LEADERSHIP STYLE ANALYSIS – A REVIEW OF MARISSA MAYER, CEO OF YAHOO
Introduction
Women were generally excluded from the work force until the second half of the 20th Century. The leadership of women is often interpreted in a sociological context because that is the main area where women differ from their male colleagues. However, for all aspects of leadership, women are seen as great leaders who utilize the same codes of best practices that are generally accepted and they go further in social aspects of leaders and attain results.
Marissa Mayer is the President and CEO of Yahoo, a world leader in providing email and internet services to consumers. Marissa is distinguished and is known for turning around Yahoo in a time when things were difficult and made it a profitable entity. There are several media outlets that identify that Marissa Mayer is known for listening to her employees and taking their views into account. This therefore indicates that she is known for using democratic leadership with high concern for people in her leadership approach. The purpose of this paper is to critically analyze and review the leadership approach and style used by Marissa Mayer and document her methods and processes in leading.
Distributive leadership is an attempt to create a social construction that defines the nature of leadership employed by a given leader and this is based on a description of what a leader does or does not do. This is often based on the realities and complications that is faced by an organization which a manager has to deal with. This includes the most pressing needs and the most appropriate pointers that defines the style of leadership appointed by a leader.
Marissa Mayer is known for making major changes when she took over as the CEO of Yahoo. This was a tough time when things were very difficult for Yahoo and they needed to make major modifications. Marissa Mayer made some decisions that were criticized, however, in the most complicated situations, she always took her workers’ feedback and information and analyzed it before making any choices. This shows that Marissa is focused on listening to employees and taking their inputs as an important part of her leadership. This shows she is democratic and wants to do things that workers consider to be important and vital for their efforts and goals.
She has been described by numerous newspapers as an innovator who has a system of leading by presenting new ideas regularly. This includes the presentation of different points on how to improve the company and listening to workers on how they think they can participate and help to move Yahoo forward. However, reporters also identify that there is an element of authoritarianism in the way Marissa Mayer carries out her leadership. Although she gives people the chance to present their views and opinions about things that must be done, she comes together with a small core of leaders and propose solutions which must be transmitted down the hierarchy of Yahoo. This has been condemned by several workers in Yahoo and they have criticized the system and approach of leadership used by Marissa. These criticisms indicate that Marissa carries out her management style in a tight fisted system and process that does not give room for flexibility to executives at the lower levels of the company.
In summary, it can be identified that Marissa Mayer is democratic. She believes in listening and taking feedback from the workers. In spite of this, her command from the top to the bottom is somewhat rigid and autocratic.
Critical Perspectives
Although Marissa Mayer is viewed by most people as democratic, there is evidence that suggests that her democratic processes go against the traditional approaches and methods used by Yahoo and in the tech industry. For instance, a critic of her work states that her approach to leadership does not reflect the most appropriate controls necessary for the attainment of results because she seeks to give a voice to people who do not matter on sensitive issues. This is because there is a tried and tested way of doing things and this involves listening to some people and some important parties and ensuring that these people are taken seriously and consulted personally in serious issues and matters. However, in the case of Marissa Mayer, there is a general trend where she wants people to decide sensitive things.
Marissa Mayer is viewed as being too rigid without the ability to be flexible. This is often viewed as a form of complication. Numerous female leadership professionals argue that women are seen to be aggressive in instituting rigid methods that males often utilize. Thus, for instance, the policy of “working from home” which was adopted by Yahoo earlier in the mid-2000s was stopped by Marissa Mayer after listening to employees through surveys. On the other hand, Google continues to use this and this allows their workers to travel and work and have flexible lives. This prevents workers from having to drive to work every day which could be a waste of time.
The Agency Theory which views a leader as a person who takes into account all the needs of the stakeholders in the promotion of organizational goals and activities is vital and important in critiquing leaders. In this direction, it seems Marissa Mayer has a desire to engage with all stakeholders and deliver their needs and expectations. Marissa Mayer’s vision has been on expansion and growth of Yahoo as a means of achieving leverage and balancing the needs by diversifying the income generation streams.
This shows that Marissa Mayer is more focused on achieving long-term goals and ensuring that the company achieves leverage and ensures the survival of Yahoo over a sustained period of time. This is obviously unpopular with shareholders, but it seem to be the kind of leadership necessary in a time of challenges and difficulties for the technology giant. This shows a form of strong leadership which is based on the realities and the focus on important goals and ends that are most likely to lead the company to its required or expected end. This is a form of leadership that is based on the greater good and the best good that is focused on situations and expectations.
It is identified that leadership is about seeking balance between extreme points and making choices that will seek the best interest of the organization or group. This is because leadership is based on making rational choices to move the organization from one point to another. Therefore, in this case, Marissa Mayer is seen to be a leader who draws on different possibilities and makes credible choices that are based on the best interest of the organization. Therefore, Marissa Mayer is seen as one who carries out what is important. Moreover, she was brought to Yahoo to meet specific goals and ends. This was steeped in survival and the attainment of the best interest of the company. Viewing the realities of the technological industry and how competitive and challenging it is, Marissa Mayer viewed the option of setting up the organization and expansion through acquisition as the main approach for growth. And through this, it seems Yahoo is on course to becoming a major entity and one that will remain productive in the process.
Another feature of Marissa Mayer is that she challenges her subordinates by urging them to work harder. This is seen to be something that is revolutionary because most other leaders in the tech industry like Steve Jobs are seen to be leaders who always encourage their followers to do what they need to do and inspire them to work better and harder. In spite of this, Marissa Mayer is seen as someone who shows so much disappointment in her workers and when they fail to meet her specifications, they always feel they are on the verge of being fired. This can be seen as some kind of negative attitude and negative approach towards motivating people under her. This is somewhat destructive but from experiences, it is apparent that this system works and has a way of getting workers to remain on their toes and seek to work harder each time to improve Yahoo.
Transformational & Charismatic Leadership
Marissa Mayer is not without her opponents. She is not as charismatic as other tech leaders like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. This is because she was not the original founder and she moved to Yahoo with a rather modest background and history. However, she is able to tie the company’s growth and expansion to the needs of the people in many ways that makes her more like a transformational leaders at least, in terms of employee engagement.
Bass and Avolio build on Burns’ theory of leadership which divides leaders into those concerned with people and those who are concerned with results. Transformational leadership is based on the ability of leaders to integrate the best needs of people to the production process and this way, the followers and people connected to the business can develop hand-in-hand with the business itself. This means that a transformational leader takes into consideration, all the needs of the group as well as the needs of the followers individually and collectively, sums it up and ensures that everyone gets a fair share of the opportunities and results promised by the organization.
Transactional leadership on the other hand is a concern for results and for the achievement of optimal results within a specific timeframe. Thus, the leader sees workers as a means to achieving that end and some authorities call transactional leaders slave drivers because they work the employees to death only to achieve results and meet work targets with little or no sensitivity to the needs and expectations of the workers.
Marissa Mayer was brought to Yahoo to rescue the sinking company. Yahoo, which started well as a major email service provider and Internet giant in the 1990s began to go downhill in the mid-2000s. It lost market shares to Google which was far behind Yahoo in the 1990s and began to lose its market dominance. Thus, the motive of appointing Marissa Mayer who was a Google employee was to inject new ideas to the company and restore the leadership status of Yahoo. By voting for Marissa, the shareholders expected quick results and quick increases in the share values because they believed she could work hard and achieve the best of results.
In spite of the pressure and stress to make money and make it quickly, Marissa Mayer instituted some elements of transformational leadership that considered the bigger picture as opposed to concern for production only. First of all, Marissa Mayer focused on the long-term interest and goals of the company. This includes the expansion and acquisition of innovative subsidiaries that have the ability to grow and enhance their activities and processes. This led to the system whereby the company sought to promote the growth and attainment of leverage over the long-run in order to achieve the best of results and achieve the optimal returns expected of Yahoo.
Secondly, Marissa Mayer focused on listening rather than taking up autocratic leadership processes. This is because in a period of pressure, a leader will be tempted to do what is necessary to salvage her image and stay favorable with the top managers. However, Marissa Mayer did not go in that direction. She focused on the achievement of the long-term interest and the best goals of the company. This included long-term growth which will ensure that Yahoo grows and remains productive into the foreseeable future. This will also mean that Yahoo will be able to continue making profits to its workers, rather than using aggressive and high-risk techniques which could be detrimental and negative to Yahoo’s future. Also, the quest for leverage is to ensure that there is a guaranteed future for all workers. Thus, they are brought on board and asked questions of what they really want and how they can be most productive. Thus, through this, they are able to contribute and demand what is right.
Conclusion
Female leadership is often marked by different preferences in social matters. Marissa Mayer is seen as a leader who is democratic but quit strict in her implementation of consensus from leaders. She is a transformational leader who looks for the long-term interest of both shareholders and employees. Due to this, she is ensuring the expansion and growth of Yahoo with little concern for the pressure to be focused on achieving results for shareholders only.
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