Marrisa Mayer's Style of Leadership vs Four Leadership Styles Discussed by Darling and Leffel - Case Study Example

Language & Communication in the Global Business Context Introduction Leadership according to Darling and Leffel (2010, p. 356) is a very important role for any business organisation since it involves defining the team direction as well as motivating, communicating, empowering, and inspiring people to take part in realising organisational success. Darling and Leffel (2010, p. 359) analysed four different leadership styles, exhibited by various leaders: Analyser, Creator, Connector, and Director. In this case, the Analysers are leaders who are extremely reasonable and take time before concluding, so they take collect and analyse facts/data. The creator type leaders are opportunity and risk takers and also act fast and make very innovative decisions (Gabrielsson, Darling, & Seristö, 2009, p. 236). Connectors, on the other hand, are accommodating leaders who relate well with their staff and always endeavour to create a friendly working environment. What’s more, connectors prefer to inspire workers to team up instead of compelling them to do so. Finally, the directors have a tendency to be obdurate and concentrate more on results as well as tasks. The essay seeks to relate Marrisa Mayer’s style of leadership to one or more of the four leadership styles outlined in Darling and Leffel (2010) paper. Using leadership styles, presented in Darling and Leffel paper, the essay will offer examples of how Marissa Mayer has applied these leadership styles in her business career. What’s more, the essay will critically discuss how Mayer’s leadership style has made her an effective leader. Body Upon being appointed as Yahoo CEO in July 2012, people did not know that Marissa Mayer would perform almost perfectly in a Web company that had taken many years trying to resume growth subsequent to finding itself outshined by rapidly growing companies, such as Google. However, after a short time, Mayer gripped on challenges facing Yahoo. Being a creator, she concentrated on innovative projects; she made key acquisitions, which as a result restored the interests of the investors in the company (Prag, 2014). Since she took the office, the shares of Yahoo has doubled, and even though it is soon to speculate, we cannot ignore the fact that Mayer will take Yahoo back to long-term success. After becoming Yahoo CEO, Mayer first mission was to end Yahoo’s flexible policy that permitted workers to work from their home (Prag, 2014). To many this was outrageous for the reason that Mayer was a CEO and a young mother and so people anticipated that she would value the significance of a family-friendly place of work. However, according to Mayer, team members could not brainstorm while working from home, bearing in mind that brainstorming is key creativity in any organisation. Prag (2014) believes Mayer decision was worthwhile since it was awkward to allow employees to work from home, particularly for an internet company that is struggling in the market and is reliant on something innovative to maintain its relevancy. According to Darling and Leffel (2010, p. 362) distinct styles of leadership generate diverse influences on the entrepreneurial spirit, and therefore the team leader have an effect on other team members, facilitating as well as encouraging competencies within the organisation. Therefore, being a creator, and with need of new initiatives to counter the company’s competitors, Mayer possibly realised that her staff were performing their basic jobs at home, but were not in a position to synergize, brainstorm, and hit upon the breakthrough that Yahoo actually required. Leadership is by no means a simple position, and so one must look for the suitable motivations as well as appropriate approaches for diverse people that are followers. In addition, good leadership is always situational. Mayer’s leadership style proves that there is no procedure for all leading people, and since she had come up through organization’s ranks in Google, therefore she had prior knowledge of people she would institute creative team members that can come up with creative ideas such as Process, Bureaucracy, and Jams (PB&J) Program. The PB&J Program, a plan to improve Yahoo workers' happiness, morale, as well as work environments, and was seen as a key undertaking to make the company competitive again and to enable it to successfully compete against rivals such as Microsoft and Google (Carlson, 2012). Charing these creative teams proved she was a determined creator who was ready to go an extra mile to realise the needed creativity. Based on Darling and Leffel’s Interactive Dimensions as well as Strengths of Leadership Styles, Mayer exhibits more assertiveness because she is imaginative, sociable, fervent, friendly, influential, and spontaneous (Darling & Leffel, 2010, p. 361). Being a creator she always listens to innovative team at Yahoo and analyse the presented suggestions before taking any action. Creative decision pertaining to which programs are suitable for Yahoo, and working hand in hand with the Yahoo technical team, proves that Mayer is a leader endeavouring to take her creativity to next levels. After taking over as Yahoo CEO, Mayer deemed that an innovative and well-built senior management team at Yahoo could have assisted in raising new views and aid in changing the bureaucratic culture at Yahoo. Mayer realised that the key obstacles to innovation at the company was the infamous bureaucratic culture, which had rooted itself at Yahoo for decades. This as a result, had led to scores of top talented engineers at Yahoo to leave the company since it had not failed to introduce any noteworthy innovation for lots of years. What’s more, the then Yahoo’s customers use to visit the website only to utilise its outdated services such as search and email, which had been operational for decades. However, once Mayer took charge, everything changed and through the PB&J Program Yahoo is once again competitive (Carlson, 2012). Mayer creativity is indisputable: this is because she established that the work-at-home policy was becoming an obstacle since it was shunning brainstorming, which is an essential element of creativity for a company like Yahoo. Furthermore, after analysing she realised that the policy was offering no room for collaboration, which as a result had hampered the innovations needed by Yahoo to become successful. According to Darling and Leffel (2010, p. 362), an organisational leader whose output is innovative and creative must ensure there are circumstances for innovation as well as creativity to take place. Therefore, in doing away with the work-at-home policy, Mayer made it understandable that the action was not a castigatory move but instead a remedial that Yahoo needed. Therefore, it is evident that Mayer is an effective leader. Apart from being a creator, Mayer is an analyser since she realised that aside from the PB&J project, there was need to put into action a number of other initiatives to transform the Yahoo. For that reason, she utilised a mutual list of email known as dev random to connect with Yahoo's programmers by engaging with software engineers through regular email discussions. According to Darling and Leffel (2010, p. 362), creator types have a tendency to view the big picture; repeatedly take new, innovative, and novel approaches to leadership-based issues; and are ready to take risks to grab opportunities, especially in interactive leadership circumstances (Prag, 2014). What is more, Darling and Leffel (2010, p. 361) argue that a creator like mayer charm, convince, enthuse and motivate workers with future visions. Mayer instituted FYI meetings, which take place every Friday where workers ask her questions, and where the company makes announcements. Mayer is also a director since she concentrated much on the future’s mobile internet, and even though most people had ruled out the chance of changing the bureaucratic culture of Yahoo, Mayer proved them wrong. According to Gabrielsson, Darling, and Seristö (2009, p. 238), there are a number of basic qualities that motivating leaders share; for instance Mayer motivated people based on creative ideas. As aforementioned, Mayer is more assertive and she exhibited director style of leadership through attributes such as being independent, sincere, influential, no-nonsense, strong-minded, and well organized. Besides that, Mayer exhibits effective leadership because she is cautious of everything she does, and apart from being an excellent motivator, she is also a persuasive speaker. Being a creator, as mentioned by Darling and Leffel (2010, p. 362), Mayer is an out-of-the-box thinkers as well as creative leaders who often have countless ideas and take pleasure in talking about them in details. Conclusion In conclusion, this essay has discussed the current modern marketplace is heavily impacted by the forces of competition as well as innovation, and therefore entrepreneurial organisation such as Yahoo have to progressively more involved itself in effective leadership. Mayer can attest that there has never existed a good chance like now for developing better effectiveness in entrepreneurial leadership. Besides that, advancement of technology as well as the needs of modern civilization makes it truthfully an exhilarating instance for entrepreneurial leaders like Mayer to take hold of opportunities for company’s success. Mayer displays two style of leadership (Creator and director) from Darling and Leffel’s leadership styles paradigm, but for the most part, she is a Creator. Through innovative projects she introduced at Yahoo, Mayer was able to identify skilled young engineers and lure them to join her team of experts to take Yahoo to new competitive levels. Through her assertiveness and her creativity, Mayer has proved to be a determined and effective leader ready to turn every stone to take Yahoo to new competitive levels, which according to Darling and Leffel is expected from every leader. References Carlson, N. (2012, August 27). Marissa Mayer Sent A Late Night Email Promising To Make Yahoo 'The Absolute Best Place To Work'. Retrieved from Business Insider : http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer-sent-a-late-night-email-promising-to-make-yahoo-the-absolute-best-place-to-work-2012-8 Darling, J. R., & Beebe, S. A. (2007). Enhancing Entrepreneurial Leadership: A Focus on Key Communication Priorities. Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, 20(2), 151–168. Darling, J., & Leffel, A. (2010). Developing the Leadership Team in an Entrepreneurial Venture: A Case Focusing on the Importance of Styles. Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, 23(3), 355-371. Gabrielsson, M., Darling, J., & Seristö, H. (2009). Transformational team-building across cultural boundaries: A case focusing on the key paradigm of leadership styles. Team Performance Management, 15(5/6), 235 - 256. Prag, J. (2014, February 28). Why being the outside leader - like Marissa Mayer - is one of the toughest jobs in business. Retrieved from Daily Bulletin : http://www.dailybulletin.com/business/20140228/why-being-the-outside-leader-like-marissa-mayer-is-one-of-the-toughest-jobs-in-business Read More