Leadership Concepts
Joy Daniels
MMPBL 520 – Transformational Leadership
January 10, 2011
Instructor – Rick Johnson

Leadership Concepts Google Inc. is an American corporation that offers internet search engines, public media, and advertising. Google brings in its revenue mainly from its advertising online and in emails. Google has made most of it money in recent years with revenues reaching up to $23 billion in 2009 (Google Inc., 2010). “Knowledge management is any structured activity that improves an organization’s capacity to acquire, share, and use knowledge in ways that improve its survival and success. The knowledge that resides in an organization is called its intellectual capital, which is the sum of everything that an organization knows that gives it competitive advantage—including its human capital, structural capital, and relationship capital” (McShane & Von Glinow, 2005, p. 23). Eric Schmidt is the company’s chairman and CEO who has been a key figure to the company’s success by capturing the knowledge management into his leadership style. The leadership at Google is responsible for the innovation seen within its employees. Eric Schmidt feels that the future of this company can be dictated by its culture. There is not really a five year plan as stated by Mr. Schmidt (Carlson, 2009). Employees are given the opportunity for a more flexible schedule being that they are able to choose the projects that best interest them. As a result this increases the morale within the Google environment on behalf of all the employees. Schmidt believes a key to Google’s success encamps around the idea that its employees are better suited with a belief and value system within the company. Google’s leadership is not a totem pole scenario. The man at the top is not the only one that is allowed to put forth ideas. Google’s leadership and work environment have been consistently amongst the best in the nation and have been named amongst the best companies to work for by Fortune magazine for the past four years. This is due to the company’s willingness to have an open ear and mind to its valued employees. McShane-Glinow states that today’s increasingly educated and independent workforce resents the traditional “command-and-control” supervision, and financial rewards are far from perfect. Values represent a potentially powerful way to keep employees’ decisions and actions aligned with the corporate goals ( 16). Google has an environment that they pride themselves on for allowing their employees to be able to speak their minds to their leaders and coworker (Carlson, 2009).

Bath & Body Works, LLC is an American retail store under the Limited Brands department. It was founded in 1990 in New Albany, Ohio and has since extended across the country. It specializes in numerous odorous lotions, bath items, personal care items, and home fragrances. Other Limited Brands include The Limited, Victoria's Secret, Express, Henri Bendel, White Barn Candle Co., and C.O. Bigelow. Limited Brands also once owned Abercrombie & Fitch as well as Lane Bryant and Lerner, which is now known as New York & Co. When asked what are the four company values seen within Bath and Body works they are quite intriguing answers. The first being that employees should always do what is right. The second is being inclusive; the third is that each employee should recognize that they are working for a greater good of the enterprise and the communities in which they operate. Lastly the pursuit of excellence is expected. Limited Brands encourages and invites associates to openly speak with their manager or supervisor, higher levels of management or Human Resources partner about work-related ideas, questions, problems and concerns (http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=94854&p=irol-govConductQuestions).
The first ethical dilemma deals with Gap and Victoria’s Secret. As stated in the article, “Sri Lanka has become one of the biggest suppliers of US Brands.” Protesters believe a person should not buy from Victoria Secret and GAP because they use Sri Lanka as a supplier. “Leaflets distributed said that trade in garments by US big label stores with Sri Lanka promotes a Government that has allegedly killed thousands of Tamil civilians, committing possible war-crimes in the process, according to a recent US State Department report.” In Limited Brands Code of Conduct, the section of sub-contracting binds all suppliers and sub-contractors to fully comply with its Code of Conduct. Formal pre-approval needs to be provided to Limited Brands, should a nominated supplier are in need of sub-contracting. The supplier agrees to provide relevant information regarding these activities and allows Limited Brands (or its representatives) to inspect these work places at any time. This principle could be applied to the dilemma with Gap and Victoria’s Secret. These two companies should use this principle to improve the dilemma with Sri Lanka and the idea that they promote a government that has be involved with war-crimes in the process of their supplying. If this principle was applied, Gap and Victoria’s Secret would not use Sri Lanka as a supplier unless they were in complete compliance with the Code of Conduct (Wordpress.com). Even more, as part of corporate social responsibility, many companies have adopted the triple bottom line philosophy. This means that they try to support or “ earn positive returns” in the economic, social, and environment spheres of sustainability McShane- Glinow, 2004). Bath and Body Works and Limited Brands in general they are committed to creating a diverse organization and an inclusive culture which permeates everything that they do (http://thelimitedstores.com/social_responsibility/inclusion/index.jsp)

Compare and Contrast
In the world we live in today each company is going to react differently to different issues and scenarios. However both of these companies reviewed show an interest in the company and the customers. Companies will exercise many different leadership styles that all have the potential to produce beneficial results. Leadership can be hard to attain especially precise and effective leaders. Google has an environment that they pride themselves on for allowing their employees to be able to speak their minds to their leaders and coworker (Carlson, 2009). Google and Bath and Body Works are two very successful companies each with very different leadership styles and seemingly somewhat varying values and ethic systems. Google’s leadership allows its employees to have more flexibility in decisions that they would choose to make at work while Bath and Body Works value system seems to say that it has more of a monitored leadership style with not as much room for flexibility. Both companies are very good at what they do as shown by their consistent revenue. The employees at one place ( Google) might have a bit more freedom due to its type of work.

References

Carlson, N. (2009). Google CEO Eric Schmidt: "We Don't Really Have A Five-Year Plan" Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-we-dont-really-have-a-five-year-plan-clip-2009-5#ixzz1ATzQAOtw. Business Insider. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-we-dont-really-have-a-five-year-plan-clip-2009-5

Google Inc.. (2010). Google Investor Relations. Retrieved from http://investor.google.com/financial/tables.html

McShane, S.L., & Von Glinow, M.A. (2004). Introduction to the Field of Organizational Behavior (3rd ed.). New York, New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc..

McShane, S.L., & Von Glinow, M.A. (2005). ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR: EMERGING REALITIES FOR THE WORKPLACE REVOLUTION (3rd ed.). New York, New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc..