Leadership Analysis of Google: Practices, Effects, and Recommendations

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Google's leadership and organizational culture. It begins with a description of Google, followed by an examination of Larry Page's leadership practices, including fostering innovation, creating a positive work environment, and encouraging collaboration. The report then explores the effects of these leadership practices on Google's organizational culture, highlighting the company's innovative environment and high employee engagement. Section B presents a SWOT analysis of Google, detailing its strengths, such as its powerful search engine and advertising revenue, and its weaknesses, such as secrecy around its algorithms. Opportunities and threats are also discussed. The final section analyzes Larry Page's strengths and weaknesses as a leader, offering recommendations for improvement. The report emphasizes the impact of leadership style on organizational culture and provides a detailed case study of Google's successful leadership strategies.

Running head: LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS
LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS
Table of Contents
Section A:.......................................................................................................................2
1.Description of the company....................................................................................2
2.Leadership practices of the Primary Leader............................................................2
a. First leadership practice of the leader of Google...............................................2
b. Second Leadership practice of Larry Page in Google........................................3
c. Third Leadership practice by Larry Page in Google..........................................4
3.Effecte of the leadership style on organizational culture of Google.......................4
a. Effects of the leadership.....................................................................................4
b. Details related to the effect of leadership...........................................................5
Section B: SWOT Analysis of Google...........................................................................6
1.Strengths of Google.................................................................................................6
2.Weaknesses of Google............................................................................................7
3.Opportunities of Google in the industry..................................................................8
4.Threats faced by Google in the industry.................................................................9
Section C: Strengths and weaknesses of Larry Page as a leader..................................11
C1. Strengths of Larry Page as a leader...................................................................11
C2. Weaknesses of Larry Page as a leader...............................................................12
C3. Recommendations for Larry Page.....................................................................13
References....................................................................................................................15

2LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS
Section A:
1.Description of the company
Google is a multinational organization of American origin which operates in the
technology related area. The organization mainly specialises in the production of services
related to internet and other products which include, search engine, technologies related to
online advertising, software used for cloud computing, and hardware. The company was
founded in the year 1998 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page who were Ph. D. students at the
Stanford University in California. The organization has shown rapid growth in the market
since the time of its inception. This growth has further triggered the acquisition and merger
related operations of the company. The partnerships of Google have also increased with a
rapid pace due to the growth opportunities provided by the company. Google has far beyond
the core search engine and provides services like, Google Docs, Google Slides, Google
Sheets, Gmail, Google+, Google Calendar, Google Duo and Hangouts, Google Translate and
many more. The growth and success of Google is mainly due to the employee base that has
been selected and trained by the organization over the years of its operations in the industry.
The leadership style and culture of the company is also an important factor that has
contributed to its immense success in the industry.
2.Leadership practices of the Primary Leader
a. First leadership practice of the leader of Google
The main flavour of the leadership of Google is the innovation related quality of the
employees who are appointed in the organization. Larry Page, founder of Google is also a
leader who encourages innovation in the organization. The working environment, culture and
the leadership style followed in Google is quite famous in the industry. Larry has an
innovative and open way of thinking and implementing ideas. The first leadership practice

3LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS
that has been used in Google are has been useful for the company is believing in crazy ideas.
The ideas that have been presented by Page have sometimes been crazy in nature. However,
being an influential leader he has been convinced his employees to believe in those ideas and
further implementing them in the business (Yahaya & Ebrahim, 2016). Larry had a firm
belief that he will be able to download the internet and save the links. This belief led to the
birth of the search engine if Google. The innovative search engine of the organization has still
remained as one of the major factor related to competitive advantage of Google. Page has
always believed in the creation of crazy ideas and make a big impact on the world. The crazy
and innovative ideas of Page and the implementation of these ideas have huge impact on the
revenues of the company as they have been able to tackle their competition in an easy manner
(Arnold et al., 2015).
b. Second Leadership practice of Larry Page in Google
The reputation of Google of being one of the best places to work in the world along
with facilities like, massages, free food and health care has been created by the leadership
style of Larry Page. The main idea behind treating the employees in a positive manner is to
create a family in the organization so that the employees also provide their best to the
company. Google provides an environment of togetherness and care to the employees so that
they feel like an important part of the company. Page also believes in providing jobs to the
employees which are meaningful for them and help in their development. The employees can
take part in projects which are related to their passion about work. This step makes the
employees feel committed and engaged in their work (DuBois et al., 2015). These qualities
and approaches taken by Larry page make the Google a well-known and regarded employer
in the industry. This is the main reason behind the high employee retention rate in Google.
Google has not only taken care and provided lifestyle perks to the employees, the
organization has also provided with opportunities where they can improve their working

4LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS
process and skills. The initiatives related to the increase if employee engagement by
providing them with projects about which they are passionate is a major part of the leadership
practice of Larry Page (Saleem, 2015).
c. Third Leadership practice by Larry Page in Google
The third major leadership practice which has been helpful for the operations of
Google is the encouragement that has been provided by Larry towards the collaboration
between the employees. The collaboration and cooperation between the teams that are formed
by the employees in Google is important as the goals of the organization have changed and
become more complex as compared to the previous times. The cooperative and collaborative
nature of the teams in Google have been enabled with the help of the democratic leadership
style of Larry Page. The aggressive approach related to communication has been changed and
the collaborative nature of employees has been enhanced (Keskes, 2014). The new style of
leadership that has been implemented by Larry Page has helped in increasing the unity
between the team members and the various divisions of employees in Google. The leader has
been able to create a workplace environment where the creative nature of employees can be
enhanced. Larry Page has given more importance to competition as compared to
collaboration. This has fostered an innovative environment in the organization. The working
style of the employees has been heavily influenced by the leadership style that has been
depicted by Larry Page (Kang, Solomon & Choi, 2015).
3.Effecte of the leadership style on organizational culture of Google
a. Effects of the leadership
The leadership style of an organization affects the culture of the organization and the
employee performance as well. The leaders are responsible for creating a culture which
influences the performance of the employees. Larry Page has depicted democratic leadership

5LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS
style which helps in managing the teams in the organization in advance and offers guidance
to the teams as well. The final decisions are made by the leader, however the employees can
provide their ideas and opinions which affects the process of decision-making. The positive
and encouraging organizational culture in Google has been developed with the help of
effective leadership style of Larry Page (Fernandez,
2017).
b. Details related to the effect of leadership
Google has received huge amount of attention for the unusual culture of the
organization which encourages the creativity and loyalty of the employees. The organization
has been able to create many innovative products with the emphasis that has been provided to
the innovative nature of the employees. The culture of Google has been influenced by the
unique leadership related qualities of Larry Page. The instructions are passed by the
management of the company to the several departments. The departments are divided into
smaller units and the instructions are followed by the concerned units. Larry Page has
developed the 70/20/10 rule which states that the employees need to devote 70% of their total
work time to the projects that are assigned by the company (Saeed et al., 2014). On the other
hand, 20% of the time is devoted to the new projects and 10% will be devoted to the pursue
of new ideas. This rule acts as a driving force for the employees of Google to create the
productive culture. They have also been provided with space to become creative and apply
their ideas in the various projects of the company. The innovative culture that has been
developed by Larry Page has helped in motivating the employees to provide their ideas to the
management (Alvesson & Sveningsson, 2015).

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Section B: SWOT Analysis of Google
1.Strengths of Google
a. The search engine of Google has been biggest strength of the organization. Google
has been able to gain the high share of the market with the help of its search engine related
services. This service of the organization has dominated the market since the inception. The
highest share of internet search engine market has been gained by Google within a short span
of time after the launch of this service. Google has become one of the biggest and powerful
brands in the world with the revenues gained from the search engine service (O'Neill,
Beauvais & Scholl, 2016). The company has recorded more than 1.2 billion hits per month
with respect to the search performed by the users. The ways by which Google has gained the
position of topmost company in the industry is unparalleled and does not have any
competition. The company has been able create to an edge over the other organizations in the
industry with the help of their search engine. The simplicity that is provided by Google
search engine has been able to attract users towards the service. The various information
related to different aspects have been organized successfully by the search engine of Google,
which has been a major reason behind the growth of the company (Kayworth & Leidner,
2014).
b. The major part of the revenues earned by Google are related to the advertisements
and the displays that are featured in the search engine. The organization earns huge profits
from the partnerships that have been developed by the other organizations and the third party
sites. Google has used the resources that are owned by the company to the fullest capabilities.
The organization has been able to increase its top line by offering a diverse range of products
to the users. The revenues that have been gained by Google has been the major strength of the
company (Huhtala et al., 2015). Another strength of the organization is related to the increase
in the number of advertisement partners of Google. The company has shown immense growth

7LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS
in revenues with the help of the advertisements that are displayed in the website. The
advertisements featured in the website are related to the huge number of customers of the
company. The huge customer base has led to the formation of many partnerships by the
organization. For example, the company which wants its advertisement to feature at the top of
search list of Google they have to pay more as compared to those companies who feature
later on the list. The rates of the advertisements are therefore decided on a priority basis
(Körner et al., 2015).
2.Weaknesses of Google
a. The organization has been maintaining high levels of secrecy related to their
products algorithms from the start of their operations in the market. The algorithms that have
been used for the creation of their internet searches have kept under high levels of secrecy.
The opaqueness of the organization has adverse effect on its popularity in the industry. The
experts related to various fields have been criticising the secrecy levels of the organization.
This issue has been addressed by the company some different versions of their algorithms.
The optimization strategies that have been used by Google have made it difficult to choose
from the various quality if the content that is provided by searching the website (Martinez et
al., 2015). The differentiation between the types of content and information related to various
products have become quite difficult for the users of the websites. The information that is
provided by Google can be manipulated by the various other organizations which have
knowledge regarding the algorithms used by the company. For example, a businessman or
business owner can be credible, however, the counterpart of that business may not be equally
credible. The other organization can manipulate the information that is provided by Google to
the users (Hansen, 2018).
b. The advertisement rates of the organization has decreased in the recent times due to
the declining revenues of the company. The revenues that have been gained by Google with

8LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS
the help of the advertisements have received a huge blow due to the economic slowdown in
the global industries. This has slowed down the growth of Google in the market and the
profitability of the organization has also fallen in the process. The competitors of the
company have also increased in the recent business scenario which has further led to the fall
in the business of Google. The increase in competition in the industry has hit the revenues of
the search engine of Google. The company has to face huge number of challenges related to
their operations in the future due to the fast rising competition (Belias & Koustelios, 2014).
The dependence of Google on the revenues gained from advertisements has led to further loss
in the growth of the organization. More than 85% of the entire revenues earned by Google are
based on the advertisements that are featured in the website of the organization. This shows
that the drop in the advertisement rates have caused a major dip in the revenues of the
organization. For example, the advertisements of different companies and the rates related to
the advertisements have fallen in the recent years and it has resulted in the fall of revenues of
Google (Do, Yeh & Madsen, 2016).
3.Opportunities of Google in the industry
a. The major opportunity of Google lies in the expansion of the business into non-
advertisement models. The company needs to diversify its operations so that is can gain
revenues which are not related to advertisements. The organization has already started its
expansion policies in the industry and has started its operations in other areas along with the
existing areas. Google has an effective research and development related team which has
helped the organization in diversifying its business areas. The various new ventures of
Google include, products like, Google Books, Google Maps, Google Classes, Google Play
and many more (Haile & Krupka, 2016). These new business avenues seem to be promising
for the fast growth in the revenues of Google in the industry. The new services have helped
the organization in gaining the topmost position in the market again after the loss of revenues

9LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS
due to the changes in the business environment. Google will be able to become an
evolutionary name on the emerging industry which deals with nano-computing. For example,
the Google Play related services provided by the organization have played a major role in the
android mobile operating systems and has proved to be a revolutionary step in the mobile
world (Montalvo, 2016).
b. The biggest opportunity that is related to the growth of Google in the industry is the
android mobile operating system. The pioneering effort that has been undertaken by Google
for providing the Android OS has been become a huge growth opportunity for the
organization. This has helped Google in competing with the other large organizations like
Samsung and Apple. The increase in the usage of mobile phones and customers using internet
services has led to a huge growth for Google in the market. Google has engaged in
acquisition related operations of Android and Youtube. The huge customer base of Google
has been helpful in the expansion of their business in other areas (Phadermrod, Crowder &
Wills, 2016). The trust of the customers related to the company has been helpful in increasing
their revenues in the other business areas as well. The android operating system has been a
breakthrough for Google and has helped in the fast growth of revenues in their new business
sector. For example, Android has provided huge competition to the other operating system
providers of the industry. The operating system providers include ioS operating system
provided by Apple. Another example is Picasa which has experienced high increase in traffic
after its acquisition by Google (Taghavifard et al., 2018).
4.Threats faced by Google in the industry
a. The competition that is faced by Google due to the advent of social media in the
recent times has been a major threat to the profitability and operations. Google has to make
some major changes in their service offerings and bring new products so that they can
compete with the social media giants like Facebook. The features that are offered by the

10LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS
social media websites like Twitter and Facebook have been the main issues for Google. The
company therefore has to bring new service offerings in the market to compete with
Facebook. The organization has taken steps related to this issue and it has launched new
services like Google Plus and Hangouts which has helped Google to provide some levels of
competition in the social media industry (Siciliano, 2016). The fast growth of social media
websites has been a major threat to the growth and future prospects of Google. For example –
Google Hangouts and Google Plus provides features related to chatting and sharing pictures.
On the other hand, social media websites Twitter and Facebook provide features like, sharing
photos, connecting with friends, posting live videos and many more (Shin & Dess, 2017).
b. Mobile computing is another area where Google needs to improve its offerings to
compete with the other companies in the industry. The increase in mobile computing has led
to the growth pf new organizations which are trying to improve their mobile presence. The
customers who search for information on their mobile phones, seem to use other search
engines much more as compared to the platform provided by Google. This led to a loss in the
revenues and profitability of Google. The new organizations are therefore using the
opportunity provided by mobile computing area to build competition against Google
(Ahmadi, Dileepan & Wheatley, 2016). The changes have also occurred in the preferences of
the users which have led them to migrate to the search engines of the other organizations.
This threat can be addressed by Google by investing in their promotional activities and
further using its huge customer base to acquire the mobile computing world. For example –
mobile search engines are also provided by companies like UC Browser, Mozilla Firefox,
Yahoo. These search engines have posed huge threats to the operations of Google and
compatibility of its service with the mobile operating systems (Auinger et al., 2015).

11LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS
Section C: Strengths and weaknesses of Larry Page as a leader
C1. Strengths of Larry Page as a leader
a. The leadership style that is followed by Larry Page in Google is transformational in
nature. This style of leadership is followed in all the stages of the organization. The leaders in
this case try to create a workforce which can provide high levels of performance. The
members of the organization in this case act as a part of the processes and they go beyond the
requirements of the task to contribute to the success of the company. The leaders who follow
this style of leadership have a charismatic appeal. The four main components of
Transformational leadership are, inspirational motivation, individualized consideration,
intellectual stimulation and idealized influence (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). Larry Page also
followed this unique style of leadership in Google which has led to the huge growth and
success of the company. He provided motivation to the employees in both financial and non-
financial methods. This was done by Page by creating a positive working environment in the
organization so that the employees can be highly productive. This has helped in the fast
growth of Google in the industry. The first major strength of this leadership style of Larry
Page is empowering the employees and the others in the company. Larry Page tried to make
sure that the employees in the company are provided with equal opportunities so that they can
improve their skills and further grow in their fields (Dubey et al., 2018). Page ensured that
the employees had a considerable amount of time to spent in the projects about which they
are interested. This has assisted in the growth of the employees and further contributed to the
growth of the organization as a whole.
b. The second strength is related to the collaboration and communication related
environment that has been created by Larry Page in the organization. Page has given utmost
importance to the collaborative effort of the team members in the organization. This further
assisted the employees in increasing their innovation related capabilities and contribute to the