In What Ways Are Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt Managers - Assignment Example

Running Head: Case Study Case Study Name Institution Professor Course Date Question 1: In what ways are Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt managers? Leadership and management seem to be two distinct, nevertheless complementary systems in organizations (Nelson, Quick, Wright & Adams, 2012).management involves planning, budgeting, controlling, organizing, staffing and problem solving. Good and effective management in the organization directs the complexity in an organization and its surrounding environment. For companies to be successful in the modern business world they need effective leadership as well as management. The friction that exists between the two is that one seems to ne seeking innovation ad change through effective leadership, and at the same time advocating for efficiency and stability through the use of management skills. At times some companies may require greater management than leadership at different stages and the vice versa also seems to be true (Nelson, Quick, Wright & Adams, 2012). Thus, leaders and manager need to know whether an organization calls for leadership or management and apply it accordingly. Based on the case study Brin, Page and Schmidt depicts themselves as managers in one way or another. Schmidt can be termed as been more of a manger when compared to the founders of the company. The two founders were aware that they needed a more management focus and thus the need to hire a manager (Hamel, 2006). Schmidt was recruited in 2001 and he played the supervisory role the two visionaries. Being a former CEO, Schmidt offered the needed management function at Google and his main focus was to management the two vice presidents of the company as well as the sales organization. Schmidt’s also demonstrates his role of being managed by setting the overall agenda of the company, and he is the one who offers direction of workdays issues that the founders seems to have neglected or sidelined and in most instances he reminds Brin and Page to behave. His management skills and prowess are as a result of his substantial experience that he had over the years by working at Sun Microsystems and Novell before joining Google. Page and Brin also demonstrated their management skills in the departments that they were heading. Brin focused and managed the engineering sections as well as the business deals. Page on the other hand headed the engineering and product management. This clear division of role between the CEO and the two-founders ensured that there was no conflict between and that boundaries have been set to ensure the effective running of the organization and they meet daily to deliberate on management issues in the company. Question 2: In what ways are Brin, Page, and Schmidt leaders? Leadership tends to drive the change in an organization and a healthy organization required good management and effective leadership. A leadership process in an organization creates change and uncertainty. Effective leaders control an organizations future and at the same time act as a change enabler by distributing the already existing patterns of behaviors and promote the novel ideas and therefore assist the organizational members in making sense of the changes that are occurring in the organization (Nelson, Quick, Wright & Adams, 2012). The founders of the company, Brin and Page tend to demonstrate their leadership more than the management aspect when they sat and decided and founded Google in 1998. They had the ability to set up the company and believe in themselves and this shows that they had and depicted qualities of being leaders in a business scenario. Though Schmidt was brought in so as to address a number of the management weaknesses that Brin and Page portrayed, it would be unfair to totally assume that Schmidt is just a manager but not a leader in his own right. But it seems that he learned more about leadership from the duo since his role and instincts were more on management at first but after interaction with the duo he gained leadership skills since they believed on what is possible (Parker, 2014). During the economic downturn their company was also affected like all the others companies operating globally. The three demonstrates there leadership when they agreed that they were to work for $1 and at the same times their combined stakes at the company also decreased by $26 Billion (La Monica, 2009). After they reached to conclusion and decided to lay off some of the employees working for Google, the three demonstrated their leadership they were also sharing in the negative financial impacts as well (Jessica & Morrison, 2008). The three also demonstrated leadership when it comes to issues related to the empowering of the employees working at Google and encouraging them to develop and implement innovative ideas. There company policy of recruiting only class-A employee and offering the employees with the free to exercise and put into practice their creativity further shows the leadership of the two founders and the CEO (Kopytoff, 2005). Though they may be able to cost some costs when they recruit class B employees, it would not be beneficial to them as an organization in the long run since the company would be pushed into mediocrity. They also demonstrated their leadership through the 70/20/10 norm that is upheld in tile allocation by all the employees. The three also demonstrated their leadership by ensuring that new strategies and products are not dictated based on the sponsor or founder but based in merit (Manimala & Wasdani 013). Question 3: Nature of followership that Brin, Page, and Schmidt have sought to develop at Google Through the case study it is clearly evident that Brin, Page, and Schmidt have developed followership at Google. The approach that they have applied in regard to followership sets out to create followers that can lead themselves and mostly in the rank of the Googlers. This kind of followership ensures that followers perform tasks that are naturally motivating and at the same time performs other tasks that are not motivating but in the long run they need to be completed (Kopytoff, 2005). The three have been able to achieve this by ensuring that they have a rigid hiring practice that is only aimed at hiring the best, empowering their empowering their employees and at the same time offering them unequaled employment perks as compared to their competitors in the industry. By doing so, they ensure that their employees who have great ideas do not launch or venture into their own entrepreneurial ventures. Page, Brin and Schmidt recognizes that most of the success achieved at Google is mainly as a result of having the talented employees on board. The three only hires Class A talent since they believe that if by any chance they hire one B- level employee they know that they have initiated a slide to mediocrity (Kopytoff, 2005). The empowerment of the employees at Google is another essential element when it comes to developing followership and dynamic and diverse employees at Google (Lussier & Achua, 2014). This is clearly evident from the case study where it is stated that there is a 70/20/10 rule that is applied by the technical employees working at Google and the rule have been of great success and shows a good return on the investment made. A great number of new product launches that are made at Google are mainly as a result of the non-core time. Through the non-core activities employees are able to interact with others in the company and therefore come up with new products for the company and a good example of such an application that was developed during the non-core time is Google. Google also seeks to nurture followership in the company by offering their employees with unmatched perks. Some of the perks that are offered in the company includes but are not limited to free snacks and meals, child care centre for working mothers with young children, an on-site doctor and free laundry facilities (Dudley, 2007). The perks at the same time creates a trusting and lasting relationship between the employer and the employees and they also acts as a way of bringing the employees together since they stay for longer periods on campus. During this time they can interact with the other employees and this seems to be of great benefit to Google. Question 4: leadership orientations of Google triumvirate using the leadership Grid Based on Blake and Mouton’s leadership grid the underlying behaviors of leaders focuses more on two aspects that is the demonstration of consideration for the employees as well as initiating structure in an organization. The underlying behavior of initiating structure tends to emphasize more on the defining and organizing of the work roles and relationship and at the same time it established the patterns of an organization, ways in which things needs to be done and the communication. The underlying behavior of consideration is more targeted to the nurturing of warm and friendly working relationships and at the same calling for mutual respect and trust within the teams that are operating in an organization (Nelson, Quick, Wright & Adams, 2012). When these two behaviors are placed a two dimensional grid, the leadership behavior is therefore categorized as either high of low in each of the behaviors, the end result leads to the assessment of the leadership style depicted by a leader. In instances when a leader seems to be less concerned with the initiating of structure and at the same time scores high in terms of consideration that type of leader is termed as being a country club manager this is based on the fact that the leader shows high concern of the employees and at the same time shows little or no concern for production. On the other hand, there are other leaders who seem to believe that their employees are just a means to make ends meet. To this kind of a leader the needs of the employees are at all times secondary to the need for productive and efficient and effective workplaces. This kind of leadership is termed as authority-compliance management and he is very autocratic and has strict policies, procedures and rules in places and at times can even use punishment as a way of motivating the employees working under him. Based on the case study on Google triumvirate leadership style, there is a clear demonstration of behaviors that tends to be both high in the consideration of the employees and also at initiating structure. This kind of leadership style is termed a the team manager approach and it is termed as being the nest managerial style since leaders in this category tends to stress more on the needs of people and the production needs equally (Nelson & Quick, 2009). The great emphasis that Page, Brin, and Schmidt makes on hiring the best available employees and later empowering them while offering perks seems to be a clear indication of these kind of leadership at Google. Question 5: use the concepts of transactional, transformational, charismatic and authentic leaders to describe the leadership of Brin, Page and Schmidt Transactional, charismatic, transformational and authentic leadership concepts are mainly used to show the different ways that leader tries to influence their employees to perform to their expectations with the aim of achieving the set organizational goals. Transactional leadership focuses more on the supervision, group and organization performance (Nelson & Quick, 2009). Leaders who use this style tend to promote compliance of the employees through the use of punishments and rewards. In transformational leadership the leaders work together with their subordinates to come up with needed change and create a vision that will guide the change and later executing the planned change. The charismatic leaders on the other hand make use of their talents and abilities to have an effect in their followers. Authentic leadership tends to focus more on the development of the leaders legitimacy through the creation of honest relationship with the followers (Nelson, Quick, Wright & Adams, 2012). Based on the description of the leadership styles above, the triumvirate tends to display two leadership styles more that of transformational leadership and slightly authentic leadership. The leadership styles used by Brin, Page, and Schmidt goes beyond the concept of transactional leadership in that it tend to focus on engaging the employees at Google at a personal level and thus they have a sense of individual value. As a matter of fact, none of them (Page, Brin, and Schmidt) portrays any traits of being charismatic leaders. Though the three shows a great support of their employees it is not due to their individual charisma but as a result of the confidence that their employees have on the business decision, strategies and vision outlined by the leaders (Guynn, 2008). In describing the transformational leaders also tend to display individualized considerations, charisma and intellectual stimulation. This is clearly depicted by the 70/20/10 rule on time management and their emphasis of hiring only the best employees, through this they ensures that the employees remains and are always stimulated intellectually. The three also depict authentic leadership through the motto of the company “Don’t be evil” this shows the value system of the founders of Google and also the strong value of the CEO. Though there motto the company can be viewed as one that is environmentally friendly and this in a way shows that the three leaders at Google tend to have a altruistic sense when it comes to the concept of leadership and thus they are can be also be seen as being authentic leaders (Nelson, Quick, Wright & Adams, 2012). References Dudley, B. (2007, June 11). The lure of great Google perks. The Seattle Times. Retrieved from http://www.seattletimes.com/business/the-lure-of-great-google-perks/ Guynn, J. (2008, September 7). Marissa Mayer talks about Google at 10 -- and 20. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2008/09/marissa-mayer-t.html Hamel, G. (2006, April 26). Management a la Google. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB114601763677436091 Jessica, E & Morrison, S (2008, December 3). Google gears down for tougher times. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122826503489174369 Kopytoff, V. (2005, December 18). How Google woos the best and brightest. The San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved from: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/How-Google-woos-the-best-and-brightest-2587916.php La Monica, P. R. (2009, March 25). Google’s top bosses keep their dollar salaries. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/biztech/googles-top-bosses-keep-their-dollar-salaries/2009/03/25/1237656979514.html Lussier, R., & Achua, C. (2014). Leadership: Theory, Application and Skill Development. Ohio: Cengage Learning. Manimala, M & Wasdani, K. (June 2013). Distributed Leadership at Google: Lessons from the billion-dollar brand. Ivey Business Journal. Retrieved from http://iveybusinessjournal.com/publication/distributed-leadership-at-google-lessons-from-the-billion-dollar-brand/ Nelson, D.L. & Quick, J.C. (2009). Organizational science, the real world, and you. Ohio: South-Western Cengage Learning. Nelson, D.L., Quick, J.C., Wright, S. & Adams, C. (2012). ORGB (Asia Pacific Ed.). South Melbourne, Vic: Cengage Learning Australia Parker, L Oct 3, 2014, Google’s adult supervision, Eric Schmidt, got schooled by the founders on leadership. Silicon Valley Business Journal. 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