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Marissa Mayer's Leadership Style Analysis

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Marissa Mayer’s tenure at Yahoo reads as a cautionary tale to all managers looking to implement change in their organization. Providing capable leadership, even in the best of times, is always a difficult task. In a company that is experiencing a downward spiral towards obsolescence and irrelevance, that task is especially daunting. There are, however, plenty of tools available to the would-be leader to improve their chance of success. Mayer, apparently, availed herself to none of them.
Our text defines leadership as “the ability to formulate a worthy vision and inspire people to make a total, willing, and voluntary commitment to accomplishing or exceeding organizational goals” (Goetsch, 2016). Let’s start with the first element, creating a …show more content…

However hard it might be, it is one of the most crucial skills to acquire, and our society gives us mixed signals on how to deal with criticism. How many times does a parent tell their child to “consider the source” and ignore the comments of others? This leads to the mentality that we should ignore others when they do not tell us something that we want to hear. Perhaps a better strategy would be to ask why something upsetting is being said before dismissing it. This would encourage self-reflection and lend credence to the validity of the opinion of others. This self-reflection, and the willingness to listen to the opinions of others, is lacking in Mayer. If everyone - employees, investors, experts – are all expressing the same concerns, and making the same criticisms, it would behoove her to listen, and reflect. I would speak with a group of people I trust - people who will tell me the unvarnished truth -either individually or all together, and solicit their opinions and ideas. Once you have their feedback comes the hard part: deciding what to work on. I would look for a common thread and/or the most important item(s). A plan of action must then be put into place. I would float the ideas to my group of advisors before trying to implement them. The changes must be credible and achievable. Self-reflection is the key to doing this. As Mike Myatt noted, “Having strong convictions is a healthy thing so long as you’re convicted by the …show more content…

Moving around in the military, I faced new situations often. Sometimes the new units were a mess, and other times they were doing well. In either case, they each had their established culture and ways of doing things. I might have ideas for improvements, but if I didn’t take the time to understand why they were doing things a certain way, any suggestions I made would be met with resistance, if not derision or outright hostility. If my new soldiers felt that I understood them, and I communicated my “vision” clearly, they were more likely to work with

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