Lawrence Larry Page: The CEO of Google - Coursework Example

Lawrence Larry Page: The CEO of Google Introduction The 21st century business environment is characterized with intense market competition and complexity. Today leaders seek innovative ways to gain competitive advantages over their market rivals to enjoy market dominance. Today businesses have recognized the significance of innovation in developing the customer base and expanding the market area. The most successful CEOs in the contemporary business world including Jeff Bezos (Amazon.com), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), and Larry Page (Google) are well known for their innovation capabilities. This paper will analyze the leadership style and philosophy of the Google CEO and assess how his personal values are aligned with the organizational values. Background of the CEO Lawrence Larry Page was born in 26th March 1973 in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. He is an American business tycoon and computer scientist, and more popular as the co-founder of Google, alongside Sergey Brin. Page was appointed as the chief executive officer of Google on 4th April 2011. As of October 2014, Page was ranked #19 in the Forbes list of billionaires with an estimated wealth of US$30.4 billion. Page owns nearly 16 percent of the Google’s stock, and he is well known for his innovation of PageRank, the foundation of Google’s search ranking algorithm. Leadership Style and Philosophy While analyzing the leadership style and philosophy of Google’s CEO, it is obvious that Page follows a democratic leadership approach. Researchers like Pride, Hughes, and Kapoor (2013) justify this points saying, “Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are known for their democratic decision-making styles” (p.177). There are many reasons that make Larry Page a democratic leader. Page fosters his audience to come up with crazy ideas because he strongly thinks that those ideas may really change the world. He always collects opinions from employees and pays particular attention to staff suggestions before making a final decision. In other words, Page is specifically committed to enhance employee involvement in decision making. He is well informed of the strengths and weaknesses of his executives, and hence he is able to delegate job tasks effectively to people who best fit different roles. Page has great trust in his workforce, and therefore Google employees are increasingly loyal to the CEO. In addition, the CEO is not hesitant to bear the responsibility over the work of his audience, and he is committed to provide them with necessary help and guidance. The leadership style and philosophy of the Google CEO greatly aligns with the firm’s organizational culture, which was specifically designed to foster both loyalty and creativity. It is essential to note that the company follows the 70/20/10 rule to enhance its organizational culture. According to this rule, as Steiber (2014) notes, Google employees are required to devote 70 percent of their working time to the projects that were actually assigned to them, 20 percent to the development of new project ideas or any idea relating to their core projects, and the remaining 10 percent to the creation of any new idea that they want Google to follow (p.50). CEO’s Personal and Organizational Values For a CEO, it would not be possible to achieve organizational success or to gain competitive strengths over market rivals unless his/her personal values are aligned with organizational values. Looking at the personal values of successful CEOs, it is identified that many of them have the same or related values similar to that of the organization. The personal values of Larry Page are in line with that of Google, and this competitive strength assisted Page to maintain the company’s status as the top leading internet technology organization in the world. The core values of the Google are expressed by its formal corporate motto ‘Don’t Be Evil’. This corporate motto expresses Google’s intention to separate search results from advertising and to deliver convenient and enhanced services to its customers. In spite of what some people believe to be intrusive advertising in Gmail and other Google services Google is committed to keep its word. The major value of Google as an organization is to hire the smartest and most intelligent people in the world and to encourage them to come up with groundbreaking ideas. As mentioned already, all Google programmers are encouraged to use up to 20% of their work time on the development of new ideas relating to their core projects and 10% of the time on the development of any new idea. As Larry Page has the values of a democratic leader, his personal values comply with the organizational values. Influence on Organizational Behavior It is clear that the CEO’s values set stage for developing the organizational culture, which in turn influences the company’s growth, efficiency, and employee behavior. Through the strategic decisions they make, CEOs reflect their values and organizational culture. Certain analyses indicate that “a leader’s values will shape the leader’s behavior and have a direct effect on the subordinate’s commitment, which in turn will impact the organization’s performance” (Mihai, 2012, p.166). If the CEO’s values do not promote an ethical worksite culture, employees are likely to follow his/her views, and such a situation would lead to unethical worksite practices. Therefore, CEOs must be extremely vigilant while bringing their personal values and beliefs into the workplace. Generally, employees are not provided any basic training in workplace ethics, and hence they develop their workplace behavior in line with the values and beliefs of the leader. In other words, employees always have the tendency to follow the moral conduct of their leader. Management professionals opine that the values of the CEO can determine how effective his/her audience would be, and the way the organization operates in terms of ethical standards. In the words of Lawrence and Weber (2010), it is an undisputed fact that the CEO’s behavior can have a powerful influence on employee productivity and what a leader believes will be in direct proportion to what he/she implements (p.101). In short, the CEO’s values are likely to influence the ethical behavior within the organization. Therefore, it is particularly important to ensure that the CEO’s values are in line with the mission and vision of the organization so as to avoid conflict of interests, because conflicts of all sorts are detrimental to long term organizational goals. Strengths and Weaknesses It is essential for the CEO to be well informed of his strengths and weaknesses so as to deal with organizational management and to take sound strategic decisions. According to Nelson and Quick (2014, p.44), the major strength of Page is that he is an introverted leader. Introverts are better at listening to others but not much interested in dominating social situations. Therefore, introverts are more likely than extroverts to listen to and execute others’ innovative ideas. Secondly, Larry Page is a smart person who does a lot of critical thinking. Hence, engineers and programmers tend to listen to him because they sense a feeling of team spirit and belongingness. Finally, Page maintains a reserved personality coupled with intense passion and will, and this particular personality trait has assisted him to make Google the world’s largest internet technology company. When it comes to weaknesses, it seems that Page is a short-tempered person and he often treats his subordinates in an impolite manner. According to one ex-Google employee, Page is an “ego-maniacal asshole” (Carlson, 2011). Although Page is a democratic leader who listens to other’s opinions, he is overconfident in his abilities and sometimes neglects the combined efforts of the workers. As a result, he often fails to gain his subordinates’ trust, and the situation in turn leads to conflict of interests. In addition, Page is weak in public speaking so that he often struggles to convince the Google shareholders about the importance of continuing their relationship with the organization. Why Larry Page is a Successful CEO? I strongly believe that the quality that contributes most to the success of Larry Page is his ability to focus on the vision and mission of organization as well as his ability to communicate the company’s mission to the stakeholders and the workforce. Page devoted a considerable amount of his time to restructuring the operations of a company that was pouring much of its time and efforts into products and services that were not essential to enhancing the company’s mission and vision. Although Google still experiments with a wide variety of projects, Page’s policy to discontinue the less important product and service offerings has benefited the company to focus on operations that matter most to its long term success. Immediately after taking the position as CEO, Page paid particular attention to inspiring the staff and keeping investors and customers loyal to the Google. Page is really informed of the every-day activities of the organization and how all these activities fit together to move the company forward. In addition, he hardly adopts a micromanagement style to enhance organizational productivity. Page is interested to maintain a highly trained management team that is capable of recruiting smartest students from universities and colleges in order to promote Google’s competitive advantages in terms of innovation. Factors Influencing Group Dynamics Communication and collaboration, and power and politics influence group dynamics. Collaboration can be simply defined as the process of making shared decisions in which all parties who have a stake in the problem play an active role in exploring their differences and developing a joint strategy for action. Effective communication with other group members or within the organization is often necessary to facilitate the process of collaboration. Levin states that “the value of clients’ knowledge, responsibility and ability to take a more or less active part in the process of making decisions regarding their own lives, lies at the core of collaborative practices” (Levin 2012). Management practitioners indicate that collaboration can be effectively used as an alternative to conventional change promoting tools such as coalitions, task forces, and commission. It is identified that traditional groups tend to be structure vertically. Decisions are generally made at the top level and group members enjoy their authority from their positions within the hierarchy on the strength of their power, politics, and influence. Managers use the tools of communication and collaboration jointly so as to obtain the most effective results among the groups or within the organization because these tools are capable of fostering enhanced teamwork. Conclusion From the above discussion, it is clear that Google’s CEO Larry Page is well known for his democratic leadership style. Page has the values of an introverted leader and that are in direct line with Google’s organizational values that particularly emphasize fostering loyalty and creativity. The CEO’s values can notably influence the ethical behavior within the organization because employees always tend to follow the views and beliefs of their leader. The most important quality that contributes to the success of Page as a CEO is his ability to focus on the mission and vision of the organization. References Carlson, N. (2011 Jan 24). Googlers Say Larry Page Is A "Rude" "Egomaniacal" "Jerk," Who Is An "Intellectually Honest Visionary". Business Insider. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/googlers-say-larry-page-is-a-rude-egomanical-jerk-who-is-an-intellectually-honest-visionary-2011-1?IR=T Levin, L. (2012). Towards a revised definition of client collaboration: the knowledge–power–politics triad. Journal of Social Work Practice: Psychotherapeutic Approaches in Health, Welfare and the Community, 26 (2), 181-195. Lawrence, A. T & Weber, J. (2010). Business and Society: Stakeholders, Ethics, Public Policy. Tata McGraw-Hill Education. Mihai C. B. (Ed.). (2012). Online Instruments, Data Collection, and Electronic Measurements: Organizational Advancements: Organizational Advancements. US: IGI Global. Nelson, D & Quick, J. (2014). Organizational behavior. Cengage Learning. Pride, W., Hughes, R & Kapoor, J. (2013). Business. Cengage Learning. Steiber, A. (2014). The Google Model: Managing Continuous Innovation in a Rapidly Changing World. US: Springer Science & Business Media. Read More