placed in addressing all organizational functions as he is involved ion overseeing the completion of products life cycle Controlling and problem solving Schmidt is thought to be the master of strategy in offering guidance to Page and Brin given his novel expertise garnered through year of work. Question 2 Sergey Brin Larry Page Eric Schmidt Setting a direction for the organization Is well placed in establishing a highly skilled workforce; where he advocates the hiring of class A talent individuals. He asserts that hiring class B individuals creates room for mediocrity; an aspects considers as the corner to failure. Through his conventional wisdom, he balances both Page and Bin’s communication to the outside world. Aligning the people to the specified direction of communication Oversees that Page and Bin are behave themselves as they are required. Contrariwise, he offers direction and on work day aspects where the company’s founders do not take keen interest. Motivating People to Action Schidmt showcases his spirit in maintaining the company’s image through offering the required advice on top management. Question 3 Google is a company that has a high orientation towards innovation and creativity. As such, the company only recruits only the best talented to avoid mediocrity. Engineers are allowed to operate with the highest possible autonomy. All employees are however required to follow a 702010 model of work performance. In the model, each employee is expected to devote 70% of working time to search and advertising; the company’s core businesses, 20% to off the budget projects relevant to the core businesses and 10% to other innovative ideas (How Google Manages Continuous Innovation in a Rapidly Changing World, 2014). As Eric Schmidt put it in a press conference, a company should be run by its culture as opposed to top level management. As such, Google employees a downward up management approach hence managers and top level executives are only inspirational and support instruments for other workers. Google provides a working environment where employees, as mentioned earlier herein, are autonomous; generating ideas from lower levels and pushing them up for the management to implement. By doing so, the company eliminates all sorts of bureaucracy and coercion to work. Operating under the motto ‘don’t be evil’ means that the employees are only held accountable to themselves and less accountable for the managers. Employees are encouraged to work in direct teams with each other, as opposed to some formal channels. The company does not set goals or objectives for the employees; the employees set their own goals and objectives while the company only offers the necessary resources, inspiration and motivation for achieving such objectives (Google Inc, 2015). Similarly, metrics used to measure employee performance emanate from the employees themselves, with managerial input being mere suggestions and support. The supervisors play the role of managers to ensure such individual objectives are met, working under the benchmarks set by the respective employee. In essence, employees are allowed to be their own leaders, to perform individual performance evaluations and deduce better job performance techniques. Corporate transparency also serves as a method for employees to contribute to the function of leadership (Hauck, 2015). All employees are able to access every managerial meeting so as to contribute to the company’s projects and responsibilities. In addition to perks inclusive of bonuses and flexible work time, Google’s cross-functional structure of leadership contributes to employee satisfaction (Veith, 2015). It can therefore be deduced that Google followership is comprised of active, independent and critically thinking employees. Active because the employees are actively involved in setting up goals, contributing to leadership, evaluating their own performance and proposing better techniques for better results. They are independent since they are allowed to do whatever they want so long as they stick to organizational culture, objectives and the 702010 model. They are also critical thinkers based on the fact that the company is oriented towards innovation and operates on a bottom-up approach. This way, employees are allowed to be creative and innovative, hence critical thinking. Question 4 Google guarantees satisfaction of employee safety and physiological needs, so as to ensure there are minimal distractions to work. Employees are provided with person-tailored compensation packages in the form of equity components, bonuses and competitive salaries alongside opportunities for further financial rewards and bonuses (Geier, 2015). According to Eric Schmidt, the company strives to eliminate all the distractions that pose barriers for working. The company provides various fringe benefits alongside commuter buses, dry cleaning, carwashes, haircuts, subsidized massages, laundry rooms, gyms and free meals among others. For health and wellness, the company provides accident insurance, business travel insurance, disability insurance, life insurance, vision insurance, dental insurance and medical insurance. Retirements and saving are catered for using the Google 401(k) Plan (Google Inc, 2014). The employees are offered 15 days of vacation during the first year of working at the company up to 25 days during the sixth year. Maternity benefits of up to twelve weeks and 100% salaries are also offered; with additional time for long time employees. An empirical study conducted by the company found that teamwork is only effective when the team members are risk takers, believe in what they do, have clear objectives and reinforce each other. Each of the 60,000 Google employees (Googlers) works in at least one team (Google Inc, 2014). In fact, the company was started by the team work between Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Additionally, all employees are treated equally at Google. The company has a culture where every employee works to come up with the best idea. Generation of the best idea is done by the ability of Googlers to work together and sharing of such ideas. The employees are allowed to hold discussions and debates within teams or with other teams. The discussions are made possible by the fact that all employees are treated equally and no one has a higher voice than another; this is the essence of a culture oriented towards transparency, openness and flatness. With respect to the leadership grid, Google falls in two categories; country club management (1,9) and team management (9,9). The company practices country club management by ensuring that it has a high concern for its employees by provision of the benefits and perks mentioned herein. This form of management is useful for the company in that it allows for employees to enjoy their jobs and have job security. It is also beneficial for the company in that there is great employee retention upon recruitment at Google. The company also practices teamwork management. Here, employees are allowed to work in teams which are highly autonomous with corresponding sharing of ideas. From the grid and such findings, it is deducible that Google practices the best management. Question five Google is definitely applying transformational leadership in its operations. Larry page is applying all the principles of transformational leadership a Google (Hauck, 2015). To begin with, Larry Page applies idealized influence by acting as a role model for employees to follow. He sends emails to top level managers in order to know the highly prioritized projects. He then uses his influence, transformationally, to ensure that only high definition projects are pursued; those that have their focus on the core objectives of the business. Secondly, the company applies inspirational motivation by creating high expectations form the employees. By use of the 702010 model, employees are required to contribute to the core business while coming up with new projects by creativity and innovation (Mims, 2015). This can be traced by the company’s quest to achieve a driverless search engine. Thirdly, intellectual stimulation has been enhanced by advising employees to refrain working on their laptops throughout, but to also engage in team works where there are challenges, debates and discussions. This will foster more creativity and innovation for the organization. Lastly, individualized consideration is largely employed in the company. Each employee works in the way that is fitting to them, setting individual objectives that are in line with organizational objectives, individual performance evaluation and reporting (Adler, 2012). This autonomy ensures that all employees are confident, innovative and creative at the respective work stations. Charismatic leadership entails getting people to believe in what a leader has to offer and following such a leader. Larry Page and Sergey Brin can be said to have charisma by using their ideas to generate a cheque of $100,000 to incorporate the company (Adler, 2012). They pursued what they believed in and got people to trust in them for what they had to offer. Today, Google is among the fastest growing companies globally, with a 60% market share and among the best places to work at. Using the motto ‘don’t be evil’, the company can be said to be positively aligned to authentic leadership (Roberge & Melanchon, 2015). This is the form of leadership that uses personal attributes to check charisma, transactional and transformational leadership. Without authentic leadership, charisma can have its ugly sides while transformational leaders may tend to listen to only those who support their views. Authentic leadership is present at Google especially in the human relations department. Employees are treated well and equally and are customer centered. A combination of these leadership styles by Google executives results to inspirational leadership. Looking at the company’s thought leader, Larry Page, it is evident that Google has highly inspirational leaders. Page has a personality of ambition, self-drive and collaboration alongside intelligence and creativity. He works under the philosophy -building great things that do not exist. More impressively, the company’s use of triumvirate leadership is particularly inspirational. The three leaders, all with different personalities, have been able to work together without any conflicts. This is a reflection that they are able to combine transformational, transactional and charisma, to produce inspiration for their employees. They are surely role models that all other employees would like to emulate for success. In an organization leadership has a vital role of influencing the behavior of the organization and achieving effectiveness. Robert Blake and Jane Mouton once developed what is called the leadership Grid. The focus of this greed is on attitudes of leaders. The grid is based on two fundamental aspects, the concern for results and the concern for people. Blake identified three leadership styles from that are reflected on the grid. These are the organization manager, the authority compliance manager, the improvised manager, country club manager, a team manager, and the paternalistic manager. Management and leadership exist in the same framework. A good leader will often exemplify good leadership skills, but the two are still different in various ways. Leaders are people that influence others to achieve some goals, but manager guide people to achieve some goals. In the case of Google Triumvirate reveals that the leaders transformational and are keen on enhancing the skills of the people in the organization. The organization stands over its competitors by ensuring that there is transparency within the organization listening to the views of the workers. It is evident that managers and leaders who use the write leadership skills will easily spar growth in the organization and also increase efficiency. References Adler, N. J. (2012). The Arts & Leadership: Now that we can do anything, what will we do?. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 5(4), 486-499. Geier, B.(2015). This is Google’s secret to making work less awful. Fortune. Retrieved from http://fortune.com/2015/03/30/google-work/ Google Inc.(2014). Google Inc. Form 10-K, 2014. Retrieved from http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000128877615000008/goog2014123110-k.htm Google Inc.(2015). People operations – Google Careers. Retrieved from http://www.google.com/about/careers/teams/people-operations/ Hauck, R. (2015). FTC v. Google: The Enforcement of Antitrust Law in Online Markets. In Competition on the Internet (pp. 53-61). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. How Google Manages Continuous Innovation in a Rapidly Changing World - Strategos – Strategy and Innovation Consulting Firm. (2014). Retrieved January 27, 2016, from http://www.strategos.com/google-model-managing-continuous-innovation-rapidly-changing-world/ Mims, C.(2015). At Google, the Science of Working Better. Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com/articles/at-google-the-science-of-working-better-1427673486 Roberge, J., & Melançon, L. (2015). Being the King Kong of algorithmic culture is a tough job after all Google’s regimes of justification and the meanings of Glass. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 1354856515592506. Veith, A. A. (2015). " Don't be evil": Google's labor, technology, and the limits of corporate good (Doctoral dissertation, San Francisco State University). Read More