Leadership Style: How Are Leaders Leading In The 21st Century?
Currently, Larry Page is the chief executive to Google. He is likewise a Co-founder of the company. His responsibility entails leading technology strategy and company`s product development as well as running the day to day operations of Google. While at Stanford University pursuing a Ph.D. Larry Page co-founded the company with Sergey Brin. He holds an engineering bachelor`s degree from the University of Michigan and from Stanford University, and he has a computer science master`s Degree (Schmidt, 2014).
Larry Page has a unique leadership style and philosophy that he uses to run Google. One was paying attention to all your ideas and eventually cultivating the best out of them. He urges the employees to believe in any audacious ideas. In tackling, the big ideas one can achieve something worthwhile and attract smart people who are incredible in what they do. He believes in avoiding bureaucracy and building a team that works together. Page has always insisted on his involvement in hiring at Google. Some of the leaders at major product divisions were the first employees that were hired by Google and they are comfortable there. That was attributed to their value is recognized and there is no bureaucracy in all levels of management. Page believes on being concise and quick.
That cultivated a more nimble and faster management approach at Google. He encourages openness, faster decisions, and an immediacy-minded attitude. Page also recognizes any significance in small moves. The staff at Google often tinker with their products, adding features that are new and improving Gmail`s usability, android, and its search engine. They improvise and improve all the time. Google focuses on connections with its future staff, students, and user base. The small steps are believed to attract enormous rewards and improve the company's reputation. Last but not least is perseverance. Most of Google`s products took years to develop, but he never gave up. Once you believe in the idea, and you have the facts to make it work failure is not an option.
Page had various personal values that help him achieve his goals. First is that of setting high goals, but those that are obtainable. Goals help in giving focus to an individual and aligning one`s objective to those of the organization. If the goals are high one tends to achieve more since the standards set are high but not goals that cannot be achieved. Networking is another personal value in his work. It was a tactic that sustains and accelerates success for individuals or organizations. The importance of networking is that one learns the dynamics that are present in the industry involved. It helps in establishing business contacts and accelerates professional development for individuals. Networking develops knowledge resources and seeks new market opportunities (Schmidt, 2014).
Additional assessment is that of trying to find ways to become better always. By so doing, many ideas come up of improvement and new products. That helped in the continuous growth in individuals or the organization at large. Education is another value that Page has. Education gives individuals critical tools and skills that can be used in the day to day activities and reduce ignorance. It assists people to work better, create opportunities for viable economic growth and sustainability important now and for future purposes. Education also encourages stability, good governance, transparency thus fighting corruption and graft. Professional development is usually an ongoing process in working lives (Lussier & Achua, 2010). It was a means by which people are supported in the workplace so as to understand their working environment what kind of work they do and how better to do. Page similarly focuses on making most out of what you have in life.
Values are perspectives on the appropriate course of action. A person will strive to be what he values. Values create the need for appropriate action. The values of Page have various influences within the organization. The CEO is a leader in any organization. Leaders and their values influence the ethical behavior of other employees since they all look up to them. Leaders act as role models for the organization at large. Page having good ethics and values will influence ethics since his behavior will trickle into the employees. In organizations where employee motivation is present, and they are happy, they will always try to impress their leaders so they will imitate their behaviors (Baumeister & Bushman, 2014).
Ethical leadership is all about the obligation to avoid behaviors that are negative and morality of duty and praiseworthy or positive behaviors and morality of aspiration. By being one of the founders of Google, he will influence people to behave in a given way so as to achieve organizational goals. With time, this becomes the culture at the organization and every new employee will have to adopt the culture once employed (Lussier & Achua, 2010).
Every leader has his or her strengths or weaknesses. The three main strengths of Page are as follows. Page values innovation. Innovation helps to expand one`s market thus competing globally. Innovation gives rise to product diversification and differentiation. Profit margins increase since there are more products on offer, and this will end up in increasing customer satisfaction and finalization (Schmidt, 2014). Through innovation, an organization uses new opportunities and in turn keeps and increases the market quota and the market strategic position is increased. There is increased competitive advantage, personalized services and the use of the economies of scale. Innovation is simply an advantage to an individual and to any organization.
The other value is risk taking. From that, unforeseen opportunities come from risk-taking. Without risk taking, we cannot seize the opportunities that are not in our comfort zone. Individuals, alike Page, who take risks stand out from the rest and show confidence to others thus having a positive effect to the rest. From taking risks, we can either fail or succeed. Either way, there are many lessons learned from the outcome of risk taking (Schmidt, 2014). These may lead people to new paths and getting answers and solutions to issues affecting them thus fostering internal growth. Success is always something that one has to pursue.
It does not just come and fall on your lap. You might not know what exactly you have to do to get results, but risk taking is an experimental process that will bring success if done properly. Risk taking may not only benefit a career path but may actually expose you to the world of many possibilities not yet considered so on cannot achieve goals by playing it safe. Page is also result driven. He works towards getting results and nothing else. That was a important value since the core function in any organization or for an individual is to attain their goals, and this will happen only if one gets results (Schmidt, 2014).
There are various weaknesses that the CEO of Google has. First is that he gives employees too much freedom. That was good for innovation but when employees have a lot of freedom they may end up diverting their efforts from the core goals and directions of the organization. They will have a lot of responsibilities that if they go wrong the leader is the one who is answerable, but not them. It may also create negative competition within the workplace in those employees will work to innovate or create products so as to be better than the others and not to compliment what others do. Taking of large risks may also be a problem in that it may lead to losses if the risks do not payoff (Baumeister & Bushman, 2014).
That was as a result other effects that may occur due to the loss. Page is also an introvert. He does not tell much or explain himself much. He has to communicate more since he is the CEO of the company. The quality that Larry page uses and is most important is risk taking. He pushes his employees into taking risks. That was made the company achieve various goals and to come up with new products like Google Maps and Gmail. There is nothing in business that can be very sure of success so people must be willing to take risks so as to be successful.
Power and politics influence group dynamics in any organization. The potential ability of an individual or a group to have influence on another group or person id what is known as power. It has not to be informal groups or formal or individuals, and all may poses power. One does not need institutional backing or official position to have power (Schmidt, 2014). An individual is held to be influenced by another if his or her behaviors, perspectives and opinions change due to the interaction with other people thus power and politics will be in play. Power is one of the main factors that take play in all levels of organizations and much decision making. Politics and power influence group dynamics in that a group will feel like they have an obligation to live up to given standards even if it’s out of fear or respect. The group will be compelled to follow procedures and politics that the people in charge have put in place if they respect their leaders. Empowerment of people is one way of earning the respect of a group (Battelle, 2005).
Communication and collaboration also influence group dynamics in different ways. It is very important to organizations such as Google. Organizations like Google that work with deadlines and in teams have to communicate effectively with each other. Collaboration helps in working together towards organization goals and producing more effective and efficient products and services (Battelle, 2005). When one can have contact with the leaders is vital to organizations as Google. That could be achieved by flattening hierarchy and with that subordinate will be able to communicate with the superiors.
In conclusion, Page had an innovation leadership style that generates ideas, a strategy and vision, and inspires. His values influenced the people in the organization in different ways and the qualities that he had. The organization structure in place help in creating a working culture that makes Google the one of the best organization in the world.
References
Battelle, J. (2005). The search: How Google and its rivals rewrote the rules of business and transformed our culture. New York: Portfolio.
Baumeister, R. F., & Bushman, B. J. (2014). Social psychology and human nature.
Brezina, C. (2013). Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Eric Schmidt, and Google. New York: Rosen Pub.
Davidson, A. (2009). 1000 CEOs. London [England: DK Pub.
Lussier, R. N., & Achua, C. F. (2010). Leadership: Theory, application, skill development. Australia: SouthWestern/Cengage Learning.
Schermerhorn, J. R. (2012). Organizational behavior. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley.
Schmidt, E. (2014). How Google Works. Grand Central Publishing.
