Leadership Strategy Of Google Inc

Core elements of good leadership strategy development

Discuss about the Leadership Strategy of Google Inc.

Effective leadership in an organization requires establishing real and attainable objectives. Setting achievable, measurable, specific, and time-bound objectives helps in keeping the focus of the subordinate towards results that can enable productivity and long-term success. It requires the workforce to align their professional development objectives with the goals of the organization. To effectively manage the employees as well as the human resources of the organization, it is necessary for an organization to adopt a suitable leadership style that can help in meeting the strategic goals of the respective organizations (Manimala & Wasdani 2013, P. 13). It also requires effective decision-making to promote the relationship between the selected leadership styles and the capabilities of the employees to achieve the strategic objectives. This paper presents a detailed analysis of the leadership styles adopted by Google Inc. to enable the organization to achieve the strategic its objectives.

Leadership strategy is the process of adapting well-considered tactics in the process of communicating the vision of an organization according to (Eggers & Lin 2015, 1786). A strategic leadership typically motivates, persuades, and manages staff to share similar visions. It is a vital tool for creating effective organizational structures or implementing effective changes within the business. A leadership strategy hence defines the leadership requirements of the organization as well as their roles in the process of driving the organizational activities towards the set goals and objectives according to Kilburg (2012).

According to Price (2015), a well-defined leadership strategy play major roles for the organization to perform successfully since every organization has strategies put in place for the main purpose of achieving particular objectives. As a result, effective leadership strategies are important so as to ensure a successful coordination of the organizational activities in the plan of achieving the set strategic objectives and goals. A good leadership strategy is thus the backbone to a successful and effective performance of an organization as the actives of the employees is mainly dependent on the motivation, guidance, and direction from the leadership as denoted by Walker, & Aritz (2015, p. 458).  As a result, there are various types of strategies of leadership that can be seen in a working environment or adopted in an organization. The types of strategic leadership styles adopted by an organization dependent on various factors such as the goals and culture of the business in addition to the tasks put in place by the organization according to Marquardt et al. (2009).

The business strategies adopted by Google Inc.

A well-developed leadership strategy encompasses the following core elements;

Geared towards team-building

Great leadership strategy shows and adopts clear team building skills so as to attract and retain the top talents of the workforce for effective service. Every great leadership or management of an organization needs to recognize that having the best talents also requires good relationships and teamwork so as to promote success within the organization. A good leadership strategy hence needs to build a workforce with complementary skills and set experience towards their duty. According to (Durmaz and Ilhan (2015), teams performs best when they are made up of different styles and personalities so as to expand ideas and perspectives for problem solving and effective performance. Good leadership strategy thus facilitates teamwork, healthy discussions, and great consensus among the employees. Such a team will be more promoted to believe in themselves and work towards achieving the strategic plans of the organization. It hence builds trust between the employees and the management and thus promotes the employees to work with little supervision (Kelly & Chung 2013, p. 200).

A good leadership style also works effectively toward the vision of the organization. Instead of focusing much on the initiatives and tasks of the organization, a well-developed leadership strategy promotes a deep industrial or professional knowledge towards the strategic goals and objectives of the organization. According to (Manimala & Wasdani 2013) a strategic thinking towards the goals promotes a strong network with a consistent identification of the market trends to as to tune the organization performance towards the dynamics of the market that may affect the achievement of the strategic goals of the organization. A good leadership strategy hence needs to sell the culture and a clear vision of the organization to the employees so that they can by the vision and work towards it. It hence requires a clear understanding of the target customers, propositional values of the organization, competitive abilities, and weaknesses of the organization. Well-developed leadership strategies will hence promote core competencies; develop capabilities and skills that will enhance value promotion towards the strategic goals of the organization.

Honesty and integrity are the primary core values that uphold the accountability and commitment of employees in an organization. Without integrity and honesty, it becomes difficult for an organization to uphold a long-term success and performance. Creating an organizational culture that promotes honesty and success hence require a well-developed leadership strategy with a visionary focus on the basic principles of achieving strategic objectives of the organization. Effective leadership should also be trustworthy and participate in the highest ethical conduct standards as denoted by (Diaz-Saenz & Raile 2011). A good leadership strategy will as well promote the management to admit their mistakes as a step to administer trust and honesty between the management and the subordinate. When all these are adopted, it will be clear that the leadership strategy is focused towards the interest of the success of the organization rather than a personal gain of the management. In such an environment, there is unity in accountability as well as decisions and actions. According to Grant (2011), it promotes transparency since sharing both the good and the bad of the organization between the employees creates trust and deeper understanding as well as respect in the workplace (Eggers & Lin 2015, 1786).

Intensive strategies

A well-developed leadership strategy also promotes unity and good relationship in the working place. It ensures employees develop their skills and strategies through training and development that not only benefits the employees but the organization as well. It should promote an outstanding self-awareness among the employees and the management. According to Johnston and Marshall (2016), every employee has a fault and instinctive behavior that can result in consequences. Understanding the weaknesses and strengths of the workforce through healthy discussions and debates that can be helpful to promote the improvement of the weaknesses and strengthen the workforce. The strategy should also be persuasive and inspirational so as to unite the workforce towards achieving the strategic goals of the organization (Durmaz & Ilhan 2015, p. 4).

Google Inc. is a global technological company whose main responsibility is organizing the world’s information so as to make it universally accessible and essential. It was founded in the 1998 but has grown to become the most outstanding organization in innovation technology and serves millions of customers globally. The organization hires smart and intelligent individuals who are taken through a series of training and development to develop their ability over experience that many organizations embrace as the major qualification. The organization strives to maintain a diverse culture where every employee is a hands-on contributor in sharing their opinions and ideas (Helft 2016, p. 87).

Google Company adopts two major business strategies that have seen it sail through the top of the global technological ladder. According to Thompson (2015), the company adopts intensive growth and generic strategies and the major business plans promoted by its leadership. The strategies adopted relates directly to the nature of the business as well as the dynamics of the technological industry. As a result, the intensive strategies of growth adopted enable the firm to keep its position as among the best brands globally. Through the generic strategy, it is hence among the major players that influence the development and competitive nature of the industries. A combination of the generic and intensive strategies of growth has been effective in satisfying the continuous growth and leadership of the firm. Adopting the use of generic strategy has thus promoted its innovation and uniqueness in products as strategic objectives of remaining competitive in the technological industry (Zaccaro 2011).

Google Company has adopted various methods of intensive strategies in its operations i.e. penetration, development, and product market development. The firm relies on the market penetration strategy especially for markets outside the United States such as China. Despite having set a market leadership in the US market, it is still competing with other online advertisement firms and larger search engines outside the US market. It thus uses the market penetration strategy to push its way of getting a better market share in the world online advertisement market. The company also uses marker development especially within the US market for its fiber product. For instance, Goodbridge et al. (2015) denote that cable television and Google Fiber services are available in few states such as Missouri, Utah, Texas, and Kansas. With the aim of expanding its Fiber products, the firm uses the market development strategy so as to cover more states in the future. The product development is adopted mainly for the innovation and product uniqueness. Apart from the Google Glass as new products, the firm is also coming up with new models of the Nexus mobile devices. Through these intensive growth strategies, the firm has created more channels for income generation so as to attain its strategic objectives.

The firm has adopted the strategy based on the Porter’s model of product differentiation involving a broad market scope. Even though the firm offers its products practically every digital individual across the globe, adopting generic strategy has enabled the company to develop various unique capabilities that makes it very competitive. The product uniqueness and high innovation level has led to other products such as Google Fiber Google Glass, and Google Search s its new innovations. They are a clear manifestation of the effectiveness of innovation and product differentiation under the generic business strategy. In addition, its search algorithm has evolved with time giving it a competitive advantage against Bing, Yahoo, among others (Huffaker 2010, 599).

Google Inc. has a vision of providing access to the global information in one click and the business strategies adopted by the organization are a direct manifestation of its vision statement. For instance, one of its most popular products is the search engine optimization services.  As a result, the strategies adopted should hence be geared towards the objective giving access to the world’s information. With the vision statement focused towards world’s information, easy accessibility, and single click, the strategies adopted thus promotes the working of the organization through offering products such as Google search engines that are easy to use. According to Thompson (2015), the good performance in the global technological industry by the organization is an evident of effective innovation strategic leadership that enables the organization to achieve its objectives. The innovative leadership style adopted by the company enabled the satisfaction of the universal information accessibility component which its mission statement is making its products globally recognized. The leadership strategies adopted promotes innovation that contributes to the capacity of the company to maintain its industrial leadership and performance.

 The implementation strategies of the corporate visions of the firm have widely been successful for the organization. The firm has managed keeping a distinct and intact culture though its growth in the past 10 years. However, with the growth of the company as a result of good performance in the market, new challenges are coming up that are attributed to the leadership and business strategies adopted by the firm. For instance, focus on the product development required a more commitment from the employees so as to achieve the innovation targets owing to the high rate of competition in the global market. At the end of it all, there were complains that the firm was offering compensations that were not commensurate to the demand of the work despite inflation and the high standard of living that demanded more fiancés from the workforce. Poor payment leads to lack of commitment among the employees as well as poor motivation towards the strategic goals of the organization (Teoh & Rashad 2015, 1132).

The firm is also reported to have issues with maintaining its fun image that might probably be as a result of lack of employees’ motivation evident from the poor payment. The firm hence needs to adopt proper employees training and development strategies so as to shift focus of the workforce towards the strategic goals and objective of the Google Inc. As it moves towards smartphones platform and cloud computing, it is likely to run into the same sort of backlash in keeping the software priority. To keep such an image, the strategic leadership of the company will need to adopt plans that will motivate the workforce such as salary increment, performance appraisal, training and development, etc that will motive them and promote good working relationship. The firm has to work hard in keeping an open culture and maintain their developers, investors, and customers united in an open communication of innovation and development of not only the products but the workforce as well (Huffaker 2010, 600).

According to Durmaz and Ilhan (2015), it is necessary that the company focus on its product development efforts and the market boundaries. The firm has always been criticized for engaging in what seems to be disparate product development efforts in different markets and industries. The use of generic strategies as well as the intensive growth strategies has seen it through wide variety of products to build the dominance in the world market. However, there is a need of improving the strategic objectives and alignment. The firm hence needs to change focus towards ensuring the profitability on the current products it offers instead of concentrating on developing new products. It thus requires renewing its innovative leadership strategies towards production and market satisfaction and focus towards a wholesome development leadership strategy that focuses not only on product development and the employees.

Development strategic leadership will also be vital in controlling the spending of the firm for programs such as training and development of employees, resource sustainability, good relationship in a working environment etc. It will lead to great investment and produce good returns that will fuel the innovation strategies and speed the launch of new products. According to Teoh and Rashad (2015) a development and innovation leadership strategy should not only focus on the strategic objectives of the organization. It should also focus on the training and development of workforce since they are the major driving force for the success of every organization. The strategy will as well help the firm in figuring out how to weather any negative economic environment as it maintains a productive workforce full of fun, skills, and diverse knowledge for a productive atmosphere.

In the process of adopting the innovative development leadership strategies, it is also recommended that the organization ensure the leadership is equipped with different leadership skills in all the departments. These include charismatic, autocratic participative, and transformational types of leadership.

According to Martin (2015), transformational leadership mainly dependents on a higher communication level from the leadership or management for guidance and instructions inmeeting the goals and objectives of the organization. Arnold et al., 2015 (p. 485) also note that such leaders enhance efficiency and productivity through employees motivation and high visibility as well as communication. The style requires the management participation so as to meet the goals of the organization. Leaders tend to delegate smaller responsibilities to the team in accomplishing the strategic goals of the organization while they focus on the big picture of the firm.

Charismatic leadership requires the leader to create a powerful self-image depending on his level of charm and his persuasiveness. For instance, a business leader with effective charismatic leadership skills can effectively launch new product lines or orchestrate turnarounds within the business. Charismatic leaders are hence driven by their conviction and commitment towards achieving their cause as denoted by Arnold et al. (2015, p. 453) in their study. Such leaders are known to use powerful oratory as well as engaging personality and unweaving commitment toward positively changing the organization. The charisma in the leader is normally identified during a crisis as the leader is seen to exhibit unique and exceptional expertise and devotion in different facets of positive development and change (Monzani, Ripoll, & Peiró 2015, p. 450).

Participative leadership is also called the democratic style of leadership in which the leader give high priority to the members’ input while he is charged with the responsibility for making final decisions in the organization. According to Monzani, Ripoll, and Peiró (2015, p. 450), involving the workforce in the processes of making decisions  boost the morale of the employees making them to feel that their decisions are also valued in the organization. In the process of making any possible change, participative leadership will enable the employees to accept any change as they play different roles in the changes.

Conclusion

The process of leadership involves influencing the thoughts, attitudes, and behavior of others in the attempt to set direction that can assist others to rise and face any issue or challenge that lies ahead. A good leadership strategy needs to identify the potential in the employees so as to identify effective ways of inspiring and encouraging greater heights of effective strategic performance. However, poor leadership strategy leads to conflicts between the management and the employees hence making it difficult to achieve the strategic objectives of the organization.

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