Google's Leadership Challenges: A Case Study Analysis

This case study analyzes the leadership challenges faced by Google, focusing on issues such as team conflicts, poor performance, and communication problems. The study delves into Google's organizational structure and the impact of leadership styles on employee morale and productivity. It ex...Read More

case study of google
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[Company name] [Company address]

Introduction:-
The case study is concerned with the internet sector. Internet sector is known as a collaboration
between the communication sector and the information technology sector. It primarily deals with
the virtual applications such as transmission of communications and information technology
system. Various challenges are faced by management to manage the internet sector
(Bhatti,2012). Some of the challenges are:-
 Managing cash flow: - Cash is the king of every business. The main assumption that a
rapidly growing business has adequate cash is misguided.
 Open work environment: - Open work environment means include employees input in the
decision making. It is important for the organization because when disparities in
technology seem, it will result in employee discontent.
This whole case is completely based on Google organization. In this case, the whole focus of the
team members is on analyzing the various group norms and how they are improving the team of
the Google organization.
Background:-
Google is a special American multinational technology company which is specializing in internet
products and services like: ranging search, cloud computing, online advertising, and software.
Google derives its highest profit from the AdWords which placing the online advertisements
near search listings. In this case, there is a girl named Julia Rozovsky of 25 years who had a
great experience but she was not considered as a good match for any of the team. She was facing
more problems while working in a team. In 2012, Julia was hired by the Google to work upon
Project Aristotle for study hundreds of Google's team and for figure out why some stumbled

while others soared. Project Aristotle researchers began looking for the group norms. After
looking more than 100 groups, researchers of the Project conclude that it is mandatory for all
team members to study group norms and to understand how these norms influence the norms of
the group. Julia figure out all the norms which are critical for the success of the team. After Julia
gave one presentation on her findings, an employee named Matt was employed by the
organizations as a middle-level manager. Matt was interested in the Project Aristotle because the
previous team was not working well on this Project (Stacks,2014).
Issues and problems:-
There are various issues and problems in this case. Following are the main important issues
which are identified in this case:-
 The first main problem arises, in this case, is that there are various conflicts between the
team members. These conflicts raised due to their lack of cooperation. Conflicts arise
between the team members on the leadership role and making a decision regarding
representing the group in the class.
 The second important problem in this case is that the teams of the Google are poor. They
don't know how to work in a team which influence their whole work performance.
 Lack of strong managers to lead the team in an efficient manner.
 Weaknesses among the performance of the various team members. This problem faced
by the Google just because members of the team gave middling to poor scores.
 Communication problem among members of the group.
 Low morale of the employees leads low productivity.

In this case, management was participated actively to give their best. Management follows
various approaches and activities in it which are following:-
 Management of the Google focus on developing skills of the team members. Developing
the skills of team members can be done by the organization by providing them effective
training. Training to employees influence the organization in a positive manner and also
in negative. Positive effects of the training can be that the employees perform their
functions efficiently, reducing the conflicts within the group and also improves the
various skills of the employees which help the organization in future. Negative
consequences of this action can be that the management should bear extraordinary
charges for conducting training and work of the organization also suffer from it.
 Management established various group norms which help in team members to identify
their role easily. Group norms improve the cohesiveness among team members. On the
other hand, it also causes innovation and various problems related to the productivity and
the creativity.
All these problems can be eliminated by following various necessary approaches:-
 Development of major theoretical approaches to management:- all the theories like,
scientific management, general administrative theory, system approach or contingency
approach helps in eliminated all management related problem and strengthening the
management with important management skills.
 Attribution theory: - It is the theory which deals in how the perceiver uses information to
arrive at causal explanations for events. This theory helps the management in combining
the gathered information in a suitable manner so that proper decision can be taken.

 Work design and global teams :- This helps the organization in removing all group
conflicts and taught the management how groups are turned into effective teams and can
use for solving contemporary issues.
 Utilitarianism theory: - This theory is based on the normative science. It states that
something is good when the organization produces the greatest amount of good and
services for the greatest number of people. This theory helps Google in understanding
whether a particular action is moral or immoral.
Possible solutions:-
 Develop personal leadership style: - For removing all leadership problems proper
leadership style should be followed by all the team members.
 Foundation of management practices: - All management related problems can be solved
by the Google by following specific management practices. All these practices helps the
organization to effectively manage their current business operations (Bhatti, 2012).
 Managing OB Foundations:- The degree to which members are motivated to remain in a
group and share the group’s goal. Managing OB Foundations enables the organization to
stronger their member’s desire to stay in the group. It greater the group’s cohesiveness.
 Managing ethical behavior: - All the problems can be resolved through the ethical
behavior. Ethics helps the organization in Build trust and equity.

Proposed solution:-
All these problems can be effectively solved by adopting proper leadership style in the
organization because leadership is that factor which can make the organization highly successful
and also improve its work performance. Leadership style can be following:-
 Laissez-Faire
 Autocratic leadership
 Democratic leadership
 Transactional
For resolving all the above issues, management of the organization should follow democratic
leadership style. Democratic leadership is also known as the participative leadership. Democratic
style of leadership is chosen because of following reasons:-
 Improve employee morale: - Democratic leadership style in the organization improves
the morale of the employees because employees make contribution in formulating
various necessary decisions. Due to it, employees of the organization feel that their
opinion is valued by the organization. This will enhance the performance of all the
employees, and they also utilize their full potential to achieve the various organization
objectives. This will enhance the goodwill of the organization in the market and also
enable the organization to earn more and more profit.
 Accept changes by the employees: - democratic leadership style in the organization
forces the employees to accept all the changes easily without arising any conflicts among
all the members. This will help in changing the organization as per the environment
without any restraint from the employees.

 Improve performance of various staff members: - poor performance of staff members is a
big problem for the Google (Johnston,2016). By following democratic leadership, style
organization can improve the performance of their staffs because effective leadership
motivates all the members of the organization.
 Improve the communication system: - democratic leadership style enables the leader to
follow an open communication system so that all the members of the organization can
interact with each other without any hurdles. This improves the communication structure
of whole the organization and also helps in resolving all the problems which caused due
to the poor communication system in the organization.
 Defined leadership role: - With the help of the democratic leadership style role of every
individual is specified. This will save the organization from various conflicts which arise
due to not- specification of their roles.
 Improved group performance: - democratic leadership style in the organization improves
the performance of all groups. A leader can be the reason for improving their
performance because the leader can provide effective guidelines regarding a particular
task and also can motivate them which will enhance their performance.
Recommendation
The most important thing when implementing a specific strategy is the top management’s
commitment to the strategic direction itself. Therefore, it requires that the top managers must be
willing to give energy and loyalty to the implementation process (Dadiz,2016). Some of the
specific strategies should be followed by the management in their action plan for implementing
the proposed solution:-

 Keep the communication open: the democratic leadership style thrives when all the
considerations are laid out for everyone to examine.
 Ready to commit- it is the job of the management that it focus on every discussion and
also gives their commitment regarding it.
 Respect the ideas: - if the management wants to implement the democratic style in a
proper manner than it should respect the ideas of their subordinates.
Conclusion:-
After studying all this it can be concluded that the management should focus on all the strategies
which removing all the problems which causes hurdles in the progress of the organization.
Democratic style helps the management in a high context to avoid all the leadership, employee’s
morale and various other problems. It can be said that most of the business organization fails
due to their poor leadership in the organization. For the effective implementation of all the
strategies management should craft a vision that create a fit between intended strategy and the
specific implementation of strategy.

References:-
Bhatti, N., Maitlo, G.M., Shaikh, N., Hashmi, M.A. and Shaikh, F.M., 2012. The impact of
autocratic and democratic leadership style on job satisfaction.International Business
Research, 5(2), p.192.
Stacks, D.W. and Salwen, M.B. eds., 2014. An integrated approach to communication theory
and research. Routledge.
Galliers, R.D. and Leidner, D.E., 2014. Strategic information management: challenges and
strategies in managing information systems. Routledge.
Dadiz, R. and Baldwin, C.D., 2016. Educational Perspectives: Using Self-Motivation Strategies
to Optimize Your Professional Learning. NeoReviews,17(4), pp.e188-e194.
Johnston, M.W. and Marshall, G.W., 2016. Sales force management: Leadership, innovation,
technology. Routledge.