BUS401 Management Leadership

Analyze theories of leadership for their efficacy and appropriateness in a given situation or organization.

 

Develop methodologies for evaluating leadership theories and their applicability to current organizational challenges and opportunities.

 

Evaluate theories of leadership that are currently being practiced in an organization.

 

Personalize approaches to leadership that can be used to sustain organizational health and foster growth

Introduction

A leaked memo from the Vice President of people and development department had announced that the employees of Yahoo would not able to work from home anymore. Reports have found that the number of the employees who work remotely rose to 73% from 2005 to 2011 (Daft, 2014). At present, 20 million to near about 30 million Americans work from home minimum once a week. Therefore, it can be easily said that the Yahoo is not the only company who has been facing this problem related to the remote workers into the office (Campbell & Brown, 2015). It has been found that the Bank of America scaled back the work in the year 2005, the work from home program and by the end of 2010, the number of the employees were more than 15,000. This scheme was introduced to cut company costs as well as enhance efficiency. However, it has been found that the Chief Executive Officer of Twitter and Google, Marissa Mayer encouraged the employees to work at the office because she believed that this practice generates a more collaborative atmosphere in the organization (Daft, 2014).

Nature of Leadership

In this part, it is important to analyze the nature of the directorate of Marissa Mayer and this has been explained here in details. Direction (2013) has said that all the inspiring leaders are highly passionate about their task and Marissa Mayer is no more exception in this case. It has been found that Marissa Mayer is highly committed to maintain the brand image of the company at the highest position. Apart from that, she is one of the persuasive speakers, who largely inspire the employees of the organization for having great communication. It has been seen that Marissa Mayer is an exceptional storyteller as well as a presenter. From reports, it has been observed that at the time of presentation, Marissa Mayer does not use bullet points, rather relies on pictures and this is one of the leading natures of the powerful and influential leaders. Most importantly, it can be said that Marissa Mayer is a motivator, as in a meeting, Marissa Mayer has stated that the young employees in the organization demand more than a paycheck and want to feel as though their work has a proper meaning. It has been reported that Marissa Mayer is not only a motivator, a good listener as well, as she invites her employees to join the discussion session to build the brand image (Eisner, 2015).

Different aspects of leadership of Marissa Mayer

Eisner (2015) has said that Marissa Mayer has the potential to impress others with her commitment to the employees of Google and the users as well. It has been found that Mayer faced challenge at Yahoo but given her dedication to inspirational leadership, most certainly she will leave a definite mark on the existing industry. After joining the company, Marissa Mayer discovered that parking lots and entire floors of the company were nearly empty, as some employees in the company were working as little as possible and used to leave early from office. Apart from that, it was observed that some employees had the work from home arrangements and some of the employees used to work little in the company. Marissa Mayer addressed these and she wanted to abolish Yahoo's work from home policy.

She wanted to create a new culture of innovation as well as collaboration with the company and wanted the employees to report to work (Fernandez & Vecchio, 1997). Eisne (2015) has opined that this declaration by Marissa Mayer ignited a national debate over the workplace flexibility. As per the viewpoint of the former and current employees of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer made this explicit decision, not as a referendum on working distantly but to tackle the specific problems of Yahoo. She understood that Yahoo was gradually becoming an organization where the morale of the workers was small and a massive bureaucracy had taken Yahoo out of the antagonism with the more dexterous rivals.

Situational Leadership Model

Graeff (1997) has stated that situational leadership model is one of the important models that is highly recognized and utilized to measure the impact of leadership. At the age of 39, Mary is the youngest CEO and at the same time, she is the most tech savvy leader as well. Hersey, Blanchard and Natemeyer (1979) have argued that reading the actions of Marissa Mayer, but can be stated that she had guts to take a prompt action and restore Yahoo to relevance at the time of trying to slow the earnings against critics. Marissa Mayer wanted to make the office as the absolute place to work and thus banned the work from the home scheme of Yahoo (Guglietti, 2013).

As an influential leader, she stated that in the field of technology, it is all about getting the best people for the organization, retaining them correctly, nurturing a proper and creative environment as well as to help them to find out several new ways to innovate. In order to have the desired level of success, she created a new team, set the organizational goals clearly and arranged immediate acquiescence, communicated properly and provided proper training to the young people of the company who are the future of the organization (Hersey, Blanchard & Natemeyer, 1979).

Effect of adopted leadership approach by Marissa Mayer in Yahoo

These adopted changes had some visible results and these were 800 million internet users, a larger number of the mobile internet subscribers, satisfaction of the employees and great job application. Therefore, it can be said that Marissa Mayer was resetting the company along with the working culture and that solely required face-to-face communication. Keller (2013) has said that Contingency theory of leadership, it is believed that the success of the leaders is a function of several contingencies in the form of subordinate, task and the group variables. As per Vroom and Yetton’s participation contingency theory of leadership, the effectiveness of a decision procedure depends on several aspects of the situation. Marissa Mayer has analyzed the situation in Yahoo and understood that it is important to build a proper collaborative relationship among the existing employees of the company and thus she banned work from the home scheme of Yahoo (Miner, 2015).

A survey has found that the working from home can be good for the employees as well as the company only if one do not abuse the privilege. Van Wart (2014) has said that Chief Marissa Mayer made headlines by prohibiting the company’s one of the admired telecommunicating policies to heighten the efficiency of the employees and this decision has made her both right and wrong. Surveys have found that employees who work distantly are comparatively more occupied, passionate and committed to their works (Money.com, 2014). On the contrary to this survey, Marissa Mayer declared that in order to make the working place best, it is important to enhance communication and thus all the employees are required to work side by side. It has been said that this declaration by the Marissa Mayer lighted a conflagration of disapproval, as this seemed to fly in the face of the progressive thinking among both the feminists and the industry leaders (The Times of India, 2016).

Measures adopted by Marissa Mayer in Yahoo 

Many social activists stated that all the employees must get the freedom of where they will work and will excel. However, it can be said that the measures by Marissa Mayer had some probable protectors, but most of them commented that she was combating the zeitgeist. A new poll has suggested that Marissa Mayer might have been right and the question of telecommunicating demands a more nuanced investigation. There are several points that have both supported and defended the action of Marissa Mayer (Northouse, 2015). Eisner (2015) have suggested that the employees who do work from home are more productive, as they spend more time in their work. On the contrary, the employees who spend 50% or more of the working time outside of the company are less engaged than in-office counterparts. Other employees, who spend all of their working hours in the office, are twice as likely to feel disconnected from their work and this hampers the overall productivity of the company (Direction, 2013).

Reason behind the selection of approaches in the organization by Marissa Mayer

Direction (2013), in this case, has stated that technology has given the chance the workers to share files, tasks and stay connected to each other. However, social interaction makes the environment energetic and makes the employees and the colleagues as an integral part of the business. Therefore, it can be said that the decision adopted by Marissa Mayer's work from memo is from the late era. The CEO of Yahoo has wanted to work side by side and thus it is crucial for the employees to be present in the office. It has been seen that some of the best decisions come from hallway and cafeteria discussions inside the office and these are highly significant for the company. Therefore, those employees who do not come to office fail to take part in the session and this hampers the progress of the company (Carlson, 2015).

 A detailed analysis has been found that negative comments came to the places when Mayer declared that the employees are required to attend office instead of the virtual offices. This particular decision has attracted massive dissatisfaction that all the employees believed that the policy would decrease the work performance of the employees. Thus, the supporting point of Mayer was dropped from 97% to 80%. Many critics have described Mayer as autocratic; however, it is tough to judge Mayer. Just after 6 months of Mayer’s takeover, the stock price of Yahoo went up to 27.6% to $19.90, since it peaked in 2008 (Campbell & Brown, 2015).

Conclusion

After conduction of the entire study, it can be said that after adopting the decision of banning the work from the home scheme of the employees, the desired level and the actual level varied in Yahoo. Those employees who used to attend the virtual offices were not happy with the decision, as they believed that this would reduce the work efficiency of the employees. Based on the situation analysis, it can be said that the situational leadership approach addressed the concerns of Mayer associated with telecommunicating at Yahoo. Analysis of this analytical tool has found that this approach helped the company to witness fast growth. Mayer achieved the desired position in the organization by motivating, cheering and involving the employees. She was well aware of the importance of skilled labor and thus adopted several innovative approaches to motivate the employees to gain the desired outcome. Mayer focused on each part of the situational leadership, i.e. telling, selling, participating and delegation. Thus, in spite of facing challenges at the initial stage, for the long run, the decision was well appreciated.

References

Campbell, M., & Brown, B. A. (2015). Toxic Leader Transition Mini Case Study: Yahoo! Inc. 2009-2012.

Carlson, N. (2015). Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo!. Twelve.

Cohen, E. (2016). Will They Know Success When They See It?. Catalyst.

Daft, R. (2012). Organization theory and design. Nelson Education.

Daft, R. (2014). The leadership experience. Cengage Learning. London: SAGE

Direction, S. (2013). The end of flexible working?: Has Yahoo!’s Marissa Mayer sounded the death knell for remote working. Strategic Direction, 29(6), 15-17.

Eisner, S. (2015). The “In-Factor”: Signature Traits Of Innovation’s Leaders.Journal of Applied Business Research (JABR), 32(1), 185-200.

Fernandez, C. F., & Vecchio, R. P. (1997). Situational leadership theory revisited: A test of an across-jobs perspective. The Leadership Quarterly,8(1), 67-84.

Graeff, C. L. (1997). Evolution of situational leadership theory: A critical review. The Leadership Quarterly, 8(2), 153-170.

Guglietti, R. (2013). Marissa Mayer: A Leader in the Discussion of Working Mothers. In The Elizabeth Cady Stanton Student Research Conference Proceedings.

Hersey, P., Blanchard, K. H., & Natemeyer, W. E. (1979). Situational leadership, perception, and the impact of power. Group & Organization Management, 4(4), 418-428.

Keller, E. (2013). Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's work-from-home memo is from bygone era | Emma G Keller. the Guardian. Retrieved 23 February 2016, from http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/feb/26/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-memo-telecomute

Miner, J. B. (2015). Organizational behavior 1: Essential theories of motivation and leadership. Routledge.

Money.com,. (2014). Telecommuting: What Marissa Mayer Got Right and Wrong. Retrieved 23 February 2016, from http://time.com/money/2791618/telecommuting-what-marissa-mayer-got-right-and-wrong/

Northouse, P. G. (2015). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.

The Times of India,. (2016). Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer on the way out? - Times of India. Retrieved 23 February 2016, from http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/Yahoo-CEO-Marissa-Mayer-on-the-way-out/articleshow/49857222.cms

Van Wart, M. (2014). Dynamics of leadership in public service: Theory and practice. Routledge.