The Role of the Primary Leader in Google

Information technology is the leading asset in the current century. Subsequently, there are many companies that have been founded in the recent past on this premise. Essentially, their objectives is to use information to generate revenue. However, this is not the case with Google. Although information technology is the company’s leading revenue earner, Google has had more robust and well-defined objectives in relation to its working methodologies. Working as an intern at Google has given me a chance to interact with the complex systems at work in Google. I have learnt how Google weaves its objectives with the welfare of its employees.

Objectives

Larry Page, the co-founder of Google, realized that the world had a wealth of information, which could be useful to the citizens. However, the accessibility of such information met many barriers due to its scattered nature. Therefore, the co-founders of Google created their first algorithm that aimed at arranging the world’s knowledge so that it could be useful to those who were in dire need of it. Platforms such as Google Scholar encourage the retrieval or relevant data, which can be used in research initiatives (Haddaway et al., 2015). The development of the Google search engine encouraged the submission and retrieval of relevant data, which could be used to streamline human activities. Consequently, Google was formed. Over the years, Google has continued to work around the need to disseminate information in a timely and efficient manner. In its wake, the company has realized that providing useful information to individuals and businesses is of immense help to the targeted group. So as to make this objective a reality, Google has continued to venture into more areas outsides its search engine. The development of the Android operating system, Google+, and Gmail enable the seamless connection of information across the Internet. The initiative aids in the quick retrieval of such information.

Current Practices of the Primary Leader

Presently, the Google Company is headed by Sundar Pichai (McMillan & Winkler, 2015). Since his assent to the executive position of the Google Corporation, Pichai has pursued many transformative initiatives that aim at giving the company a trajectory to more productivity and success. In so doing, the company’s CEO has shown various leadership practices which have proved him to be an efficient leader.

The current C.E.O at Google has undertaken an initiative to personally recruit key members into the company. He oversees the interviewing of individuals who desire to take over major duties at the institution. The C.E.O believes that this method greatly helps the company in ensuring that those picked for the job are aligned to the already defined objectives of the company. Promoting professional alignment augments efficiency in the place of work. In this sense, the individual picked is definitely the most qualified for that position, fostering productivity of the company’s employees.

The C.E.O also believes in the need to create a better environment for the employees in terms of the appreciation of their work. The reason is that Pichai believes that the focus of the company should be on the delivery of optimal services to the consumers. He seeks to promote the productivity of the individuals who make up the company. Subsequently, the C.E.O ensures that the employees are given credit for their work. This, in turn, motivates the personnel to be more productive in their work since they have the belief that the company appreciates their individual effort (Shoraj & Llaci, 2015). This methodology also helps in building the sense of belonging in the company since the appreciation of each of the individual’s work creates a sense of being wanted in the individual, resulting to inspiration and agreeable quality of output.

The company’s C.E.O has also incorporated a boringness strategy in execution of his duties. In essence, this strategy ensures the individual employs expected behaviors. When the C.E.O is predictable, it becomes easier for the employees at the company to approach him, which also eases communication between the administration and the workforce. Predictability also fosters understanding on the part of the administration. In this sense, the C.E.O is able to be flexible when dealing with workforce results. This makes it possible for the administration to maneuver through undesirable results as well as helping the workforce to correct and produce the expected results.

Pichai has also shown that he is in tune with the happenings in the company. He involves himself in major issues such as gender balance and comfort of the workers, aiming at eradicating toxic discussions that may produce undesirable emotions in the workers. In addition, the leader shows that he is aware of each project in the institution. By being aware of the happenings of every department, the leader demonstrates that he is in control of the institution and that he has the capacity to guide its employees.

Effects of the Current Practices of the Primary Leader

The current practices of Google’s leader have ensured that the company provides a conducive environment for its employees to succeed. This has been achieved through the incorporation of tools and facilities in the place of work that aim at improving the lives of the employees. To exemplify, the working place has been suited with washing machines, pet areas, massage parlors as well as recreational facilities. This ensures that the individual is able to focus at his/her place of work since he/she does not need to worry about getting these kind of services elsewhere.

The leader has also shown a desire to ensure that all groups of individuals feel comfortable at the work place. This has been achieved by ensuring that the rights of each individual are looked into. Therefore, employees are able to work in harmony since they do not have to worry about their race or ethnic backgrounds, hence fostering great productivity from the workers.

By taking over the hiring process, the C.E.O has transformed the institution into a hub of intelligent and self-driven individuals. This has greatly helped in fostering the productivity of the institution since each employee is highly knowledgeable his/her duties. Since the company’s aim is to achieve artificial intelligence in the future, the hiring of qualified individuals makes this dream likely achievable.

The leader has also made the key goals of the organization clear. He has communicated the importance of working towards the achievement of artificial intelligence, which he believes will be one of the most important human inventions. This gives workers a clear mind on what they are working to accomplish, making it easy for them to plan their schedules and focus on the defined goal.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths of the Organization

Google has been a leading player in the world’s advertising sector. The company controls more than a quarter of the world’s advertising (Alba, 2017). It runs its advertising business through its subsidiaries such as You Tube, Google maps as well as its search engine. In the year 2017, Google has been able to rake up at least 77 Billion in advertising (“Advertising Revenue of Google Websites from 2001-2017”). This shows how the company is a major player in connecting various businesses with their potential customers. Globalization is a major player in this success, owing to the variations of Google search engine that have continued to exist across continents such as in Germany and Asia (George, 2014). Globalization has ensured that Google has continued to produce services, which are accessible across continents, reaching billions of people every day.

The company is also leading in the mobile operating system platform through its Android. According to recent statistics, the android OS has dominated the Smartphone OS by having 352 million phones use the operating system, which translates, to 81.7% of the world’s market (Vincent, 2017). Artificial Intelligence is the major player in the development of products by Google. Thus, technology has highly contributed to the success of the company in terms of the sales of mobile devices that use its products. This exhibits the company’s great strength in powering mobile devices which are the primary source of obtaining information.

Google has also continued to dominate web browsers through its Chrome browser (Warren, 2018). This has made the Chrome browser to become an almost default browser for both PCs and mobile phones across all the operating systems (Warren, 2018). This further exhibits the power of Google in the provision of web and information services in the world.

Weaknesses of the Organization

Although Google has been many powerful on many fronts, it is still vulnerable in various areas of service provision. Presently, Google’s social networking tools are performing poorly in the market, thus being edged out by Facebook. This is largely due to its unattractive nature. Similarly, the Chrome OS operating system has been a poor performer in the market, only being used by 7.7% of total OS users. Its largest competitor, Microsoft, dominates the field with a 65.5% (Catalano, 2017). This has exposed the weaknesses of the company in PC operating systems.

Opportunities of the Organization

Self-Driving Cars. Google has continued to delve in many areas of production and provision of services in the recent past with the aim of diversifying its revenue collection. This has seen the company get into the production of driverless cars. Although this has not yet been met, the company has continued to show great promise in the field, especially through its development of artificial intelligence. In 2017, driverless cars in the United States were able to put up a driving record of 636,000 miles as opposed to 424,000 in 2015. This shows the marked improvement of self-driving cars over the years. In addition, during these drives, only 124 cases of driver intervention have been recorded as opposed to 341 in 2015, again showing the great improvement of self-driving software (“Google’s Driverless Cars Make Progress”). With the improvement of self-driving cars, Google stands to exploit this opportunity to further improve its revenue pool.

Artificial Intelligence. Google has continued to be on the leading front when it comes to artificial intelligence. Over the years, Google has continued to develop the artificial intelligence technology. In doing so, the company has been able to produce computer processors that have staggering execution speeds as well as being able to carry out machine learning (Knight, 2017). The company has continued to develop an algorithm, which is able to recognize foods in image.

The company has recently released an announcement of its upcoming project. The project is that of a virtual assistant that is able to make human-like calls to restaurants and salons for reservations (Vomiero, 2018). This technology has cemented Google’s leadership in artificial intelligence. The full development of this program would be essential for the company in improving the user experience of the clients. Thus, this technology is likely to open a new window of opportunity for the technology giant.

Threats of the Organization

Product Search. Google has begun to face immense competition on product search. This is a very significant competition since Google’s revenue is largely depended on ads that are run on searches. One of the leading competitors of Google is Amazon, an online retailer of products. (Enge, 2016) reports that Amazon product searches have continued to grow. In 2016, searches on Amazon grew by 73% while Google did not record any improvements. Amazon thus continues to threaten Google’s prosperity on product search.

Ad Blocking and Website Traffic. Apple Company announced the release of its iOS9. One of the major improvements of the operating system is its ability to block ads. This is a major blow to Google, which has over the years depended on the iOS platform for its ads business (Enge, 2016). The blocking of ads would therefore mean that Google would lose a considerable amount of its revenue base. Another threat to Google is Facebook, a social networking platform. Facebook platform boasts of 1 Billion users of its WhatsApp subsidiary as well 1.2 billion users on its Facebook Messenger subsidiary (Alba, 2017). These two have greatly helped the Facebook Company to generate traffic to websites. This has seen it overtake Google in regards to website traffic, standing at 38.2 % against Google’s 35.2% although Google is still ahead in total advertising revenue. (Enge, 2016). Facebook has continued to convince advertisement marketers that its platform is better than Google’s, and the marketers have continued to be convinced due to these occurring trends. The failure of Google social networks also proves that Google is almost losing the internet advertising war to its main competitors. If this trend continues, then Google stands to suffer the loss of its main source of revenue, which would be a big blow to the company’s ambition.

Evaluation of the Current Leader Leadership Style using a Leadership Theory

The transformational leadership style has been praised for its substantial influences on employee motivation and performance in organizations in which it has been applied (Kark, et al, 2003). The transformational leadership style was propounded by Burns in order to best explain leadership practices of leaders and their results on those who were lead (Banks, et al, 2016). In proposing the theory, Burns articulated the fact that leaders elicited different feelings in employees according to their behavior. In order to show this, Burns showed how different transformational theory was different from transactional theory. The transactional theory espoused the transactional leadership style which motivated employees through giving of rewards when good work was done and by withdrawing the rewards when undesirable work was performed. However, transformational leadership theory is quite different. The theory has four basic tenets. These are, idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual simulation and individual consideration (Banks, et al, 2016). Idealized influence occurs when the leader exhibits a given behavior that motivates and encourages his followers. When the leader puts forth a vision that inspires his employees, this form is known as inspirational motivation. On the other hand intellectual simulation occurs when the leader challenges existing assumptions to challenge his employees to take risks while individual consideration occurs when the leader seeks to meet the individual needs of his followers (Banks, et al, 2016).

Strengths of the Current Primary Leader

Google’s C.E.O has over his leadership years adopted a transformational leadership style. In carrying out his duty, the leader has tended to focus on the individual employees so that in doing so, their personal success can be achieved. Over the time, the leader has challenged his employees to succeed, while creating the environment for them to do so. By focusing on the employees’ success, the leader fosters self-actualization of those employees (Miner, 2005). This enables them to transcend their self-interest, while increasing their awareness, so that they can shift their goals from personal safety to goals that ensure that they become the best that they can ever be (Miner, 2005).

The leader has also showed a great strength in leadership by setting up goals which his team can achieve. The C.E.O has continued to speak about the company’s need to achieve artificial intelligence. The creation of such an explicit goal enables the employees to know what they are working towards, and this gives them an opportunity to find ways of achieving such a goal. Thus, the leader succeeds in promoting thoughtful solutions and creative solutions in the employees (Miner, 2005).

Individual consideration is a tenet of the transformational theory that is championed when a leader seeks to meet individual needs of his her/followers (Banks, et al, 2016). Google’s leader has achieved this feat by ensuring that the working environment in the institution he heads provides facilities and tools that take care of the individual needs. Google working quarters have facilities such as pet parks, massage parlors, laundry rooms as well as entertainment rooms. These ensure that the employees’ need are fully met.

Weaknesses of the Current Primary Leader

As much as Google’s leader has desirable leadership qualities, he also has several weaknesses. The leader has failed to fully provoke idealized influence by seeming to support liberalism while shunning conservativeness in the organization. Due to this, animosity may occur between the two parties, with the rightists blaming the leftists and vice versa. This is undesirable in an organization since it taints the reputation of the leader as a biased individual, leading to splinter groups within the organization.

Intellectual stimulation dictates that a leader should thwart existing assumptions in an organization so as to encourage employees to take risks. However, in this organization, this is not always the case. The viability of a software or its improvement highly depends on metric measurements. Therefore, improvements on software, which cannot be measured, are largely ignored. This can be highly demoralizing to the employees who have worked on those products because they would believe that they have not added value through their work. Hence, their ability to take risks becomes very limited. The leader’s failure to address this issue has thus exposed his weakness in challenging the status quo.

The organization’s leadership has also failed to provide an avenue for open and honest discussions about products and nature of work in the facility. This encourages the shunning of objective discussions. The lack of objective discussions translate to the lack of intellectual simulation among employees, which consequently result to poor performance of employees and production of poor quality services.

Recommendations for the Current Primary Leader

There is always the stipulated way of doing things in a given organization. Therefore, employees should strive to follow the recommended way of doing things. However, from time to time, an employee may choose a different path. When this happens, a transformational leader should not fight the change. On the contrary, the transformational leader should look for new opportunities in that occurring change.

One of the main characteristic of transformational leaders is the act of being predictable and reliable. As much as this approach gives employees confidence in dealing with the leader, a predictable approach may get out of date. Therefore, it is of immense advantage for transformational leaders to pick up new ideas and behaviors so as to help them mold a better and improved working environment.

Although it is the work of any leader to judge the output or the work process of the employee, judgment tends to be toxic and may discourage the creativeness of the employees. It is therefore more advantageous for the transformational leader to adopt curiosity rather than judgment. This fosters understanding of the work process and the consequent creativity of the employee.

Conclusion

Leaders of Organizations should strive to choose an effective leadership style that brings out the best in employees. Essentially, the leadership style should foster employee freedom to do what he/she believes will produce the best result. Also, the leader of any organization should ensure that he/she is in touch with employees so as to ensure that the organization’s objectives are met. When this happens, the employees tend to identify with the leader, fostering motivation and inspiration on the part of the employees and thus improving results.

References

Advertising Revenue of Google Websites from 2001-2017. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/266242/advertising-revenue-of-google-sites/

Alba, D. (2017). Google and Facebook Still Reign over Digital Advertising. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/story/google-facebook-online-ad-kings/

Banks, G, C., McCauley, K, D., Gardner, W, L., Guler, C, E. (2016). A meta-analytic review of authentic and transformational leadership: a test for redundancy. The Leadership Quarterly, (27), 634-652.

Catalano, F. (2017). Google Chrome OS maintains dominance in US Schools, but Microsoft gains ground globally. Retrieved from https://www.geekwire.com/2017/google-chrome-os-maintains-dominance-us-schools-microsoft-windows-gains-ground-globally/

Enge, E. (2016). Competitive threats to Google and what they mean for you. Retrieved from https://searchengineland.com/competitive-threats-google-means-249772

Kark, R., Shamir, B., Chen, G. (2003). The two faces of transformational leadership: empowerment and dependency. Journal of Applied Psychology. 88(2), 246-255

Knight, W. (2017). Google reveals a powerful AI chip and supercomputer. Retrieved from https://www.technologyreview.com/s/607879/google-reveals-a-powerful-new-ai-chip-and-supercomputer/

George, M. (2013). Google and the process of globalization. Retrieved from http://www.academia.edu/15335010/Google_and_the_process_of_globalization

Google’s Driverless Cars Make Progress. Retrieved on May 13, 2018 from http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38839071

Vincent, J. (2013). 99.6 percent of new smartphones run Android or iOS. Retrieved from https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/16/14634656/android-ios-market-share-blackberry-2016

Miner, J, B. (2005). Organizational behavior 1: Essential theories of motivation and leadership. New York: M.E Sharpe

Warren, T. (2018). Chrome is turning into the New Internet Explorer 6. Retrieved from https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/4/16805216/google-chrome-only-sites-internet-explorer-6-web-standards

Vomiero, J. (2018). Google AI Assistant must identify itself as a robot during phone calls: Report. Retrieved from https://globalnews.ca/news/4204648/googles-ai-identify-itself-robot-phone-calls/