Order Number |
965674556578 |
Type of Project |
ESSAY |
Writer Level |
PHD VERIFIED |
Format |
APA |
Academic Sources |
10 |
Page Count |
3-12 PAGES |
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Effective leadership is a critical tool in a corporate environment. However, some leaders have inadequate leadership skills that interfere with their performance, interfering with the performance of their corporations—the case of Marissa Mayer, a leader who served at Yahoo suits this context.
Mayer was a former employee at Google before she secured a position as the CEO with Yahoo to restore the status of the ailing corporation (Carson, 2015). Employees and other executives had great hope in Mayer, with the perception with her enigmatic figure and previous experiences at Google.
However, her arrival was a disappointment, to a greater extent, as she failed to implement change in the company, contrary to the expectations of senior executives. Mayer was a total disgrace to the entire company, Yahoo. The company had a grand vision of changing its consumer’s experiences through the internet and developing an excellent brand image, to effectively maneuver in a competitive environment with other companies, including Google (Myatt, 2015).
Mayer exemplified a sophisticated leadership style, coupled with biased approaches. Although a leader should exemplify excellent listening skills, Mayer was obsessed with listening, other than engaging in constructive discussions with other executives on how to turn around the company. Her decision-making processes were flawed; she could devise solutions to challenges affecting the company without critically analyzing the problem.
One and a half years after her arrival, employees were beginning to revolt her leadership strategies. On one occasion, she read a book meant to educate young children to her employees, who were angry concerning her leadership (Carson, 2015). Things were getting out of track.
Mayer had failed to create a conducive environment for her employees; there was inadequate trust between her and other executives. Trust in different constituencies in a corporate environment is critical. Mayor also steered the developed a toxic corporate culture, which is an indicator of an incompetent leader.
She made attempts to transform and amend a culture she never understood, the greatest failure of a CEO who is expected to steer an international company. Corporate culture is a critical tool that shifts a corporation’s position in the global scale, develops and stabilizes an excellent momentum.
In her transformation procedure, Mayer adopted multiple strategies without focusing on a single approach for an effective turnaround. Initially, Mayer had a variety of excellent strategy, however, the implementation phase was inconsistent, creating more trouble than good.
Her change strategy consisted of a variety of initiatives, ranging from acquisitions to novel technologies (Myatt, 2015). Acquisitions are effective in restoring a corporation, but for Mayor, they did not work in either way. During her tenure, Mayer signed acquisitions with fifty-one different companies, which led to the closure of forty-one, others reported huge losses, including Tumblr. Indeed, several approaches could have been integrated into the company for an excellent turnaround.
I disagree with Mayer’s decision and initiatives to implement change at Yahoo. An excellent leader should focus on establishing outstanding efforts to promote corporate success. For Mayer, creating a good rapport with other executives, developing a vision, and sharing ideas could have been an excellent strategy.
Establishing excellent attachments in an organization builds trust and necessitates the achievement of corporate goals. As a leader, being well-versed with cultural aspects of an organization is crucial before engaging in a transformation process, Mayer should have followed a similar strategy.
Also understanding the fragility of a corporate culture in the corporate’s ecosystem is crucial. Lastly, having unified strategies, other than focusing on scattered strategies is essential in an attempt to promote organizational success; here, Mayer could have focused on one initiative other than integrating multiple approaches simultaneously.
References
Carlson, N. (2015). Marissa Mayer and the fight to save Yahoo! Hachette UK.
Myatt, M. (2015, December 13). Marissa Mayer: A case study in poor leadership. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemyatt/2015/11/20/marissa-mayer-case-study-in-poor-leadership/#3d2ffdd73b46
Top of Form
The modern world of business is made up of intricate connections built on technology, global connectivity and strong organizational cultures. Researchers in both academia and practice argue that culture is a concept that is much-studied and talked about but seldom understood (Rajiv, 2019).
The centrality of culture in business performance is a critical factor to consider when planning ahead and performing such important duties as selecting an organization’s CEO. It is important to point out that not all highly talented managers and leaders are CEO-ready.
In any organization’s quest for success and superior performance, the CEO is a critical factor because they not only create the vision but also lead the team of employees toward its attainment. This post briefly and precisely discusses the case of corporate failure at Yahoo! Under the leadership of Marissa Mayer due to culture-related challenges.
As a newly seated CEO, one of the most critical things that one needs to do first is to build trust and confidence across all constituencies, but more especially with the workforce (Rajiv, 2019). From a global leadership viewpoint, a CEO should create firm relationships with the members of the workforce because the employee is the life and blood of the organizations.
The extent to which an organization can achieve high levels of innovation and creativity is directly connected to their ability to contribute in the decision making process. Mayer went against this best practice and opted to speak more than she was willing to listen to the people she was leading (Myatt, 2015).
She aimed at making everyone follow her example as she could work 130 hours a week. This resulted in lower levels of satisfaction because with the long working hours came the indefinite suspension of the work-from home program and the alteration of scheduling which affected the unlimited vacations.
What Mayer did was to want to make Yahoo another Google by overhauling the culture and introducing a new, seemingly fast-paced culture. Global best practice indicates that the most appropriate thing to do is to first understand the culture of the new workplace for CEOs like Mayer (Zucker, 2019).
She did not take time to understand her workers, something that saw numerous business magazines and online platforms term her the most disliked CEO in the US. Mayer did not recognize the fact that culture is the glue that cements all the business functions together.
Failing to understand the culture of the organization creates a toxic climate, which inhibits the employees’ ability and willingness to contribute. An organizational culture is a delicate ecosystem made up of multiple components, which, if not properly handled, could easily disentangle very fast.
Mayer constantly disempowered the employees by not allowing them to make mistakes. Global leadership best practices suggest that a good CEO is one that considers the employees more than themselves, and that all employees should be allowed to make mistakes. Mayer was about listening to herself and wanting everyone else to follow her options (Myatt, 2015).
With such a toxic climate, the employees stop offering their insights and suggestions, some of which could steer the organization toward the achievement of its goals and ultimately its vision. In addition to violating the culture at Yahoo! Mayer failed to work with a clearly articulated strategy, instead opting to go for acquisitions, with the hope of new people coming in with new solutions.
If I were in her position, I could have done things totally differently by allowing the culture of Yahoo to thrive and by involving the employees at every point of the decision making process. I could have acknowledged the centrality of unlearning because Mayer did not want to unlearn; instead, she preferred to force her approach on the employees.
I could have chosen more intricate strategies and adopted a better execution method. I could have been more open-minded because Mayer’s close-mindedness played a role in hurting the culture of Yahoo, one that supported work-life balance.
References
Myatt, M. (2015). Marissa Mayer: A Case Study in Poor Leadership. Forbes Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemyatt/2015/11/20/marissa-mayer-case-study-in-poor-leadership/#662036793b46
Rajiv, A. (2019). Turnaround Management: An Explorative Investigation of the Strategic Leadership Competencies for the Turnaround of Indian IT Firms (Doctoral dissertation, Dublin, National College of Ireland).
Zucker, R. (2019). Why Highly Efficient Leaders Fail. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2019/02/why-highly-efficient-leaders-fail