Triumvirate Leadership at Google - Case Study Example

TRIUMVIRATE LEADERSHIP AT GOOGLE By Name Course Instructor Institution City/State Date Triumvirate Leadership at Google Ways that Triumvirate are Managers Management and leadership are two different concepts; management can be described as a set of processes that ensures continuous functioning of the organization (Erçetin, 2012, p.43). The processes include; budgeting, planning, staffing, job clarification, performance measurement as well as problem-solving. On the other hand, Leadership is concerned with aligning the followers to the vision through inspiration and motivation. Eric Schmidt was hired by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 2001 to offer ‘adult supervision’ considering that he had a long experience at numerous companies such as Sun Microsystems. Schmidt according to Manimala et al. (2013) spoke the tech language and offered the need business experience that Page and Brin were lacking. This was a brilliant bi-generational management paradigm that worked during the important period of evolution and scaling for the newly founded Google. Certainly, bi-generational management according to Nussbaum (2011) is a custom for high tech startups, especially the most successful ones. Basically, the management tactics utilized by the triumvirate (Schmidt, Page and Brin) to run Google is very simple; employees are offered a lot of freedom and communication is used as a tool for ensuring everyone moves in the same direction. The triumvirate has a strong belief in the power of search as well as the significance of the Internet; therefore, such points are communicated during the informal meetings with small teams that comprise mainly of engineering professionals as well as during the ‘TGIF’ meetings that takes place every Friday afternoon. The triumvirate decision making reflects Google’s culture, and the company is managed through consensus. Decisions at Google are not only made by the triumvirate, but also by a number of small teams that tackle different problems. The triumvirate has facilitated teamwork by allowing workers to work in open office settings and also offer support and encouragement to the employees. Employees are offered with freedom to do their assignments as they desire and work on their own terms. Rather than setting goals for the employees, the triumvirate assists their employees to meet the objectives set by the employees themselves. The company sees its managers as leaders who expedite inspiration as well as empower employees. The triumvirate structure at Google makes the reversing of errors faster. A manager could be unwilling to correct his decision when the decision is deemed incorrect, because of self-confidence or excessive pride. However, the triumvirate cannot experience this challenge because the triumvirate shares duties. Therefore, when decisions are made by the triumvirate, it is very hard to pin down the individual who made that incorrect decision, and the probability of a person taking the responsibility is reduced significantly. Multiple perspectives, viewpoints and expertise are supplied by the triumvirate structure and this can help in reassuring customers that there is a person in the company who shares and understands their concerns. In Google case, Schmidt defends the shareholders’ economic interests while have confidence in Page and Brin in resisting market pressures as well as in focusing the company’s direction on production of quality product. Ways that Triumvirate are Leaders The triumvirate leadership enables workers to change their jobs parameters when need arises and also encourages the workers to be their own leaders. The triumvirate want employees at Google to ‘think out loud,’ and discuss openly regarding their achievement plans and goals. Corporate transparency is promoted by the triumvirate given that employees can contribute and witness to the function of leadership. In consequence, nearly all employees can access any managerial meeting. The triumvirate leadership practices involve a number of precepts: knowing the employees, creating ways of promoting and rewarding high performing workers, allowing workers to function beyond the company’s hierarchy, giving employees’ freedom, and being impartial and objective to the employees. For instance, Schmidt always made a list of the employees who he considered were top performers and personally interacted with them with the intention of encouraging them to put their innovative ideas into practice and to protect the ideas from undesirable interferences. The triumvirate have set up a few systems such as stock option plans and incentives, for rewarding top performers. So as to make the workers the owners of their work, the triumvirate ensured the company goal is broadly defined and the implementation is left completely to the workers. Given that corporate hierarchies could offer some obstacles to the employees’ work, the existing system was reinforced by Schmidt so as to all workers to have some level of freedom in creating their own projects as well as selecting their own teams. Schmidt, Page and Brin are effective leaders as evidenced by the way they communicate, guide, motivate, and lead their employees. The triumvirate act not just as leaders, but also as family members and friends to the workers; they have created homely environment for Googlers. They do not have to offer lots of financial benefits so as to make the employees motivated, rather they have focused on making the employees feel empowered, self-satisfied, happy and self-accomplished. The triumvirate do not coerce employees to work more than their ability; instead they have offered them more freedom. The employees are given free time to use their creativity to innovate. Therefore, the triumvirate * Schmidt, Page and Brin) are effective leaders since they have built good relations between them and the workers. Besides that, the triumvirate have developed and modelled themselves into remarkable leaders, and depend on team and employee correlation to make decisions. Another way that triumvirate are leaders is their understanding of the significance of a team concept and their ability to promote self-esteem amongst employees, generate hope and raise optimism. Nature of Followership That Triumvirate Sought To Develop At Google The types as well as characteristics of followers are integral to leadership success in a certain environment since the leadership rely on the nature of the followers as well as their expectations (Jowah, 2013, p.708). In view of this, Ghosh (2000, p.172) argues that the nature of leadership is predetermined by the followers. In view of this, the triumvirate have created a culture that emphasises on followership and empowerment. The triumvirate to followership sought to generate self-led followers in the different ranks of Google. These self-led followers carry out tasks that are both motivating and non-motivating. Basically, this has been realised through an integration of rigid recruiting practices that have been geared towards recruiting talented and innovative individuals, offering matchless employment benefits and empowering the workers. Brin, Page, and Schmidt understand that the success of Google depends on the innovation developed by its talented employees; therefore, the triumvirate are devoted to only hire the best. Prior to the economic depression, Google was receiving more than 150,000 resumes monthly from potential Googlers. For technical positions, interviews are first conducted through telephone then face-to-face meetings for successful applicants. The applicants are made to experience a rigorous interview process that seeks to exhibit their creative and innovative ability. Those hired join small teams that comprise of highly innovative and intellectual employees where they are nurtured to give their full potential. Therefore, the triumvirate has sought to develop followership at Google through hiring of talented employees. The triumvirate uses employee empowerment to develop followership at Google as evidenced by the 70/20/10 rule that has resulted in good return on investment. According to the rule, 70 per cent is dedicated to search and advertising, which are Google’s core businesses, 20 per cent is focussed on off-budget projects associated with the core businesses, and the 10 per cent is dedicate for pursuing far-out ideas. In view of this, almost 50 per cent of Google’s new products have been launched because of non-core time. Besides that, Google’s culture stresses on bottom-up decision-making, fast product development, creativity, and allows employees to solve problems themselves. Followership at Google is also promoted through the company’s unmatched and unique employees’ perks. Google provides perks to its employees, which includes free snacks and meals, accessibility to free laundry facilities, on-site doctor and child care centre. These perks have been designed by the triumvirate for convenience and to improve employer-employee relationship. For instance, offering the employees food creates convenience and promotes a culture that is more cohesive since employees can socialise with the triumvirate or other employees during meal time. Leadership Orientations of Google Triumvirate The Blake and Mouton’s Leadership Grid underlying behaviors are the focus of leaders to give the employees attestation. Basically, the Leadership Grid is rooted in two behavioural dimensions: concern for people as well as concern for results. The Leadership Grid plots the level of task-centeredness as compared to person-centeredness and five distinct leadership styles combinations have been identified; impoverished management, country club management, authority-compliance management, middle-of-the-road management, and team leadership. The initiating structure stresses on organizing and defining work roles as well as relationships together with determination of patterns of communication, organization and how to get things done. Consideration is directed at developing working relationships that is warm and friendly while promoting mutual respect and trust in the team. Such behaviors are placed in two dimensional grid, whereby each leader’s behaviour is grouped from low to high with the result exhibiting the overall leadership style assessment. When the leader’s initiating structure concern is low, for instance, but high for consideration, then the style of leadership is the ‘country club manager’ because the leader is strongly concerned about people while concern for production is very little. Focusing on the triumvirate leadership style at Google, it is without doubt that they exhibit behaviors, which are high for consideration and initiating structure. In the Leadership Grid, this has been described as ‘team manager’ approach, and seeks to motivate workers to high productivity levels and ensuring they are responsive as well as flexible at the time of change. This can be evidenced by the emphasis placed by Google on recruiting talented workers as well as empowering then, while sustaining the great perks given to its workers. The triumvirate is team leadership because they emphasize on both the needs of employees and production. Triumvirate Style of Leadership Basically, there are different styles of leadership: transactional; transformational; charismatic; and authentic leadership. In this case, transactional leadership is somewhat impersonal and concentrates on punishments and rewards in attempt to coerce subordinates to perform. On the other hand, transformational; charismatic; and authentic leadership are perceived as inspirational theories whereby subordinates are motivated to perform productively. In this case, followers of transformational leaders are motivated to high performance levels while the charismatic leaders utilise force of talents and personal abilities to influence the followers. Authentic leaders are positive individuals with honest self-concepts who encourage openness. In view of the above leadership styles, the triumvirate without doubt exhibit transformational leadership and possibly authentic leadership. The triumvirate clearly support their employees mainly because of the confidence the employees have in their business decisions and the company’s strategy and vision. The triumvirate can be considered transformational leaders because of their idealized influence at Google, individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation as well as inspirational motivation. In this case, idealized influence is evidenced by the triumvirate when they act as role model making followers desire to follow their vision. In so doing, the triumvirate has got the idea of the ongoing projects as well as be able to evaluate their significance. Considering that the present business environment is changing thanks to technology, some projects become more complex instead of being simple. In this case, the triumvirate examines the projects and then prioritizes them to ensure employees concentrate on the main goals. Through the authentic leadership, the triumvirate always communicates high expectations to the employees with the objective of eliminating self-centeredness. The triumvirate has set high expectations at Google by keeping pace with the competitors. The triumvirate has created a large goal with the goal of helping the company to become complete and realize more than achievements. Being the authentic leaders, Schmidt, Page and Brin are always the first ones to embrace their espoused change; thus, setting example for other employees to follow. References Erçetin, Ş.Ş., 2012. Discussions about Leadership: In Different Fields. Bloomington, Indiana : iUniverse. Ghosh, B., 2000. Human Resources Development and Management. Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd. Jowah, L.E., 2013. Followership: The Forgotten Kingmaker for Effective Leadership. Journal of US-China Public Administration, vol. 10, no. 9, pp.708-19. Manimala, M.J., Wasdani, K.P. & Wasdani, K.P., 2013. Distributed leadership at Google: Lessons from the billion-dollar brand. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "http://iveybusinessjournal.com/publication/distributed-leadership-at-google-lessons-from-the-billion-dollar-brand/" http://iveybusinessjournal.com/publication/distributed-leadership-at-google-lessons-from-the-billion-dollar-brand/ [Accessed 2 February 2016]. Nussbaum, B., 2011. Google's Greatest Innovation May Be Its Management Practice. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "http://www.fastcompany.com/1720052/googles-greatest-innovation-may-be-its-management-practice" http://www.fastcompany.com/1720052/googles-greatest-innovation-may-be-its-management-practice [Accessed 4 February 2016]. Read More