Introduction
Nowadays lots of books, manuals and trainings are worked out to teach people leadership, teambuilding and communication. All of them argue that effective leadership, teambuilding and communication are skills, which can be taught and learnt. We also consider that these skills can be to some extent developed through learning and training. In this assignment we will consider the profile of an ideal leader, his/her characteristics’ impact of company’s performance, analyze the impact of stressors on the way an organization performs, pay attention to critical elements for effective group and work team performance, identify sources of conflict in the group and determine possible communication barriers. All aforementioned tasks will be performed with respect to Google.
Body
- According to the most common definition, leadership is the activity of leading a group of people or some kind of organization and capability of doing it. The main function of leadership lies in influencing people, using ethical values and goals to produce an intended change. Leadership includes establishing a clear vision of what must be achieved by a group of people or organization; sharing this vision with others so that they feel willingness to follow; providing these people with necessary knowledge and methodology to help them implement the vision, and guiding the process of implementing the vision, including coordinating and balancing conflicting interests of all those, involved in the process of vision’s implementation. In this paper we would like to discuss particular trait, contingency, situational, participative and behavioural theories of leadership.
Similar to so-called “great man” theories, trait theories assume that leadership is possible due to leaders’ inherent traits, which let them exert influence on other people. Trait theories are aimed at identifying and analyzing particular traits of leader’s character. Trait theories correspond to authentic leadership style. According to Bill George (2004), a well-known theoretician of leadership, authentic leader should exhibit the following qualities: understanding the purpose, practicing solid values, leading with heart, establishing enduring relationships and demonstrating self- discipline (30-34). Authentic leadership is believed to be called forth not only by some inherent traits, but also by life experiences.
Contingency and situational theories associate leadership with being able to choose the best way to act, basing the choice on studying particular situation. In different situations both authentic and democratic leadership styles can be used.
Participative theories of leadership are usually associated with involvement of the followers and providing them with the opportunity to participate in the process of guiding and directing themselves. Participative leaders use democratic style of guidance and sometimes tend to divide subordinates into in- and out-groups (according to LMX theory)
Behavioral theories focus on actions rather than traits of the leader. According to most of behavioral theories, whoever can become a leader, if he/she observes and manages to repeat actions of a leader.
Leaders are to have interpersonal power on their subordinates. Classification of interpersonal powers is conducted with regard to the basis of such a power. Main types of interpersonal power are those based on expert knowledge of the subject, which is not possessed by subordinates; the ability to empathize with subordinates; legitimate power, which stems from having some formal title, such as owner, senior manager, teacher etc.; reward and coercive powers. With regard to reward and coercive powers, we would like to mention that in his book “Leading Change: The Argument for Values-Based Leadership”(1996) James O’Toole argues that leadership based on values is far more effective than the one based on fear, so, misusing coercive power can often lead to tensions between leader and his/her subordinates. Taking into account, Google’s main values we can easily conclude that its leader should adhere to participative leadership style. So, the leader should possess such traits as integrity, passion, being able to listen, care, responsiveness, creativity, self-awareness and supportiveness. Google’s leader must be open-minded, ready to listen to new ideas and offers, respect the opinion of staff members and being able to organize an effective teamwork. In case Google’s leader uses autocratic style of leadership, does not take into account personnel’s opinion and express narrow-mindedness, organization will not be able to develop creative and innovative products as developing such products require efficient teamwork and passionate leader, who rather works together with subordinates than guides them, not giving them a chance to implement their own ideas. Moreover, Gin such a case Google risks to lose its famous corporate culture.
- Organization’s performance can be influenced by a variety of stressors. Task demands are factors, which relate to person’s job. Such demands include the way individual works (degree of autonomy, automation), working conditions and the physical layout. It is obvious that such factors as constant repetition, low degree of autonomy of workers and hard working conditions have a negative influence on person’s performance, which, by-turn, exerts a negative impact on overall performance of organization. Role demands relate to pressures an individual experiences due to his/her role in the organization. They can include role overload, role conflicts and role ambiguity. Aforementioned factors have a negative impact on leader’s performance, which lets to poor guidance and, therefore, poor overall performance. Interpersonal demands relate to relationships with other workers. Lack of integrity in these relationships and basing leadership on fear rather than values is likely to result in serious stresses at the workplace, which influence the way people perform. To address task demands, workers should have a chance to have some rest and even enjoy themselves at the workplace. For instance, Google offers its employees free fitness clubs and cafes and even lets them bring their pets to work. Addressing role demands requires careful consideration of employees’ obligations and appointment policies. Interpersonal demands are more difficult to tackle as they are often not apparent.
- Teamwork skills are crucial in today’s world of large and complicated projects. Successful teamwork on a project predetermines successful implementation of a project. Critical elements, which are necessary to ensure quality teamwork are trust among team members, commitment to common values and goals, everyone’s engagement into brainstorming about ideas, focusing on collective results rather than pursuing some personal goals (e.g., promotion, developing personal project proposals) and being really accountable and avoid hiding any issues from other team members.
- Despite separate legal status, an organization cannot perform separately from its employees. As all the employees differ from each other and have different opinions on things, conflicts are likely to arise within the organization. Most common conflicts within the organization are likely to stem from such factors as lack of quality leadership and guidance, low level of commitment to common purposes, no stimulus (in other words, such a reason can mean lack of success measurements and estimations) and employees’ dissatisfaction with working conditions, payment, consideration of their opinions etc.
According to SAGE Handbook of conflict resolution (2008), “conflict resolution refers to all four types of actions: prevention, management, resolution and transformation” (10). Successful conflict management often leads to quick and quality conflict resolution.
Five main conflict management styles are accommodating, avoiding, collaborating, competing and compromising. Accommodating refers to cooperating of a manager, achieved through sacrificing his/her goals, ideas and plans. This approach can be efficient only in case another party has more effective solution than you have. The term “avoiding” speaks for itself. It is considered too be effective, when the issue is neither important nor costly. Collaborating means working together to achieve both of goals. It can also mean reframing or reconsidering the challenge, so that both of the goals cold be reached. Competing style is the one, which applies “win-lose” approach. Using this style you concentrate on winning, rather than on finding a compromise or the way to collaborate. In compromising approach none of the parties reaches its initial goals. Compromising is better to be used in situations where temporary solution is strongly needed.
Google’s manager can employ different conflict management styles, depending on the situation he deals with. Nonetheless, we find collaborating style the most appropriate for Google managers, as particularly this style gives parties the largest space for reframing existing challenges and find creative solutions. This approach is admissible due to creativity of most of Google’s projects, nonetheless, while choosing conflict management style, Google’s manager should take into account scale of the project and potential losses in case the other party chooses competing.
- Communication is a process, which requires collaboration of parties, their mutual understanding and respect. In this part of assignment we would like to mention such common communication barriers as language, cultural and emotional ones. Language barriers can be both apparent and hidden (e.g., lack of knowledge of some specific terminology). Cultural barriers stem from differences in race, nationality, strata etc. Emotional barriers can related both to objective facts and individual perceptions of people. As Google is a multicultural corporation, where people of completely different backgrounds work together on highly ambitious projects, all aforementioned communicational barriers are likely to challenge effectiveness of their common work. To address cultural barriers, Google’s manager should be aware about the ways to promote common values and use cross-cultural management tools. Language barriers can be addressed with the help of translators or moderators. Emotional challenges are the hardest ones to come through. They should be considered by professional psychologists.
Conclusion
Organization’s or team’s performance is to great extent dependent on the way the leader guides the group, leadership style he uses and the way conflict and communication barriers within the group are considered. As Google is a multinational corporation, aimed at developing projects of great scale, it is crucial for managers to choose such styles of leadership, conflict management and considering communication barriers, which will help all members of Google community get engaged and feel free to express their ideas, each of which can easily become Google’s new start-up.
References
Bercovitch, J., Kremenyuk, V., Zartman, W. (Eds.). (2008) The SAGE Handbook of conflict resolution. London: Sage Publications:
George, B. (2004).The journey to authenticity. Leader to Leader Journal, No 31.29-35
O’Toole, J. (1996). Leading Change: The Argument for Values-Based Leadership. New York, NY: Jossey-Bass Inc. Publishers
