Unit 4: Leadership and Management

Assignment Brief
Student Name/ID Number

Unit Number and Title Unit 4: Leadership and Management

Academic Year 2024 - 2025

Unit Tutor Sara Saigal

Leadership, Management and Motivational Strategy for
Assignment Title
Google’s 20% Time Policy

Issue Date 13/11/24

Submission Date 19/12/24

Submission Format

The submission format will be in the form of a comprehensive Business Report; the first
part of which will analyse the leadership and management strategy for the organisation
and the second part will include a written pitch to propose a detailed motivational and
performance plan to monitor the team for continuous improvement.

A bibliography must be provided using the Harvard referencing system (or an alternative
system) to justify evidence and research. Inaccurate use of referencing may lead to issues
of plagiarism if not applied correctly.

The recommended word limit for the Business Report is 3500 - 4000 words, although you
will not be penalized for exceeding the total word limit.

You will also be required to deliver a 5 minute individual Verbal Presentation (formative
task) to the core management to brief them on the recommended motivational and
performance plan. PowerPoint slides should be submitted for feedback and record
purposes. You are encouraged to make effective use of headings, bullet points and
subsections as appropriate.

Unit Learning Outcomes

LO1 Examine leadership and management theories and principles, and their impact on the
effectiveness of an organisation.
LO2 Review the influence of different leadership and management styles on the culture of
organisations.
LO3 Develop a motivational strategy to optimise organisational performance.
LO4 Apply leadership and management approaches to managing performance to ensure
continuous improvement.

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Transferable skills and competencies developed
• Effective written communication.
• The ability to analyse and evaluate a range of business data and sources of
information.
• Using research for evidence-based decision making.
• Digital literacy.
• Interpretation of information that allows for evaluation of theory to practice.
• Communication and listening, including the ability to produce clear, structured
business communications in a variety of media.
• Digital skills using different software applications to visually present information
and data concisely.
• Creative thinking for presenting information.
• Creativity, innovation and enterprise when seeking solutions to business needs.
• The ability to undertake critical analysis and evaluation to support decision making.

Vocational scenario

Organisation

Google is an American multinational corporation that specializes in internet-related

services and products. Google is a technology company focusing on online advertising,
search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-
commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial intelligence (AI). It has been referred to as
“the most powerful company in the world”.

Under Google’s 20% time, which was introduced by Google co-founders Larry Page and
Sergey Brin in 2004, the company introduced this policy that allowed employees to
dedicate 20% of their work hours (one day a week) to side projects. This innovation time
encouraged creativity, experimentation, and collaboration outside of their core job
responsibilities. It is a brilliant example of corporate innovation management and as a
result, many google products are a result of this, including Gmail, Google Maps, Google
News, and Adsense. The idea behind this policy is to encourage employees to pursue their
passions, explore new ideas, and ultimately contribute to Google’s overall innovation
pipeline.

Role

You are the newly appointed ‘Innovation Champion and Facilitator’ at Google who has
been delegated to lead the employees in order to make the best use of Googles 20% time
by fostering a culture of innovation while ensuring positive outcomes as a result of this
new policy. You must implement a plan to pave the way for employees and strategize

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efficient use of their time and resources to fulfill the proposed benefits of this new policy;
innovation, employee satisfaction and collaboration.
Your team consists of 25 top performers from various departments who will work together
to foster improvement and efficiency through innovation and creativity. It is your
responsibility to manage your diverse team effectively and efficiently by:

• Implying leadership policies to give clear direction and vision to your team.
• Implementing motivational strategies to achieve commitment and success within
the team to carry out organisational excellence.

• Applying monitoring tools to evaluate performance of team members in relation to

the given aims and objectives.
• Building relationships to harbor an environment of productivity and efficiency
within the team.

As a team leader, you are required to analyse leadership and management strategies for
the organisation and present a motivational and performance management plan to the
core management to get authorisation on the implementation.

Assignment activity and guidance

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LO1 and LO2

Task 1: Leadership and Management Strategy for Google

Critically evaluate the leadership and management theories at Google; their impact on
decision making and factors that influence the organisational culture.

Your report should include:

• Explore leadership and management theories used at Google and their application
in the workplace in order to analyse the effectiveness of leadership and
management in the given organisation;
• Assess their style of leadership by comparing it with two other organisations of
similar scope and comparable market size;
• Examine these different leadership and management approaches and analyse their
impact on decision making, organisational culture and performance.

Do consider the use of the following themes in your report:

• Definitions, theories and impacts of leadership and management
• Leadership skills and competencies especially hard vs soft skills
• Factors influencing organisational culture

LO3 and LO4

Task 2: Motivational and Performance Plan

Now that you have analysed the leadership and management styles of Google along with
other business examples from the industry, as a team leader, present a motivational
strategy and performance management plan for your diverse team members. Your plan
can build upon current Google strategies or recommend a different plan based on your
findings from the report.

You are required to submit a written pitch to produce a detailed motivational and
performance plan to monitor the team for continuous improvement along with delivering
a presentation to the core management for authorisation.

The motivational and performance plan should address the following areas:
 An introduction to motivational theories, including content and process theories,
performance management and continuous improvement

• Proposed application of performance management approaches

• Assessment of leadership and management approaches and theories including their
role in supporting performance
• Recommendations on how the above could improve continuous improvement and
performance.

Support your strategy with relevant literature. The link between strategy and enhanced
organisational performance should be clear in relation to Google with an emphasis on

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 how it supports the organisation’s objectives.

Recommended Resources

Please note that the resources listed are examples for you to use as a starting point in
your research – the list is not definitive.

Textbooks
ADAIR, J. (2019). Develop Your Leadership Skills: Fast, Effective Ways to Become a Leader
People Want to Follow. Kogan Page.
KELLY, P. and COLE, G. (2020) Management: Theory and Practice. 9th Ed. Cengage.
MULLINS, L. J. (2019) Organisational Behaviour in the Workplace 12th Ed. Harlow: Pearson.
ORTI, P and MIDDLEMISS, M. (2019). Thinking Remote. Inspiration for Leaders of
Distributed Teams. Virtual Not Distance.

CHAFFEY, D. (2022) Higher Nationals in Business Core Textbook. 1st Ed. Custom Publishing.

Weblinks

BBC Learning English. The Handy Guide to Management. Available at:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/work/handy/handy.shtml

Ted Talks. Available at: www.tedtalks.com

MindTools. Available at: www.mindtools.com

Management Today. Available at: www.managementtoday.com

https://hbr.org/2013/08/just-how-valuable-is-googles-2-1

Business and Management Publications

"How Google's 20% Time Fosters Innovation" (Forbes, 2011)

"The Secret to Google's Innovation" (Fast Company, 2013)

"Google's 20% Time: A Key to Innovation" (Bloomberg Businessweek, 2012)

"The Rise and Fall of Google's 20% Time" (The Verge, 2013)

Business Training Works. Available at: www.businesstrainingworks.com

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 HN Global

HN Global (2021) Reading Lists. Available at:

https://hnglobal.highernationals.com/learningzone/reading-lists

HN Global (2021) Student Resource Library. Available at:

https://hnglobal.highernationals.com/subjects/resource-libraries

HN Global (2021) Textbooks. Available at: https://hnglobal.highernationals.com/textbooks

Learning Outcomes and Assessment Criteria

Pass Merit Distinction

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 LO1 Examine leadership and management theories
and principles, and their impact on the effectiveness
of an organisation

M1 Analyse the
P1 Discuss different
impact of the LO1 and LO2
theories of leadership
in relation to the application of
D1 Critically evaluate
management leadership and
the impact of different
activities in different management
approaches to
organisations. theories on the
leadership and
effectiveness of a
P2 Explore different management.
large organisation.
theories of management
in relation to the
management and
leadership activities in
different organisations.
LO2 Review the influence of different leadership and
management styles on the culture of organisations

P3 Assess different M2 Compare the

leadership and impact of leadership
management styles and and management
their application in a styles on decision
range of business making in different
situations in different organisations.
organisations.
P4 Examine the factors M3 Evaluate the
that influence the importance of
development of the organisational
culture in organisations. culture on the
performance of
different
organisations.
LO3 Develop a motivational strategy to optimise
D2 Produce a
organisational performance comprehensive
M4 Produce a motivational strategy
P5 Produce a motivational
detailed motivational that effectively
strategy for an
strategy for an addresses all variables of
organisation that
organisation that motivation to enhance
supports optimal
addresses intrinsic organisational
achievement of
and performance.
organisational objectives. extrinsic motivation.

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Pass Merit Distinction

LO4 Apply leadership and management

approaches to managing performance to ensure
continuous improvement.
D3 Make
recommendations
P6 Apply to a range of M5 Assess how to improve performance
business situations, leadership and management that will
appropriate leadership management ensure continuous
and management approaches for improvement.
approaches for managing performance
managing performance supports continuous
and continuous improvement.
improvement.

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