Lots of the contemporary U.S. companies face the real dilemma regarding the leaders and their role in the companies’ development. In fact, a number of huge businesses of nowadays lack the leadership resources to establish proper relationships within the company. Among them, Yahoo is worth of our attention in this paper. The main issue arose within the company are associated with its top executives, who, according to the latest, reports failed to comply with the difficult situation inside the company. These problems are dismal financial performance, poor management execution, egregious compensation and hiring practice, and the absence of proper level of accountability for one’s actions (Mattone, 2016). The CEOs of the company have changed five times during the previous five years. Despite the outstanding career of Marissa Mayer, she faces the real problems of leadership, as she cannot as for now motivate the staff to move the company into the future.
Discussion
The second challenge Ms. Mayer can face is the power one. In fact, having so many powers left at her disposal can lead to the situation, when she on her own or with a limited circle of people takes a decision on how the company shall develop, not involving the staff into this process. The well-established absence of accountability within Yahoo can add the other negative features: being omniscient, omnipotent, and invulnerable, the CEO cannot become an effective leader of the company (Johnson, p. 434). Additionally, the abuse of privilege can occur, as, concerning the situation in Yahoo, the Board of Directors enabled the CEO to, at first, do her best within any accountability, as the situation requires so. Also, by saying that contemporary situation is solely the responsibility of the previous leaders, thus avoiding the accountability for a number of CEO’s actions in present can impose the responsibility challenge on Ms. Mayer. In this respect, she is advised to hold herself to the same standards, as the employees, take responsibility for the consequences of her orders and actions, and acknowledge and try to correct the problems within the company not imposing the whole responsibility on the previous board (Johnson, p. 439).
However, among the main problems for Ms. Mayer the challenge of loyalty arises first. In fact, she was previously the fully devoted Google Inc. employee, a speaker thereof. Such state of affairs cannot satisfy all the employees of Yahoo, who are daily under the risk of shortcut. Also, the feelings of anger and injustice within the company can be substantiated by the fact that that was the Google expert selected, not the one from Yahoo, though such experts, obviously, existed. This a priori makes the relationship between the board management and stuff tougher and harder. Thus, the loyalty challenge is to be faced. That is why Ms. Mayer is to act in the best interests of the employees (p. 442) demonstrating, additionally, that she considers herself to be a part of this team, that she chose something better, than she had had. On the contrary, it is not likely for the new CEO to face the rigid leadership issues, as the remains competent and open for any new ideas (p.442). However, this last component is to be remembered for long, as otherwise the growth of Yahoo is not possible. Kellerman makes a few recommendations in terms of leadership which we would like to write down here (p.446). Firstly, the CEO shall from the beginning limit her tenure and share power delegating the one to those experts, who are unjustifiably ignored for long in the company (p. 447). Despite developing the new hope that everything will be improved in Yahoo and sharing the latter with the staff, Ms. Mayer shall get real and remain real (p.446), understanding that these leadership and brand problems exist. In this respect, she is advised to remember the mission she was selected to accomplish and develop a personal support system by properly communicating with the employees (p.447).
References
Johnson, C.E. (2016). Organizational Ethics: A Practical Approach 3rd edn. New York:
SAGE
Mattone, J. (2016). Yahoo’s Problem? A Massive Lack of Leadership at the Top. The Huffington Post
