Analyzing the Leadership Approach of Sundar Pichai

This essay analyzes the leadership approach of Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google. It examines his background, educational qualifications, and his approach to leadership. It also discusses the challenges he faced and the lessons learned from his leadership style.

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Leadership Management
Name of the Student
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Introduction
The essay throws light on analyzing the leadership approach of Sundar Pichai who is the
current Chief Executive Officer of Google. The respective essay will analyze the background of
Sundar Pichai such as the current role, work history, educational background along with the
involvement in the industry in the past years. The approach to leadership is required to be
identified which will be showcasing the strength in handling the problems faced by him and
solving the same appropriately. Lastly, the learning is needed to be identified from studying
about the respective leader Sundar Pichai.
Brief Description on Leader’s Background
Pichai Sundararajan is Indian-American business executive as he is the engineer along
with the CEO of Google LLC. Sundar Pichai was born in the year 1972 in Tamil Nadu, Madurai
in Tamil Brahmin family. His mother was a stenographer and father worked as senior electrical
engineer in General Electric Company along with managed the factory of their own which
prepared the different electrical components. Sundar Pichai belonged to a middle class family
and he grew up in two-room apartment.
Sundar Pichai completed his schooling from Jawahar Vidyalaya based in Ashok Nagar,
Chennai and earned his degree from Indian Institute of Kharagpur in metallurgical engineering
and currently he is the distinguished alumnus. Furthermore, he holds MS degree from Stanford
University in Material Sciences and Engineering and MBA from Wharton School of the
University of Pennsylvania. After completion of MBA, he joined Applied Materials in Engineer
post as well as project manager for a short span of time. In addition, he them moved out and
joined McKinsey and Company as management consultant and then on April 4th, he was being

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interviewed at Google and got selected by Google. During the initial phase, he worked with
Google on search toolbar which would be beneficial for users to provide easy access and direct
the different users of Internet Explorer of Firefox. Later in the year 2014, he was being made the
product chief due to the involvement along with influence provided by him to hold Google. Due
to his tremendous hard work, Sundar Pichai was promoted and appointed as CEO of Google on
12th October 2015. In the month of February 2016, Pichai was provided with more than 2-7
million shares of Google Holding Company which is around $199 million value.
Leadership Approach of Sundar Pichai
As a leader, Sundar Pichai is well liked by the different employees due to the focused
along with easy outlook nature of others. The other aspect of approach related to leadership of
Sundar Pichai is that he focuses mainly on the empowerment of the youth wherein the main
focus of Pichai is on the education of the different individuals as the young people focus on
creativity and take more risks which will be beneficial for the overall success of the different
tasks which have been undertaken by them. Sundar Pichai, after becoming the CEO of Google
LLC, he has offered the different opportunities for empowering the school students which
helps them in achieving their dreams and it motivates them to become more creative and
innovative in the ideas which have been developed by them.
With the application of the Transformational Leadership Theory, it can be identified
that the managers may not be necessarily the leaders as the managers can perform the different
activities in the right manner, however the leaders innovate the different aspects and perform the
right things in an accurate manner (Storey 2016). The different transformational leaders try to
bring about major changes and they inspire the different followers in putting extraordinary

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efforts to achieve the dreams appropriately (Meuser et al. 2016). In case of Sundar Pichai, it can
be identified that he follows the transformational leadership approach as he mainly focuses on
the success of the other followers rather than his own. Sundar Pichai feels that the organizational
success if dependent on the work of the employees and they should be motivated and
empowerment is one of the main approaches which is followed by him (Kurucz et al. 2017).
Pichai tries to empower the different employees along with including their ideas in the process of
decision-making which plays a major role in improving the overall success of gaining the
organizational objectives appropriately.
There are two instances which can be helpful in describing the approach of leadership
which is being followed by Sundar Pichai in managing the different activities in Google LLC as
a leader. Firstly, Sundar Pichai values the empowerment of the youths as he believes that there
is huge pressure on the youth of today to perform well and achieve the different objectives
appropriately. The other aspect which showcases the approach of transformational leadership
style is that he always take into account the different ideas of the employees working in the
organization which will be beneficial in making them feel motivated and improving their morale
that helps in making their performance more praise-worthy.
From the above aspects, it can be identified that Sundar Pichai is one of the most
transformational leaders who inspired the different followers as to bring out the best from them
and trust their skills related to decision-making to make them feel that they are being valued and
improve their morale which helps them in performing exceptionally well in the different tasks
which are being performed by them.
Two Challenges Faced by Sundar Pichai as Leader

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The first major challenge which was being faced by Sundar Pichai is related to the sexual
harassment of the women employees who worked at Google LLC. More than 17000 employees
in the worldwide walked out of the job of Google to protest against the treatment of the women
in the company (Forbes.com 2019). Those 17000 employees who walked out were the ones who
represented the astonishing 18% of the parent company Alphabet’s global workforce.
The other challenge which was faced by Sundar Pichai was that more than 74% of the
employees working with Google worldwide were not satisfied with the leadership style of
Sundar Pichai as the compensation provided to them were not up to the mark and it affected their
morale in performing the different tasks (Businessinsider.com 2019). The satisfaction level of the
employees fell from 94% to 74% which is one of the major and serious issues which creates a
huge question for the style of leadership of Sundar Pichai.
Analysis of Management of Issue by Sundar Pichai
In the respective circumstance, Sundar Pichai told the different employees in internet
email that he supported the protestors and he too indicated that the managers should take
punitive actions against those who participated in the walk-out. From the entire scenario, it was
seen that Pichai was not ready for the enormousness of the entire event during the Deal Book
appearance. Sundar Pichai did not take into consideration that the women employees should have
been called for a meeting for share their views which could have been a humble option for
making them feel that they are being valued (Eberly et al. 2017).
On the other hand, the issue related to compensation faced by the different employees
was handled by Sundar Pichai through providing them appropriate incentives for the different
kinds of tasks which were performed by them (Boak and Crabbe 2019). However, it did not

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solve the problem related to compensation and it still affected the morale of the employees who
are still working with Google LLC under the leadership of Sundar Pichai (Bowles, Harris and
Wilson 2016).
Analysis of the Aspects that could be done differently by Sundar Pichai to Handle the
Issues
In case of the women harassment, Sundar Pichai could have handled the issues in a much
more effective manner wherein he could have called for a meeting with the women employees
who faced such harassment issues in the organization (Banks et al. 2016). Instead of replying in
internet email, he could have personally met with those employees to understand their concern
and take necessary actions regarding the same.
In performing the same, it would have increased the morale of the employees as it would
make the employees feel that they are being valued and they could have been satisfied with the
overall leadership aspect of Sundar Pichai (Hoch et al. 2018). On the other hand, in case of
compensation, Pichai could have consulted with employees and increase the rate of
compensation of the deserving employees which could have played a major role in improving
their morale and gain competitiveness in the entire market.
Lessons Learnt from Leadership Style of Sundar Pichai
From the analysis, it can be identified that Sundar Pichai is one of the transformational
leaders wherein the main focus of Pichai was to empower the youth and employees to perform
the different tasks accurately (Ghasabeh, Soosay and Reaiche 2015). Furthermore, the failure is
not the end of success, as Pichai commented that wear failure as badge of honor as through the
same, the success will be achieved (Businessinsider.com 2019). As a transformational leader, the

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employees or the followers should be provided with equal scope to showcase their viewpoints as
it will play an appropriate role in performing the different tasks and improve the morale of the
followers as they will feel that their approaches are being valued (Hetland et al. 2018).
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded that leadership is one of the most essential aspects as it
helps in motivating the different employees which increase their morale and it assists in
maximizing the overall efficiency and achieve the organizational goals.

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References
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