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Leadership Strategies for a Changing World
Introduction
For several decades, people have focused on the leader rather than the leadership strategy. Gradually, they are beginning to realize that while leaders come and go, the leadership strategy is more permanent and influential. CEOs might be important people who bring in a wealth of experience and creativity. However, in the face of a challenging leadership strategy, there is little they can do to salvage a company. This essay seeks to carry out an analysis of various aspects of management in general and leadership in particular. The initial sections will define the concept of leadership strategy according to the industrial understanding. This will be followed by a summary of the company under investigation that in this case is Google Inc. The concluding sections will address the recommended changes in the leadership strategy for the company under analysis. Understanding the role played by a combination of exceptional leaders and leadership strategies will assist in understanding business management.
Definition of Leadership Strategy
Leadership strategies are created to define the organization’s leadership demands, including the number and hierarchy of leaders within the firm in addition to the capabilities, conduct, and competence these individuals should possess currently and in the future. Leadership strategies also tackle the alignment to the company’s business aims, the vision of its members, global factors, and incorporation of leadership growth with other skill processes, and the plan for the preservation and upholding of the strategy. Leadership strategies or strategic leadership should not be confused with strategic management even though the two are closely related. Strategic management is concerned with creating and implementing organizational goals with intention of streamlining organization and ensuring that all employees work effectively (Steiber 18). The aspects of leadership strategy are the individual leaders and the consequent organizational culture in which leaders work. Most of the aims of leadership strategy efforts are to increase productivity and to foster a balanced and conducive working environment.
Leadership strategy shows the path for the nurturing of leadership abilities and culture. Having experienced leaders to implement the business strategy is an important part of success. However, studies have revealed that academics must also comprehend leadership culture as the group decisions of official and unofficial leaders acting in unison to influence company success. A leadership strategy explicates the number of required leaders, the type of leaders, their place in the organization, and their exact skills to realize the desired success (Schmidt 47). Leadership strategy also identifies other complications the company must consider, such as the ability of the current skill systems to support the culture it is interested in developing. In a manner similar to business strategies, these strategies are founded on a detailed analysis of the present situation and a knowledgeable perception of the future.
Summary of Case Study: Google Inc
Google is a multinational company that deals primarily with Internet-based applications, hardware, and services. Its mainstay lies in the development, vending, and maintenance of services and products such as cloud systems, e-mail services and its famous search engine (Wall 62). However, apart from this, Google has also invested heavily in online and digital advertisement. In this sector, the company has branched into advertising technologies in the form of AdWords, a hugely popular online advertising service (Schmidt 36). The company was officially registered in 1998 and over the years, rapid growth ad development has ensured that it has become the leading internet-based service provider globally. In the last decade alone, Google has made numerous acquisitions, mergers, and partnerships. It has also diversified its product base to include office packages, social networking services, computer applications, laptops, and most recently, mobile phones. The company has a wide reach with main offices in all the continents. However, the bulk of these offices are located in the United States and Western Europe. The company has employed over 47, 700 employees in these different locations (Schmidt 67). The physical magnitude and scope of operation of Google Inc. is a good indicator of the role played by leadership strategies in keeping the company afloat and successful. The next section addresses the leadership strategy for Google Inc.
Google Inc. Leadership strategy
Google’s leadership and management structure is a reflection of the conventional structure with the exception of several unique leadership seats including Chief Internet Evangelist and Chief Culture Officer. The company has a board of directors that relay directives via an executive management team. This team supervises several other units such as sales, products, finance, legal and engineering. Each department is sub-divided into smaller units that serve a specific geographical or demographic segment. Rather than using a standard corporate structure, the Google leadership came up with a corporate culture that revolved around employee autonomy in developing novel ideas in the absence of excessive supervision (Hill 46).
Google is currently offering free internet searches in all the countries in the world. Furthermore, it generates the largest proportion of its revenue from online advertisement services. It brand is equally valuable while its human resource management has made the company one of the best places to work within the United States (Morrill 89). The initial period for Google was characterized by a person-centered leadership style headed by the founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. However, with time, Google developed its own unique leadership style. The greater part of the new leadership style was a reflection of the academic background of the creators and their own preference for autonomous processing and research (Rothwell, Prescott, and Taylor 46). Therefore, from the onset, Google employees have also been empowered and encouraged to embrace and implement innovative ideas. Google’s leadership places a massive focus on quality and excellence. This has greatly influenced their recruitment policy that selects only top performers and awarding them the independence to apply their creativity. Most organizations opt to employ lower academic performers because of cost saving during recruitment. However, this fosters mediocrity within the organization in the long term.
The leadership style that embraces employee independence is evident in Google’s time allocation for its workers. The 70-20-10 norm implies that 70% of the time is allocated to Google’s core activities that include advertising and search engine improvement. The remaining 20% is set aside for projects associated with the core-business (Rhoads 28). However, 10% of the time is awarded for employees to develop ideas in line with individual interests and abilities. Approximately 50% of Google’s latest products are developed using the 10% allocated time granted to employees for their individual projects (Rhoads 36). At the research and development department, the distributed leadership style is also evident. The selection of the final product or service for release to the public is not determined by the leadership, reputation of the innovator or even management. All proposals are chosen solely on their merits to ensure that the most efficient, appropriate choice is made. The development of GMail is a perfect example of the elimination process that occurs within Google Inc (Levy 67).
This distributed leadership style at Google also values employee motivation. The leadership has passed the funding for liberal rewards for creating innovative ideas. In fact, Google’s reward system shied away from the conventional monetary system and concentrated on other forms of employee rewards including comfortable working environments, recreational facilities, and free transportation (Rothwell et al. 90). This leadership strategy has a two-fold benefit. One, it increases the motivation levels among the employees by catering for all their needs such as quality food, transport, daycare and adequate rest (Kraines 38). The second benefit of this approach is that it ensures Google maintains a high retentive capacity. Creative employees execute their innovative ideas within the company and this reduces cases of employee turnover and the rapid growth of competing ventures. The following section discusses the implications of Google’s business strategy for leadership requirements.
Business strategy implications for leadership requirements
Google’s business strategy has a massive effect on the leadership requirements for people demanding to become leaders of progress along the ranks. It is imperative to analyze Google’s business strategy before presenting the way in which it influences the leadership requirements. In essence, Google’s business strategy is a hybrid of several other combined in a loose manner. AT the core, Google’s strategy is to maintain and increase its revenue by promoting and distributing its key products and service such as AdWrods and Ad Sense. The next strategy is a push and pull one in which Google acquires rival companies or attracts them into mergers. The third strategy involves expanding their reach, reputation, and abilities while the last strategy involves experimenting with innovative ideas. From the outside, this hybrid business strategy appears random and diverse (Goldberg, and Martin 76). However, in its diversity, Google has found a way of using relative freedom in innovation to maintain a steady development of products and services. As mentioned above, most of Google’s products were developed as “accidents”. This trial and error approach has been turned into a guiding principle within the company. It is evident that innovation is a central business strategy. Consequently, the type of leadership within Google is focused on recruiting and molding leaders that can embrace flexibility, creativity, and progressiveness.
Leadership at Google is shaped predominantly by the business strategy. Therefore, leaders joining the organization are trained to expect regular failure in their efforts to innovate and develop the existing product range. This style of leadership differs from the conventional approach adopted by most companies in that ordinary leaders are trained to succeed at all costs. The Google leadership is expected to embrace new initiatives and proposals with the hindsight that most will not succeed. Marissa Mayer noted that over 80% of Google’s innovations ordinarily fail. However, this is not a main problem for the company’s leadership that chooses the focus on the successful ones. The diversified business approach ensures that Google can survive indifferent performances of failures in the market such as Knol, Android 1.0, and SearchMash that have been refined or replaced altogether. Based on the reports from technological websites, Google was responsible for creating the biggest mistakes in technology in 2009. At the same time, the majority of Internet users depend on Google’s products such as the search engine, Google Maps, while an even bigger number use Gmail. From a conventional perspective, this is a sure way of recording massive losses generated by the research and development department. Google operates on a risky approach that involves limiting the amount of funds invested in innovation. Their justification is that the major successes can generate enough revenue to cover the earlier losses. In essence, the company lacks a defined business strategy. Instead, it seeks to evolve with the direction that best suits their objectives and compliments their strengths. Leadership requirements are designed around these business demands (Copley 36).
In the previous sections, the leadership strategy comprised of experienced leadership. In Google, Eric Schmidt has been responsible for guiding the company through different stages of development. His contribution as a leader has been vital in developing the current leadership strategy adopted by the company. His leadership approach reflected that of the company in many ways. For instance, concerning employees, Schmidt preferred to have a personal and informal relationship. Similarly, he preferred to let employees work outside the Google hierarchy. His approach towards letting employee own and solve their problems was instrumental in creating the tradition of employee independence especially in innovation. This style of leadership created the foundation that resulted in a liberal culture characteristic of Google. It is important to analyze the role of the individual leader in leadership strategies since they are responsible for implementing them. The culture initiated by the founders has largely remained a major influence in the leadership within Google (Bock 23). Since his entry in 2001, Eric Schmidt introduced an element of academic professionalism, vast job experience, and higher standards. Based on the results after his entry, this unique blend of practical and business background was vital to the CEOs’ achievement at Google. The company’s leadership strategy also facilitates the employment of managers in special positions that are absent in conventional organizational structures.
Google Leadership Strategy In The Future
It is evident that technology is fast becoming the main factor that shapes the leadership environment globally. Within the last five years, there has been a massive change in the nature and quality of products developed by Google Inc. These changes create new complicationsfor the leaders.The customer experienceas ceased to be a differentiator.This is to be expected.One of the major changes to expect in Google’s leadership strategy in the future is an increased focus on the end user. Although the current focus of Google’s development and investment is in innovation, the future will concentrate on the user. Already Google has enough programs that focus on the contribution of the user in deciding the final product. However, future leadership strategies are expected to place the user at the center of the planning, development and innovation. This implies that the engineers and designer will need to align their focus on defying the limits of their creativity. Google will need to find new ways of satisfying the user with rapid and useful experiences. This change in leadership strategy will also affect the marketing and pricing. There will be a need to re-evaluate the affordability of the improved products.
In the future, there is a high probability that the Google’s leadership strategy will shift towards setting riskier goals compared to previous periods. It is relatively easy to be caught up in attempting to achieve the wrong goals (Bock 13). Google has already illustrated its ability to set outrageous goals and achieve them easily. Therefore, the leadership strategy for the coming years is bound to become more aggressive in innovating, developing new products, and services, promoting and marketing their products. Currently, Google is already looking to stretch its borders into new territories including motor vehicle production, cloud computing and other recent technology. Given the flexible and adaptive nature of Google’s leadership, it is highly likely they will pursue this path (Copley 26).
The
last trend in the future of Google’s leadership strategy is an increased focus
on recruitment and training. Currently, Google ahs a laissez-faire approach
when it comes to handling human resource matters. Engineers and other employees
are hired based on their abilities rather than their merit or qualifications. Furthermore,
the organizational culture created by the leadership supports an independent employee
base that carry out their innovation projects with little oversight. With the growth
of the company, Google has a potential of losing control of the innovation
process. At this point, it will be necessary for the leaders to come up with a
new strategy that restricts their activity. Failure to do so will result in a
disorganized working environment. Google is based on the ability of the
employees to work with little interference. Currently, there are complications
that have emerged with the mode of developing and selecting final products.
There are elements of internal competition and rivalry among the Google
engineers that have been experienced in various offices.
Work Cited
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Bock, Laszlo. Work Rules: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead. , 2015. Print.
Copley, Gregory R. The Art of Victory: Strategies for Personal Success and Global Survival in a Changing World. New York: Threshold Editions, 2006. Print.
Goldberg, Dan, and Don Martin. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Successful Leadership. Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2008. Print.
Hill, Linda A. Collective Genius: The Art and Practice of Leading Innovation. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2014. Print.
Kraines, Gerald. Accountability Leadership: How to Strengthen Productivity through Sound Managerial Leadership. Franklin Lakes, NJ: Career Press, 2001. Print.
Levy, Steven. In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011. Print.
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Morrill, Richard L. Strategic Leadership: Integrating Strategy and Leadership in Colleges and Universities. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007. Print.
Rhoads, CJ. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Running a Business: Strategy and Leadership. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2014. Print.
Rothwell, William J, Robert K. Prescott, and Maria W. Taylor. Human Resource Transformation: Demonstrating Strategic Leadership in the Face of Future Trends. Mountain View, Calif: Davies-Black Pub, 2008. Print.
Schmidt, Eric. Google: How Google Works. , 2014. Print. New York: Grand Central Publishing.
Steiber, Annika. The Google Model: Managing Continuous Innovation in a Rapidly Changing World. Cham: Springer, 2014. Print.
Wall, Stephen J. On the Fly: Executing Strategy in a Changing World. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2004. Print.Top of Form
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