Google's CEO

It is said that Larry Page is going to be reclaiming his position as Google’s CEO in early April.  There are many ways that a leader can lead a group of people.  But, the way he wants to make a difference in the company and be a strong motivated leader is through Transformational Leadership. Page has stated that he wants to figure out ways that “the company can act more like a start-up than an incumbent.”  Therefore, he is determined to change attitudes as well as behaviors of people inside the company.  This type of leadership is impossible to accomplish without trust.  I think that because he is doing many things to help his company be the best they can be and becoming involved in all types of management, this is going to show employees that he is trying to be a better leader in the best interest of the company.

There are four main steps in transformational leadership; consisting of idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration.  Page is using all of these factors in his leadership in many different ways at Google.  Idealized influence is when a leader acts as a role model and makes others want to follow the leader’s vision.  Page’s vision is to bring back the elements of the early days of the company.  In order to do this, he is sending emails to different managers and asking them to write about what they are working on in a short paragraph.  By doing this, he is getting a good idea of what major projects are going on and then evaluating what is important.  With today’s fast pace environment combined with technology, there are times when projects get to be more complicated rather than simple.  He is also going to go through the projects and prioritizing them to make sure they are focusing on the most important goals.

Another factor of transactional theory is inspirational motivation.  This element is when a leader communicates high expectations and using symbols to focus group members to achieve more than self-interest.   I believe that Page is setting high expectations in his company by keeping up with the competition.  He is setting expectations of his company to start working on driver-less car technology and scanning all books to be able to put them search engines.  He is creating a large goal in order for the company to become a whole and achieve more than self interest.

The third factor of transactional leadership is intellectual stimulation which is when a leader stimulates followers to be creative and innovative.  Page has recently has been traveling to talk to managers about problems that they are facing.  In order to help fix these problems he “has asked that employees develop new practices for meetings, such as designating a decision-maker and refraining from working on their laptops.”  His goal through this is to create an atmosphere where there is new stimulation for new ideas.  The last factor in transformational leadership is the individualized consideration.  This portion of the model deals with when a leader listens carefully to the needs of followers as well as helps them through personnel changes.  In order to conquer this part of the leadership, Page has taken top executives and gotten them to work in every day public area, so the employees can directly approach them on matters.  Page is creating an atmosphere for the employees to become more comfortable in talking one on one with the people in charge about their issues and successes.

I think that this form of leadership describes many goals that Page wants to accomplish in the next few months and years.  Do you think that this form of leadership is appropriate or do you think that there is better one that fits well?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703784004576220902706041400.html?mod=WSJ_mgmt_LeadStoryCollectionSecond

--Posted by Devan Pritchett