Eric Schmidt and His Leadership Style - Assignment Example

Leadership and Organizational Behaviour Contents Leadership and Organizational Behaviour Contents 2 Who is Eric Schmidt and how would you describe his leadership style? 3 What behaviours do you observe in Eric Schmidt? What identifiable specific traits do you observe? 4 What do you think the impact of his leadership style is likely to be on the organization and employees? To what extent will this depend on the characteristics and personalities of the employees, the nature of the organization and the wider business and economic context? 6 References 8 Who is Eric Schmidt and how would you describe his leadership style? Eric Schmidt the Chairman and CEO of Google is considered to be the ideal business leader in the digital age. In 2001 the computer science PhD joined the organization. The company has seen an unprecedented growth since his joining. The other accomplishments of Eric Schmidt is being elected in National Academy of Engineering in 2006, then induction in American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007, in 2009 becoming the Chairman of the New American Foundation. Eric Schmidt has also taught in Stanford University and is one of the trustees in Princeton University and Carnegie Mellon. Eric Schmidt also serves Apple Inc as one of the board of directors. His accomplishments states that he is a legend and deserves all the recognition for his hard work and his innovative way of thinking. He has also set a mark of being a billionaire by just o the basis of stock options while being an employee of the corporation. Schmidt’s innovative approach makes him the best person to be suited in the new era of digital economy and very few leaders are so well prepared for the future compared to Eric Schmidt (Hajdini, 2010, pp. 34). Eric Schmidt had two important guidelines that made him successful, he wanted to be an organizational builder and always considered human asset to be the priceless property. I would describe the leadership style that is followed by Eric Schmidt is the supporting leadership style. While working with Sun though he was well known for his innovations and always praised the people working in the organization for making Java successful through their efforts, hard work and motivation. Through his success story Schmidt has always praised the human asset, he believed that the success behind Google is innovation but the condition behind an innovation is the patience a leader should have to listen to its people. Schmidt though coming from an technical background always wanted to be an organizational builder and this was a crucial component in his successful leadership, it was a reflection for hi dream to lead. When he was working with Sun as an engineering manager he started to build his own team from the starting. At Google his viewpoint was always that people if they do not undercut each other they will tend to work greatly (Iqbal, 2011, p.43). This kind of viewpoint has made him have such a great partnership with the Google founder’s. According to me, these two characteristic of being an organizational builder and treating human resources as the priceless asset supports his supportive leadership style. Schmidt does not support the behaviour of having command and control over the employees, he believes in flexibility, and has used the supporting leadership style to maximize the capability and creativity of people (Google Culture, 2009). Eric Schmidt follows the best leadership practices through getting to know the employees well, creating new ways to promote and reward the employees who are performing well, by letting the employees own the problem which he wants them to solve, by allowing the employees to have flexibility to perform even outside the hierarchy of the company, by selecting someone who are respected for their impartiality and objectivity by the employees in order to evaluate the performance of the employees. What behaviours do you observe in Eric Schmidt? What identifiable specific traits do you observe? There are certain behaviours which I observe in Eric Schmidt which has made him a successful leader. Schmidt has always tried to know his employees well by making a list of his best employees through multi-level peer references and interact with them on a one to one basis in order to encourage them to implement their innovative ideas and not to be insulated by interferences from others. Schmidt also believes in rewarding the high performers in the organization. He has built certain systems as financial incentives, dinner with the CEO, stock options etc. to motivate its employees. He also created a video where the protagonists states the working culture and named it as the ‘The Factory Tour’. Schmidt always made the employees aware of the goal of the company but the implementation of that goal was totally left upon the employees in order to make these employees own the work they are doing. He has made the goal of the company such that the benefits are more for the customers and the society rather than the organization (University of Michigan, 2009). Schmidt did not mention any numerical figure in his goal but made it simple enough for the employees to relate to. I even have observed flexibility that Eric Schmidt offers to its employees to work even beyond the corporate hierarchy. He knows that this hierarchy often obstructs the work of the employees; Schmidt has reinforced the system by making it more flexible by allowing the employees to choose their group of people and create their own projects. Schmidt in order to avoid any conflict has selected the reviewers from the professionals working for the organization who are respected for their impartiality and objectivity by the employees to review and reward the performance of the employee. There are certain specific traits which I have observed in Eric Schmidt. He inspires action, by constantly inspiring and motivating people to achieve the goal, he even incorporates the innovative ideas brought forth by the employees. He has the confidence that his team can achieve the goal and his people can do anything not under control or command but if given the freedom towards their work. He has the trait of communicating well implementing a two-way communication with the employees. Eric Schmidt has the trait of being a good coach. He empowers his team and takes great interest in the well being and success of the team members. He is very result-oriented and productive by nature. He motivates his employees and also helps them in career development. He has always set a clear strategy for his team and a vision for all the employees working in the organization (Kurtz, 2011, p.244). He has the technical skills which required in a leader in order to advise his team of members. A team who works under best leaders is to be more productive and stay in the organization for a longer time. What do you think the impact of his leadership style is likely to be on the organization and employees? To what extent will this depend on the characteristics and personalities of the employees, the nature of the organization and the wider business and economic context? The success of Google today is because of the innovative ideas of Eric Schmidt, his constant effort to implement different strategies beneficial for the organization. He always had a vision but along with being a visionary leader he is competent and a very down to earth business person. According to me the organization has always benefited from his focus on the changing need and the future of the business. He thinks out of the box always which has helped Google to go out of the traditional business. His leadership trait has changed the future of the organization from being a search engine to becoming an online service innovator. Google is a dream organization for many people and for the employees it gives them a platform to implement their innovative ideas and flexibility in the work culture and hence high job satisfaction for the employees (Cohen, 2013, p. 203). The leadership style of Schmidt not only make the employees satisfied while working with the organization but also focuses on their career development by constantly monitoring and reviewing the performance of the employee. I believe that the distributed leadership culture of Eric Schmidt of being patient and following unobtrusive style of engineering has helped the organization achieve such success on the same hand making the employees have job satisfaction rather than following individual oriented leadership of being a go getter and aggressive in nature. I believe it is due to a leader like Eric Schmidt employees are not working in the organization only for their individual benefits but for the benefit of the team and more importantly for the success of the organization. The leaders can impose their way of thinking only when they have employees who think alike. Schmidt has been able to develop his strategies and implement his new system only because he had people working under him who greatly supported him and has similar innovative ideas. In smaller organizations I feel the trait followed by Eric Schmidt is difficult to adapt has the system works in a structural format and giving too much flexibility to employees is not possible. So the leadership style followed by a leader greatly depends on the type of people I am dealing with and the size of the organization because ultimately it is also about getting success and increasing the productivity of the people working in the organization by enhancing their capabilities. References Hajdini, I. 2010. Innovation Management. Germany: GRIN Verlag. Google Culture, 2009. Culture at Google [Online]. Available at: http://www.google.com/corporate/culture.html [Accessed on 1st March 2014]. Iqbal, T. 2011. The Impact of Leadership Styles on Organizational Effectiveness. Germany: GRIN Verlag. University of Michigan, 2009. Google Library Partnership [Online]. Available at: http://www.vpcomm.umich.edu/pa/key/google.html [Accessed on 1st March 2014]. Cohen, J. 2013. The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business. United Kingdom: Hachette UK. Kurtz, B. 2011. Contemporary Business. United States of America: John Wiley & Sons. Read More