Marissa Mayer: An Ineffective Leader

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Intro
In order to examine why Marissa Mayer resigned from Yahoo! in 2014, it is important to note the root cause of her ineffective leadership. During her reign at Yahoo!, Mayer made several poor leadership moves in additional to her poor tone as a leader. To fully analyze her missteps as an effective lesson for future leaders, it is valuable to dissect: problem solving tools, workplace conflict, team building, emotional impact on decision making and emotional intelligence. Recommendations will follow the analysis to suggest what might have been more effective strategy with regard to Mayer’s leadership approach.

Background
In an effort to fully understand a leader and his or her tendencies it is very important to study their background. …show more content…

Meyer began her reign at Yahoo! with many internal policy changes; even though she has no real leadership training other than the promotions she experienced during her time at Google. To begin, she would not entertain employee complaints unless she received 50 complaints about the same issue. Mayer brought remotely-working team members back into the office to work and banned telecommuting, altogether. During 2013, she adopted a performance review policy at Yahoo! based on bell-curve and those team members who appeared at the bottom of the curve were let go as opposed to being rehabilitated in some capacity. A very costly move for Yahoo! as replacing and training team members is one of the most timely and expensive aspects a company faces. Bad for morale, the bell-curve can create alienation in team members and eventually caused Mayer lawsuit for such practices as they were claimed to violate the California state labor laws. Offered a $23 million compensation package, Mayer resigned from Yahoo! in June of …show more content…

Evaluating team members through a secret measurement system and then laying them off due to their results, Mayer attempted a cover-up. This system creates great resentment, fear and distrust to any leader and organization that conducts business in such a disrespectful manner.
5.) Slow and painful layoffs. When the layoffs that had already happened became publicized, Mayer committed to her team and the public that they were complete. She then proceeded to let more team members go resulting in her dishonesty and a painful process becoming more agonizing for the Yahoo! staff. As a result, the team at Yahoo! would have no reason to ever trust her word again.
6.) Over-diversifying the organization. Mayer accomplished successes at Google through taking the organization in different directions to strengthen the company. Because these moves were successful at Google does not justify the need to repeat the same at Yahoo!. This attempt was not the right recipe for Yahoo! and just added to Mayer’s inability to make strong strategic decisions.
7.) Using irrelevant time-frames. Due to her lack of leadership skills and vision, Mayer forecasted organizational changes to be visible far out into the future in an effort to buy her time. Effective leaders can establish changes and know they will be meaningful as opposed to making promises and

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