Eric Schmidt and His Leadership Trait - Coursework Example

Organization Behavior: Eric Schmidt and his Leadership Trait Executive Summary: Leadership is the success story behind any successful organization. In modern world, with increasing competition among the top players in every industry organization leaders mainly the Chairman and CEO along with their leadership style plays major role behind the success. Among various top companies in the world Google and its CEO Eric Schmidt leadership quality is one of the major talking points. Within 8 years of his leadership, he makes Google more successful than Microsoft-the worldwide leader of IT industry. Innovation, self-belief, and flexible working style-all these are major features of working style among employees of Google. Google is perhaps the best case of a network-based organization, in which the leader is more reluctant towards implementing very flat, non-hierarchical organizational and leadership structure with very much casual in culture where ideas come from everywhere, from every level of employment. INDEX Topic Page Number 1. Introduction 4 2. Finding and Discussion 5 Eric Schmidt: An Overview 5 Leadership Style of Eric Schmidt 5 Strength and Weakness 7 Eric Schmidt’s Leadership & Leadership Traits 8 Impact of leadership on Employees: The Success rate of the Leadership Style in broader prospect 9 3. Conclusion and Recommendation 10 4. Bibliography 11 1. Introduction: In modern times, every organization has a distinct work culture associated with it. In various industries, across the globe the culture varies according to the structure of the organization, Pattern of work culture in that very country and on the basis of various government rules and regulation. But the bottom line is always the same. Organization culture is a key behind success of every organization both economically as well as socially. In this paper, the main focus is on analyzing the organization culture of one of the leading IT Company of the world, Google INC under the leadership of Eric Schmidt’s. The main focus is on the leadership qualities of Eric Schmidt, his business objective and strategies to take Google at the top of the success ladder and also comparing his leadership and behavioural pattern with some of the other top leaders from the corporate world and also relating the same with the theoretical side of the organization behavior. What is Leadership? Leadership can be defined as an influence relationship among the leader and his or her followers “who intend real changes that reflect their mutual purpose” (Rost, 1993, 102) On the basis of above definition, one can easily figure out four essential elements associated with the effective leadership quality. These are: leadership always based on influence; leaders and followers are the people in this stable relationship and they are the mutually connected; “leaders and followers intend real changes” and leaders and followers are involved in developing mutual process. (Rost, 1993, p.104)In modern times leadership can be simplified as an ongoing “process of building and sustaining a steady relationship between two different groups’ people, those who aspire to lead and those who want to follow.” (Gallos, 2008, p.3) 2. Finding and Discussion Eric Schmidt: An Overview Eric Schmidt was born in 1955 in Washington D.C. before taking charge of the Google INC as the Chairman and CEO in the year of 2001, Eric Schmidt served 14 years at Sun Microsystem in various technical positions, 5 years at Novell as Chairman and CEO. Schmidt also served on Apples board from 2006 to 2009. He was well known for his innovative style of leadership throughout his professional career. If one analyzes the success of Eric Schmidt, there are two main features associated with it. Those are considering human asset as priceless property and his desire to be an organization builder. By analyzing his leadership style in Google, it is very clear that he mainly prefers to use supporting leadership style. Though his assets such as setting high expectancy and self-improvement have made him aeffective leader, the intransigence in trying alternate mode leadership styles and his over reliance on individual brilliance have been his weaknesses. (Business Week, 2004) Leadership Style of Eric Schmidt: Appreciating human strength is the most important characteristic of Schmidt’s management skill and leadership ability. He always mentions about the effective use of talent pool in Google as backbone of hissuccess. In his opinion, without the presence of innovative minds in your employee group in the high tech industry, any leader is nothing but a big zero. In his view, smart and effective people and the good operationalatmosphereexisting in Google are responsible for the operational as well as financial success. By analyzing the success of Eric Schmidt in Google one can easily figure out the fact that every successful leader must have a set of essential situations for revolution to happen, and to do that leaders have to listen to their employees. From Schmidts viewpoint, human strength and quality are the two main things that have to always at the center of the focus. (Morrow, 2000; Carlson, 2009) If one wants to analyze the leadership style of Eric, it is very prominent that the key feature of his leadership quality is his desire to be an organization builder or developer. This distinctive quality is not centered on his practical information, but it in fact originates from his obligation of human asset. It also echoes his aspiration to lead. At Google, Schmidts perspective is that individuals will work excessive as long as they do not destabilize each other. This perspective is the clarification for his great corporation with the two Googles founders. It also supports the collective management model which is now in use at Google. (Business Week, 2008) From the above study, one can easily figure out the compassionate nature of leadership in Eric Schmidt. In his tenure as the CEO and Chairman of Google he not once tries to create an authority or control over the workforces of the organization. In his view, Google was driven by the culture of the organization and not by him. He always trusts the concept that explains the freedom of thinking. The famous 80:20 work rule in Google is a result of his broad mindset and leadership quality only. In any organization the leader can tell employees what to do but no leader can’t tell how to do the same. When any leader give the freedom to his or her employees to find out the answer of ‘how’- from that very point work culture of that organization become employee friendly and people used to feel at home while working. For success it is one of the most important things for any organization. (Manimala & Wasdani, 2013) Strength and Weakness: Creating high expectation is one of the key strength of his leadership style. Apart from that another key feature associated with his leadership quality is continuous self-improvement. In his opinion thinking about the mistakes can people more wise. He never goes away from the criticism as he used to believe that criticism helps in self-improvement. Manimala & Wasdani,(2013) in their review figure out following 5 strengths in the leadership style of Eric Schmidt: Knowing the employees better; creating new and innovative way to recognize the high performing employees in the organization; encouraging the employees to own the problem which the leaders/owners want them to solve; Allowing the employees to function outside the company hierarchy (70:20:10 work rule is a clear example of that) and most importantly place someone to review the performance of employees from whom the employees have respect for his or her objectivity, impartiality and quality/qualification. (Manimala & Wasdani, 2013). From the same line of organizational theory, limited flexibility in using leadership styles is one of the great weaknesses of Eric. The style of leadership that Eric likes to follow is best suited with people at the Capable but Cautious Performer stage with high competence and variable commitment. It is best suited in Google where every individual is hungry for innovation. But at the same time, his style of leader was not worked when he was in charge of Novell. Another weakness of his leadership can be recognized from the analysis of his work pattern. He is too much dependent on the individual brilliance or innovation. He always used to believe that the productivity or success rate of any project is directly proportional to the size of the team. He always prefer small group as in his opinion the number of innovative thinker in a large group are always smaller therefore the productivity is also low. This process is successful in Google but during his earlier assignments as CEO he was unable to derive same level of success with this model. (Mitchel, 2007) Success of any organization is largely dependent on its overall strategy and pattern of leadership. From that point, Eric’s leadership has played a key role. Myatt (2013) in his review has mentioned that “Google could have made the decision to stay solely focused on search” but due to trend setting leadership of Eric, “they had the foresight to move beyond the certainty of what is to pursue new opportunity by focusing on what if.” (Myatt, 2013) Another key feature of his leadership is he never goes away from the bottom-line of their success and that is being the leader in the search platform “but they have also leveraged their offensive mindset to exert dominance in categories outside of search as well.”(Myatt, 2013) Eric Schmidt’s Leadership & Leadership Traits: Over the years, researchers and scholars are trying to figure out the key features associated with a successful leader. The key question associated with the organization behavior is which leadership style is most effective in terms of making an organization a leader in its vertical. There are two main theories associated with the leadership quality: Trait theory and Behavioural theory. Trait theory is comprised of which is focusing on the qualities of a leader and the behavioural theory for analyze the actions or a leader. Manning in his review has mentioned that trait theory of leadership makes the assumptions that distinctive for physical and psychological characteristics of leadership effectiveness. “(Manning, 2013 p.16) Some of the key traits associated with the leadership are basic intelligence, strong and clear values associated with the organizational functioning and management-employee relations and higher level of personal goal, aim and determination. For being a successful leader following six characteristics are keyfor any individual: Need for achievement; Intelligence; Decisiveness, Self-Confidence, Supervisory Abilities and Initiatives. Any successful leader must have all or most of the above mentioned traits in his or her behavior. (Manning, 2013, p. 16). On the basis of above theory if one analyzes the nature of leadership of Eric, it is very clear that as a leader he is intelligent and at the same time he has enough confidence on his patter of leadership. The decisiveness is also very clear in his leadership as he always believes that employees are the key behind the success of any organization. He always has given enough freedom to the employees to work on innovation, provided reward and recognition for their innovation-Gmail is a result of his this work style. At the same time his decisiveness also proven from his decision of buying Double Click. In his tenure of 8 years as the CEO of Google he is still focusing on the USP of Google which is Ad words. Gmail is one form of innovation but it is nothing new. From the organization behavior perspective, Eric is ambitious and achievement-oriented in his approach and at the same time co-operative, self-confident and persistent in his approach. His creative skills, extensive knowledge in forming small group to achieve innovation and administrative skill are clear example of skills which he has in support of hi various leadership traits. (Bolden et.al, 2003, p.7) Impact of leadership on Employees: The Success Rate of the Leadership Style in Broader Prospect Effective communication is the key behind his success in Google. His style of giving employees freedom to work as they like making Google the best place to work. The key concept behind his popularity in Google is his concept which suggests that “Nobody is a solo actor at Google anymore”.General concept of hiring people in most of the organization across the globe is based on what they have done in the past, but in Google as Eric has mention they used to select their employees based on “how they are likely to deal with the future. Google actually selects people not only just based on their intelligence and qualification “but also for the ability to communicate with each other and work as teams.” (Rosenthal, 2014). Conclusion and Recommendation: Eric Schmidt is considered as one of the role model in the IT industry. His leadership style is unique. He is the one who have changed the way one could motivate and encourage employees to be at their best every time and at the same time enjoy what they are doing. The most common traits of any successful leaders are there in his leadership style. He is an innovative thinker and at the same time discipline and co-operative with his employees. His innovative work style makes Google the best company to work. True leadership qualities and giving employees freedom to work as they want is his core idea of making Google a top organization. The success of Google does not mean that in every organization the process will work. If this is the case then in previous organizations also where Eric used to lead might have enjoyed same success. His pattern of leadership is largely depending on the class of employees that he used to have in Google. It is true that his style is unique and it gives enough opportunity to the employees to work as they want. Job satisfaction and employee satisfaction in Google is at the top priority and they have enjoyed success giving this their main focus. But as the time moves on Google need to develop new product to enjoy the market leader position. Some of the acquisition such as AOL, MySpace, and Yahoo turn out to be not so successful. Moreover they are one dimensional in earning revenue and that is only through Ad Services. To maintain their leadership they need to invent some new product and services more likely they have to enter the social media war as new companies like Facebook, twitter now started to dominate the It world. Entering mobile industry to capture the middle and lower middle class can be another alternate option for them to hold on to their position. References 1. Bolden, R. et.al. (2003). A Review of leadership theory & Competency Framework. Centre for Leadership Studies. 2. Business Week(2004). Online Extra: What Eric Schmidt Found at Google. Retrieved from http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2004-05-02/online-extra-what-eric-schmidt-found-at-google on 20.6.2014 3. Carlson, Nicholas. (2009). Google CEO Eric Schmidt: "We Dont Really Have a Five-Year Plan" (CLIP). Business insider. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-we-dont-really-have-a-five-year-plan-clip-2009-5 on 20.6.2014 4. Canning, G. 2013. The Art of Leadership. Tata McGraw-Hill Education. 5. Gallos Joan. (2008). Business Leadership. John Wiley & Sons 6. Mitchell, Russ. (2007). How to Manage Geeks. Leadership: Fast Company. Retrieved from http://www.fastcompany.com/37145/how-manage-geeks on 20.06.2014 7. Morrow, S Daniel. (2000). Transcript of a Video History Interview with Eric Schmidt. Computerworld Honors Program International Archives. Retrieved from www.cwhonors.org/archives/histories/schmidt.pdf on 20.6.2014 8. Myatt Mike. (2013) Leadership Lesson: The Difference between Google and Apple. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemyatt/2013/05/16/leadership-lesson-the-difference-between-google-and-apple/ on 20.06.2014 9. Rosenthal, Bill. Effective Communication: Endorsed by Googles Eric Schmidt. Communispond retrieved from http://info.communispond.com/blog/bid/337742/Effective-Communication-Endorsed-by-Google-s-Eric-Schmidt on 20.6.2014 10. Rost, C. Joseph. 1993. Leadership for the Twenty-first Century. Greenwood Publishing Group. Print. 11. Wasdani, P. Kishinchand & Manimala, J. Mathew. 2013. Distributed Leadership At Google: Lesson from the Billion-Dollar Brand. IVEY Business Journal. Retrieved from http://iveybusinessjournal.com/topics/leadership/distributed-leadership-at-google-lessons-from-the-billion-dollar-brand#.U6PuTvmSxvk on 20.06.2014 Read More