Monday, March 21, 2011

Mark Zuckerberg is truly on the edge

If you have been living in a cave for the past couple years, you might not have heard about Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg but for the majority of us Zuckerberg is a easily recognizable name.  What about Zuckerberg makes him so great?  Is it because he built a billion dollar empire? Is it because he changed the way people interact across the globe? No, Zuckerberg is great because throughout his short lived life he never gave up on his dream; connecting people through social interaction.  In this TIME magazine article (http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2036683_2037183,00.html) TIME votes him the 2010 man of the year.  You can't be the man of the year without being a great leader.

Zuckerberg's leadership style has been in question and will be in question as Facebook prepares to switch its funding to IPO.  I believe Zuckerberg is a perfect example of path-goal theory.  Path-goal leaders as we know, need to adapt their style to one that allows their subordinates to achieve a specific goal.  

This can be done by being directive, supportive, participated, and achievement oriented.  Zuckerberg fits all criteria. Throughout the growth and development of Facebook he has changed his style to continuously achieve their overall goal.  To start he began the company as a directive leader; providing guidance and instilling the psychological structure that the company needed in order to have constant expansion.  It is hard to convey an idea to another, especially if it is one that could change the way society operated.  Once Zuckerberg set the foundation of psychological structure, he could sit back and play a more supportive role.  Being supportative allows for the vision of Facebook to take hold.  Currently though Zuckerberg is the best demonstrator of a participative style.  Facebook is now self sustaining and doesn't need a hard-nosed leader under its ranks.  The best way we can see this style of leadership in action is through his own Facebook page.  He is currently promoting the need for driven individuals such as himself to work for the company.

Any thoughts on Zuckerberg? I know there has got to be a lot of input since his company is now the most visited page in the US over Gooogle!

-Nick Kulavic

3 comments:

  1. Zuckerberg's leadership is going to take a huge turn in the near future, and not necessarily by choice. Zuckerberg currently controls three out of the five votes in Facebook's voting committee, so it is very clear that he wants to maintain control of direction and vision of the website. With the IPO looming, he will have to turn over control to the shareholders, and they will have a much larger say in the general direction of the company. All indications seem to be that Facebook will make a heavy push for E-commerce over advertising in the near future as their main source of revenue, so it will be interesting to see what changes Zuckerberg implements while he still has full control.

    -Jonathan Lucento-

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  2. It would be interesting to look at the differences in leadership styles by comparing leaders of public and privately held companies. Zuckerberg will now have a whole new set of followers as he will have to also lead the shareholders of Facebook to buy into and develop the company he started. Giving up control of something like that would be very difficult and it will be interesting to see how Zuckerberg handles it.

    Kellen Hill

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