Leadership Style of the CEO of Google

Leadership style of the CEO of Google Inc. using situational leadershi

Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at the Stanford University in 1995 and by 1996, they built first search initially called BackRub, which used links to establish the importance of the individual web pages. They continued working on the search engine, and in 1998, they founded the now worldwide-established Google Inc. Company (Larson, 2010). The company packs a lot considering the young age of the company as it now serves billions of users and customers around the globe. The mission of Google Inc. is to organize the information of the entire world and make it useful and accessible universally. The headquarters of the company is in 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View CA 94043. The company boasts and enjoys a vast number of employees across the globe, with an established management team representing a team of the most experienced professionals in technology continuum.

The CEO profile

From inception, Larry served as the CEO until 2001 when Eric E. Schmidt took over as the CEO of the company and the executive chair of Google Inc. In his roles; he is responsible for all external matters concerning Google. He helps in the establishment of partnerships and broader business relations, government outreach and technology guided leadership, in addition to advising the senior, leadership of the company on business and policy issues. As the CEO, he oversees the company's technical and business strategies alongside the founders of the Company. Under the leadership of Eric Schmidt, Google Inc. dramatically found its way in scaling infrastructure and diversifying its products (Larson, 2010). Notably, it is a common occurrence that when companies diversify operations, quality goes down. However, in Google's scenario, the quality of the company and the strong innovation culture continues to scale to higher heights than ever.

In addition to his work in Google Inc., Eric is a member of the President's Council of Advisors on science and Technology and the Prime Ministers Advisory Council in the United Kingdom; he also the chair of the board of the New America Foundation. He also has several other positions of leadership that he welds. In light of all these achievements and positions of authority that he has, there is no doubt that Eric is more than just a leader, but an exemplary quality leader. In an interview with a financial writer, Steven Pearlstein, when asked how he leads Google organization to success, he replied saying that Google runs by its culture and not him. He said that they operate on under the conjecture that, every individual in the company, including himself is extremely dispensable as it is ultimate that Google is much bigger than the individuals who make it. Further, he commented that Google is a mission. Therefore, from this statement, it depicts his leadership quality as a situational leader. It is not by accident that he holds so many positions of influence. He has the capacity, will and intent to influence leadership depending on the culture that the organization he heads practices. Among his personal attributes, when asked is that he is remarkably flexible, thus he can fit into any role when required. In all his positions of leadership, success always follows, and Google is not exceptional. He has a strong character and will yet remains reasonable enough to pay attention to others and include their views.

How does he exemplify situational leadership?

Eric Schmidt is a leader who understands that leadership is about the power vested upon them by the people around and their personal qualifications. Therefore, in his practice, it is clear that he respects and follows the requirements of a true leader; he exemplifies his skills in situational leadership in several ways. Situational leadership entails that the leader be in a position to understand the culture of the organization or people he is heading, and consequently adapt to their style rather than imposing the leader's style of leadership on the people or organization (Godin, 2009). In situational leadership, the leadership style changes depending on the wants and circumstances of the others in the organization or the organization itself. Therefore, in using situational leadership, it is imperative to understand the followers or employees' development level; hence, determining the leadership style needed by the employees and organization as a whole.

When asked by the writer, Pearlstein on how he makes decisions, for instance, if he can say that they will not do something in a certain way, he replied by saying; Google's organization style is unusual, starting from bottom to top. He said that it often feels that Google people pretty much do what they think best and they tolerate having them -- the leadership- around them (Nicholas, 2009). This is evidence of the fact that Eric does not impose ideas on the people, but rather lets the people run the company through a self-driven working spirit. He clearly understands that the employees are professional and best at what they do. He does not boss people around. In answering the question of whether employees feel that the managers work for them or the other way around, he relied saying; it is easier to have an employee base, which everybody does exactly what they want every day; hence, it is best to select employees for your firm who want to change the world. He said it is different from traditional, hierarchical models where what the CEO's statement is, is the strategy. From this reply, he exemplifies his belief in the practice of situational leadership and thus it is what he applies in his role within the Google Inc. Company. He commented saying that, the new phrase for the leadership style is a network-based organization and that Google is probably the best example of network-based organization, very flat, non-hierarchical and informal in culture and ideas. He says that part of being the CEO in a company like Google, is having an environment that people constantly throw their best ideas at you as opposed to being afraid of you (Nicholas, 2009). Therefore, it is clear that he supports the employees, communicates with them and largely delegates responsibility even in decision making. This is exemplary extensive application of situational leadership.

The value of situational leadership in Google Inc.

Paul Buchheit, the creator of Gmail, said that they want something that once put there; it would be hard to take out. The CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt likes saying that in view of their math, it will take 300 years to realize the objectives of the company (Nicholas, 2009). This is what differentiates the company from the others in leadership style. Eric understands that the company is greater than he is, and every employee in the company, and thus through applying situational leadership, the company has a longer shelf life. Therefore, through the leadership style that allows individuals to input their best, the company continues to establish itself for a longer future existence. This gives the company assurance of growth in the present and future. This is value every company endeavors to achieve and Google already has the assurance that it will exist for quite the longest time.