Google's Success: Why Its Culture Is the Cause

Introduction Google 's culture is what defines its leadership style, power structure, motivation theories, and its employees ' commitment to the company. Google states on its own website "though Google has grown a lot since it opened in 1998, we still maintain a small company feel. At lunchtime, almost everyone eats in the office café, sitting at whatever table has an opening and enjoying conversations with Googlers from different teams. Our commitment to innovation depends on everyone being comfortable sharing ideas and opinions. Every employee is a hands-on contributor, and everyone wears several hats. Because we believe that each Googler is an equally important part of our success, no one hesitates to pose questions directly to Larry or Sergey in our weekly all-hands (“TGIF”) meetings – or spike a volleyball across the net at a corporate officer" (Google, 2010). In order to understand how the culture of Google affects the aforementioned leadership, power, motivation, and commitment, a closer examination is required.

Leadership Google 's leadership style is not top-down. Based on their flat organization style the company is more democratic than autocratic in its culture. According to Karen Goodwin at Google, "We 're a highly collaborative culture... There 's no top-down hierarchy" (Yung, 2007 p1). The founders of Google Larry Page and Sergey Brin are still active in the day-to-day operation of the company. For a couple of billionaires it is interesting they are still so passionate about the company considering all the other options they have with such accumulated wealth. However, they created a company culture "that deeply believes in delegation. Individual employees are encouraged to speak their mind from the first day, and even decisions classically reserved for management, such as hiring, are done through a collaborative process" (Johansson, 2010). It can easily be seen that the leadership style of Google is to promote a robust open communication

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