Marissa Mayer Style of Leadership - Coursework Example

Running Head: Leadership Style Leadership Style Customer’s name: Institution: Customer’s Course Tutor’s Name 16th August, 2014 Introduction Based on the competitive nature of businesses and new perspectives and issues firms need to be more concerned with leadership team building. We are currently living in an era that offers a great number of opportunities for all those who seems to be willing to undertake responsibilities that seem inherent in the guidance of leadership within the industrial setting. It has been asserted that diverse leadership styles typically create different influences on entrepreneurial spirit. Based on these team leaders have an effect on the other members of the team, facilitating and encouraging competencies in the businesses. This essay aims at relating Marissa Mayer style of leadership to either one or more of the four leadership styles that have been outlined by Darling & Leffel 2010. This will be done by offering examples of how the leader has applied their leadership style in their business career. The other section will discuss critically how the leader’s leadership style has made them an effective or ineffective leader. Marissa Mayer style of leadership Northouse 2001, defined leadership as a process through which an individual influences a group so as to achieve a predetermined goal. And in the aim of achieving the goal visionary leaders need to place a lot of effort in the application of their leadership knowledge and skills. In a more general term leadership is more than management. For a leader to be successful they need to be strategic and show some level of innovation and motivation. Effective leadership teams comprise and place a lot of value to four types of styles, and the leadership teams that are productive need to have a balance or they ought to portray all the four styles. According to Drucker 1973, leadership tasks need to have four different kinds of people that is the thought person (analyzer), the front person (creator), the action person (director) and the people person (connector). He further argues that it is impossible to find the strengths of all these styles in one person. Thus, organizations need to be willing to develop and at the same time recognize individuals to represent each of the styles and by doing so a leadership team will ultimately reflect the assets of all the styles in their decision making. Merissa Mayer is currently the CEO and president of Yahoo having been appointed on 16th July 2012. Mayer leadership style can be seen as that of a director. Directors are usually action oriented they usually have a short attention span and mostly they tend to interrupt other peoples conversation and they usually try to avoid small talks at all costs (McGregor, 2013). They are more comfortable if they met in ad-hoc fashion than meet through formal meetings. The directors are habitually doers of the leadership teams and are more uncomfortable with the employees who are not actively involves in concrete achievements. With the aim of simplifying, of the bureaucratic process and make the organizational culture the best she launched an online program that was named PB & J. The program was designed to collect complaints from the employees and at the same time collect votes on issues that may arise in the office. In instances when an issue generates at least fifty votes, the online management mechanically investigates the issue (Kurvers, 2013). This seems to be a clear indication his leadership style. Mayer further portrayed his action oriented leadership style when she administered a main personnel policy change in the organization. The policy change required all the employees who were working remotely to convert to in office roles and duties. She was greatly criticized for this ban. She also made a major change to the maternity leave policy. She did this by lengthening the time and also offering a cash bonus to the parents (McGregor, 2013). By doing so, she was trying to conform to other Silicon Valley companies such as Google and Facebook. She also depicted her director leadership style when she instituted a performance review system this shows that she was stricter in the achievement of result and employees who were not performing to expectations did not please het at all. The performance review was based on a bell curve in ranking the employee performance. It was also suggested that those employees who were in the low end were to be fired. A great number of employees complained that a group of managers was seeing the process as a mandatory one. Merissa can also be viewed as an analyzer. Analyzers have a very low level of assertiveness as well as responsiveness. They are usually precise, systematic and deliberate in their leadership responsibilities and usually collect and evaluate a wide range of data before they make decisions. Additionally, they are indicators, well organized and objective. She portrays this leadership style in that over time she has become more focused on university pedigrees and academic credentials of new employees (Kurvers, 2013). A lot of critics have been raised and scholars in the field of management assert that getting too involved in the hiring of employees in an organizational that is large like yahoo is not the best way for a CEO to pass his time. Instead the time would be used on other matters that require more attention and which cannot be handled by other employees. By doing so, the company may lose out on the good example. This can at times negative signals that the leader so not trusts the senior management team in their organization and create distractions on the bigger strategic issues. How the leader’s leadership style has made them an effective or ineffective leader Effective leaders are required in almost all spheres of life. Effective leaders are usually charismatic personality, and individuals like to be around them and they usually influence people. Effective leaders are typically motivated and they can be able to communicate clearly. They are also enthusiastic as well as persuasive. Ineffective leaders on the other hand, tend to possess certain characteristics (McKenna, Shelton and Darling, 2002). They are generally self-centered, they are not effective communicators and they do not enjoy spending ample time with others. Most ineffective leaders are usually in the wrong jobs or employment or in the wrong business venture. Merissa Mayer seems to be an effective leader. She portrays this by the commitment she has to the employees of the organization (Darling & Leffel, 2010). As the CEO, Mayer spends a lot of time on business trips and she travels so as to meet the various teams in the organization. Her choice of doing so is typically twofold. From the design perspective, it helps her a lot in understanding how users relate with her organsational products (Kurvers, 2013). From the team building perspective, she does so in a bid to bond with the employees and at the same time builds integral relationships. Mayer in also an effective leader is that she has a lot of commitment to simplicity. Mayer is typically more concerned with the end user. When developing an app for the used or leading employee’s leaders needs to apply the same rule that; understands the end user. Mayer is also an effective leader is that she has a commitment to vision. Mayer’s vision at Yahoo is to prioritize design and mobiles. As an effective leader, one needs to have a vision and never at all stray from it. Effective leaders ought to lead their teams by making sure that their visions are clear and always taking them to the right direction so as achieve the goals. Mayer is also good at listening to other people opinions (Darling & Beebe, 2007). Effective leadership calls for more than just telling people what they are supposed to do and how they are supposed to do it. Mayer applied the PB & j system the system empowers the employees so as to simplify the processes that may act as hindrances when working and by doing so a more cohesive corporate culture is created. Mayer is also good in empowering others and hiring the best. Mayer surrounds herself with the best (Kurvers, 2013). Conclusion Based on the above discussion it is clearly evident that we are currently living in an era that offers a great number of opportunities for all those who seems to be willing to undertake responsibilities that seem inherent in the guidance of leadership within the industrial setting. It has been asserted that diverse leadership styles typically create different influences on entrepreneurial spirit. Based on these team leaders have an effect on the other members of the team, facilitating and encouraging competencies in the businesses. Thus an organization needs to be involved in the creation and development of effective leadership and most especially for those organizations operating in organizations that exceeds cultural boundaries. The leadership styles that have been dealt with can act as a great reference point to team building in organizations. Thus, ineffective leaders in the modern day business world have no room and they need to adopt and change to become effective leaders for them to be able to compete favorable with other firms operating in the same business environment. References Darling, J. & 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. Kurvers, J. (2013). How to Be a Better Leader: Marissa Mayer at Dream force 2013. Retrieved from http://blog.creativegroup.com/how-to-be-a-better-leader-marissa-mayer-dreamforce-2013 McGregor, J. (2013). Columnist March 12, 2013 Marissa Mayer’s unorthodox leadership at Yahoo. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-leadership/marissa-mayers-unorthodox-leadership-at-yahoo/2013/03/12/0cdcf58e-8b3c-11e2-9f54-f3fdd70acad2_story.html McKenna, M., S. Shelton, and J. Darling. (2002). The Impact of Behavioral Style Assessment on Organizational Effectiveness: A Call for Action. Leadership and Organization Development Journal Summer, 314-322 Meyerson, D. (2001). Tempered Radicals: How People Use Difference to Inspire Change at Work. Harvard Business School Press: Boston, MA. Northouse, P.G. (2001). Leadership: Theory and practice (2nd Ed.).Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Read More