19030674 leadership style of google ceo eric schmidt

8/8/2019 19030674 Leadership Style of Google Ceo Eric Schmidt

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http://kuleed.googlpages.comThis paper analyzes the leadership style of Google CEO; Eric Schmidt based on theof leadership concepts outlined by David Messick in his essay "On thePsychological Exchange Between Leaders and Followers". Eric Schmidt measures upvery well on all the dimensions except Protection-Security.

In his paper, Messick analyzes leadership by focusing on the relationshipbetween leaders and followers. Messick postulates that followers chose to be ledbecause doing so provides them certain benefits. In choosing to be led, the

followers act in ways beneficial to the leader. Thus leaders and followers arelinked together in a symbiotic psychological relationship by exchanging benefits.Messick identifies five dimensions along which this exchange of benefits takesplace.

Benefits Leaders offer Followers Benefits Followers offer Leadersi Vision-Direction Focus-Self Directionii Protection-Security Gratitude-Loyaltyiii Achievement-Effectiveness Commitment-Effortiv Inclusion-Belongingness Cooperation-sacrificev Pride-self respect Respect-Obedience

The first benefit of a Vision-Direction provides focus to the efforts offollowers. It helps followers visualize a future state that is better than the

current and motivates them to work towards it. Leaders provide answers to thequestions "Why are we here", "What is our purpose", "Where are we going" and "Howare we going to get there". If the followers identify with the leaders vision,they are more likely to take ownership of the vision and work towards the goalwith minimal oversight. As the followers work towards the goal they expect leadersto provide them security, stability, continuity and a sense of purpose especiallyduring times of uncertainty. In return, the followers feel an obligation towardsthe leader and his cause thus strengthening the bonds between them. On the nextdimension of "Achievement and Effectiveness", Leaders convince their followersthat audacious and difficult goals are achievable. The followers work hardsacrifice their own self-interest and are committed to the leader's goals. Thiscommon goal bonds the members of the group together increasing cooperation andchances of success. Leaders also foster the human need for belonging in the next

dimension of "Inclusion and Belongingness". By being part of group the followerscan enjoy the successes of team members as if it were their own. Followers with asense of belonging are more likely to make sacrifices for the members of thegroup. This leads us to the next dimension of "Pride and self-respect", wherefollowers feel valued for their contribution to the group and take pride in thegroup's achievements. Thus followers feel a sense of ownership in the outcomes ofthe group and are self-motivated. Even though the five dimensions are listedseparately they are entwined. Leaders will find it hard to make a change on onedimension without affecting the other. However under certain conditions (e.g. war)one dimension may be more important than another.Eric Schmidt

Eric Schmidt has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Princeton and aMasters and PhD in Computer Science from University of California, Berkley. He

spent 14 years at Sun Microsystems progressing through various technical jobs,eventually leading the development of the Java language and becoming the ChiefTechnical Officer. In 1997 he took over as CEO of Novell with the goal of turningthe beleaguered company around. After Schmidt's arrival the profitability atNovell increased. However the internet bust of 2000 greatly slowed demand, leadingto Novell's acquisition of consulting firm Cambridge Technology Partners (CTP).Mr. Schmidt relinquished Novell's CEO position and assumed the role of chiefstrategist. In 2001, he joined the Google's board of directors and later becamethe CEO. Even though Eric is the legal CEO of Google he shares power with thefounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin in a triumvirate .

The leadership style of Eric Schmidt can be summarized in the following key


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points1. Get to know your followers.2. Create new ways to promote your followers.3. Let your followers own the problems you want them to solve4. Allow people to function outside the company hierarchy5. Review your team's results by someone they respect.How Eric Schmidt measures on the Messick's five dimensionsI. Get to know your followers

Erics success at Sun, Novell and now Google can largely be attributed to hisefforts at energizing the workforce of software engineers (technologists, geeks).He is intimately aware of their strengths and weaknesses. e.g. An engineer'sobsession with being truthful and precise. When asked a question, they are morelikely to answer only that specific question and nothing else. They are soparticular about being truthful, that someone not familiar with this behavior mayinterpret the engineer to be concealing facts or even lying. However, when askedthe right question, they provide highly effective information. Society stereotypesengineers and technologists as having poor social skills. While true in general,engineers are very social within their community. They communicate effectivelyamongst themselves and are organized into different sub-communities (mainframe-eragraybeards, Unix people, pc-web generation, Linux aficionados etc.). They enjoypublicity, are deeply interested in having an impact, and making the world a

better place.This leadership style primarily provides benefits on the "Vision-Direction"

dimension. It helps Eric formulate a vision, his followers are more likely toaccept and be motivated by.When Eric joined Novell, the company's future was very much in doubt. He correctlyrecognized a culture of fear that pervaded the organization. Bright engineers withrevolutionary ideas were reluctant to voice them for fear of being fired. Theengineers however, complained vociferously amongst themselves leading to a cultureof corporate cynicism. Recognizing this pervasive bellyaching, Eric asked twoengineers he met on the company shuttle, to give him the names of the smartestpeople they knew in the company. Eric met with each of them, and asked them inturn to identify the 10 smartest people they knew. In a few weeks, Eric had a listof 100 engineers he considered critical to Novell's future. He met with each of

them personally, encouraging them to take chances and follow their instincts. Heremoved the possibility of reprisals by their managers for voicing their opinions.This inspired the engineers and focused their efforts, resulting in innovative andimproved products. These changes helped Novell transform itself from a loss of $78million to a gain of $102 million.II. Create new ways to promote your followers

Eric's opinion is that most of the engineers in a corporation do not aspireto be executives or managers. The traditional approach of promoting people byturning them into managers is not attractive to many engineers. He suggestscreation of a technical career ladder that runs parallel to the executive ladder.To recognize outstanding achievements, other incentives like corporate awards,stock option grants need be handed out to the top performing engineers.

This management technique primarily benefits in the "Achievement

-Effectiveness" dimension in Messick's theory.During Eric's tenure at Novell, 20 of the top employees and spouses were

invited to the Presidents award program dinner each year. They were recognizedwith plaques and stock option grants. Even though the executive effort for such arecognition is small, it serves as a great morale booster to the people beingrecognized, enhancing their self-esteem and commitment to the organization.

Another example of promoting engineers is to let them present their productsat sales meetings. It allows the engineers to see, first hand, the positive impacttheir efforts have on customers realizing their dreams of making the world abetter place. At a sales meeting for ZENWorks, Eric persuaded an engineer fromUtah to recount his experiences of how a few engineers from Utah had pulled


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together as a team, with no support from management in California to build thisamazing product. The message resonated with the audience and helped suppress theculture of fear that existed in Novell at that point in time.At Google, Eric organizes a 5+ hour video presentation called "The Factory Tour",where different teams present their work. This event is broadcast over the web andarchived for anyone else that would like to see it at a later date. On the videoEric comes on stage with a light saber from Star Wars, sending out the signal thatGoogle celebrates the eccentricities of its engineers.

III. Let your followers own the problem you want them to solve.This management technique is a consequence of getting to know your

followers. Engineers like to solve difficult problems. They are invigorated by thechallenge posed by intractable problems. But they only solve problems thatinterest them. A leader with a good understanding of his follower's interests cantransform the problem into one that the engineer is interested in. The leaderneeds to articulate a challenging and significant end result, but leave out thespecific steps the followers should take. This allows the followers to interpretand internalize the objective utilizing their creative talents in meeting theleader's goals."Vision-Direction" is the primary Messick dimension that benefits from thistechnique.

At Google, Eric has stated the company's goal as "...Organizing the worldsinformation making it universally accessible and useful". An engineer working toindex billions of web pages can easily identify with this laudable goal. As apractical matter the goal of making information universally accessible is a moremeaningful goal for the engineer, interested in making his mark on society, ratherthan a mundane goal of increasing Google's revenues by $300 million dollars.Eric considers this transfer of ownership to be so important that while at Novellhe created a quarterly in-house radio show modeled after NPR's "Car Talk". He evenmade tapes available for in-car listening.IV. Allow people to function outside the company hierarchy

Companies make the mistake of promoting their most productive and creativeengineers into research, strategy or management positions. In strategy theyproduce brilliant documents that never get used. In research, they get ghettoized.

In management positions they end up devoting most of their time making sureeveryone else is following corporate policies. A similar problem is caused bymanagers who are not as smart as the people reporting to them. These managersinhibit innovative ideas coming from their bright subordinates.

Eric suggests the best way to manage engineers, is to let them self-organizeoutside the company hierarchy. Engineers seek out like-minded people withcomplementary skills and organize themselves into a team. As teams organize, anatural leader emerges from their midst. Team members report to a manager in thetraditional company hierarchy but are not forced to spend all their time on themanager's priorities.On Messick's dimensions, this technique provides benefits in the "Inclusion-Belonging" and the "Achievement-Effectiveness" dimension. By allowing engineers tochose their own groups, it fulfills the engineers desire to belong. Since the

members of the team join by choice rather than management decree, they have a highprobability of reaching their peak performance. The engineer also has the latitudeto work on a problem that interests him the most.

At Google engineers are given the latitude of spending 20% of their timeexperimenting in areas they consider interesting. This lets loose their creativespirits, giving Google a distinctive competitive advantage over its competitors.The history of software is replete with cases, where few people come up with abrilliant piece of software. A couple years later a few hundred people struggle tofollow-up on their idea e.g. the Mozilla browser, Unix, Linux, Java etc.

This novel method of organizing teams has helped Google come up withinnovative products like Google Earth and Orkut.


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V. Review your team's results by someone they all respect.Even though the previous management techniques increase the probability of

team success, it is not infallible. Teams of brilliant engineers fail when theyare following the wrong idea, are on the track or have poor execution. Checkpointsand reviews are used to identify problem teams. The challenge then, is how to passon this unpleasant message to the team members.

Eric management style is to let the team's progress be reviewed byindividuals the team respects. In most companies there exist a few individuals

that are universally respected or at least more respected than everyone else.These individuals have a way of articulating principles and have very goodmemories. Since they are considered impartial, teams are more open to receivefeedback or decisions even if the decision goes against them.

This technique mainly provides benefits in the Pride-Self-respect dimension.Conclusion

The preceding discussion on Eric's management style mentions only engineerssince they are the people he is most involved with. However, the techniques can beextrapolated to non-engineering professions as well.In summary, Eric Schmidt provides benefits on Messick's entire dimension listexcept Protection-Security". The lack of benefit along "Protection-Security" dimension is not as serious as it may first seem since this dimension has morerelevance in times of war and crisis. Software engineers consider themselves to be

living in a golden era with rising salaries and stock options.Vision-Direction is the dimension that benefits most from Eric's management style,followed by Achievement-Effectiveness, Inclusion-Belongingness and lastly Pride-Self respect.Effectively articulating audacious (organizing the worlds information) andmeaningful (making it universally accessible) goals allows the employees at Googleto be motivated and highly committed. They have internalized Eric's vision, andexpanded their own thinking releasing a sequence of innovative products. Whileothers businesses have focused on serving the Fortune 500 or Fortune 1000, Googlehas expanded its horizons to serve the Fortune 1 million, all the while ensuringthe end-user gets the fastest and most relevant search results. Thus Eric Schmidtin his role as a leader has set forth the right conditions enabling his follower'ssuccess and consequently the company's success.

Ref:

David M. Messick, "On The Psychological Exchange Between Leaders and Followers,"in David M. Messick and Roderick M. Kramer, The Psychology of Leadership: NewPerspectives and Research. 2005. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp.81-96

The term triumvirate is commonly used to describe an alliance between threeequally powerful political or military leaders. These alliances seldom hold verylong. The term can also be used to describe a state with three different militaryleaders who all declare to be the sole leader of the state. Wikipedia search onEric Schmidt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt

Russ Mitchell: How to Manager Geeks: Eric Schmidt, CEO of Novell, Fast CompanyIssue 25 1 June 1999

iv Harvard Business Review: Leading through Rough times: An interview with EricSchmidt 1 May 2001

19030674 leadership style of google ceo eric schmidt

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