Bibliography of Mark Zuckerberg
For the discussion on project leadership, there are various things that have to be considered. The discussion on the project leaders also takes into consideration a lot of attributes that are associated with a good leader. The roles and the attributes of leaders are really changing nowadays due to a lot of new developments that organizations have adopted for the project managers and also the emerging technologies (Davis, DeBode, and Ketchen 2013). Modern strong project leaders possess stronger business acumen and are visionary, analytical, and conceptual. Possessing a great acumen means that the leaders have the knowledge of what is really required in a business to achieve its goals (Kerzner, 2018). They combine business literacy with financial literacy which makes them able to recognize how different strategies, choices, and actions affect the profitability and sustainable growth of the business.
Therefore, project managers need to be business driven. Their levels of being business-driven need to come down from different leadership strategies and they need to be identified during the process of the portfolio. The project managers clearly need to understand their roles, implement effective strategies of leadership so as to achieve success in their respective projects (Berman, 2017). Some of the most known leaders in the world today include the leaders of some of the most successful companies in the world such as Facebook, Google, apple Inc. and many other companies. In this report, I am going to critically review and analyze the strategy used by the Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg and determine its effectiveness project management and in the competitive world of business today.
Facebook provides a variety of benefits to more than one billion users of the application around the world. The service provided by the organization has also played a significant role in catalyzing political and social change throughout most countries with a view to improve economic standards and benefits of these countries. It is also projected that Facebook users are bound to continue growing over the years since there is no other company that can compare its active users to those of Facebook so far. Over the years, Facebook has also been deeply embedded with a variety of online and website services as most of these sites embed Facebook in their services. It has also grown to be a fundamental part of marketing strategies and communication among most businesses in all around the globe. The CEO of Facebook has undertaken and completed a number of programs and projects with a view to improve its operational performances and also to better the financial performance.
Mark Zuckerberg is the Facebook CEO and due to his success, he is regarded as one of the most brilliant minds in the world today. He is regarded as a young CEO who is also credited for the creation of one of the biggest social networks which has the highest numbers of users worldwide (Koseoglu, Liu, and Shalley, 2017). Marc Zuckerberg in several occasions has shown his leadership skills since his company has been involved in a lot of developments regarding the security and how the company handles user’s data (Little & Winch, 2018). He has been summoned to give testimonies to lawmakers about the role of his company in various events involving elections in different countries in the previous few years. Zuckerberg clearly defends his company and reiterates to the main goal of the company which is to ensure there is social developments with a provision of internet access to everyone worldwide (Robinson, Harrington, Cartwright, and Walsh, 2017). Mark Zuckerberg has also been involved in a lot of charity works and initiatives for preventing and creating awareness on some of the most deadly diseases in the world today which makes him one of the most known and respected leaders.
Type of Leadership Strategy Used by Mark Zuckerberg
Clearly, Mark Zuckerberg employs the transformational leadership approach from the strategies that he employs to ensure that his company remains at its peak. Mark Zuckerberg is described as aggressive and encouraging since he always demands constant innovation, loves challenges, and engages in any development debates. In his leadership over the years he has been employing different styles of leadership including democratic, laissez-faire, and autocratic. His two main strategic styles are the democratic and laissez-faire leadership styles in which he has applied them occasionally in his development progress (Hu & Gifford, 2018). He is a leader who expects his employees to carry out their respective tasks effectively and ensures that he receives feedback from the employees.
Facebook has ensured that it has maintained its top position in the implementation and the creation of a strong culture that is responsible for the fostering other types of culture such as aggressive culture, play culture, and process culture (Koseogluet al., 2017). Culture has been a key element for the company which has ensured that the company is bound together as one successful company. Facebook’s hierarchy is flat and its culture focuses on less hierarchy but focuses on creativity and cooperation. The organization of the company which was created by the Company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg tries to employ and attract the best talent which creates a fun environment for the workers so as to achieve the company’s goals.
As the Facebook’s CEO, he shares his leadership strategies so as other leaders and entrepreneurs can learn from his leadership strategies that make his company successful (Anderson & Sun, 2017). He identifies his strategies as having convictions and knowing exactly how the convictions help in the growth of the company. Convictions help in listening and waiting for strategic time to defend his leadership from various critics. When Facebook really rolled out a feature where people would see the others’ activities, there were a lot of criticisms since the general public did not welcome that idea (Koseogluet al., 2017). But despite these criticisms, Zuckerberg knew clearly what he and his team were working on and he was certain that these would bear fruits in the long run.
Another strategy used by Facebook is that of testing of new services before they are delivered to the public for use. The company does not guess on deliveries of its services but rather the company tests before the delivery to ensure the delivery they offer provides the best experience to the users (Moran, 2018). For instance, the company tests a couple of times, a certain network version to measure its efficiency, profitability, and the number of people using it. Through service testing, Zuckerberg argues that the company offers services that are successful and technically ready for use by the targeted group of customers.
Another strategy used by Zuckerberg in his leadership is that of creating an effective innovation framework. Marc claims that the company shifting to the mobile network was really challenging, that clearly taught the company how to plan for any changes that would come in future (Saleem, 2015). This change to mobile phones started off from a bad start because they thought that the impulse to mobile phones was a thing that they clearly knew which was based on the web. However, rolling out new features from the desktop to mobile phones did not clearly work as they expected since they did not get the new experience right. To avoid such situations, Zuckerberg made sure that there was effective training in case of any transition to any new ideas and he ensured that strict rules were set to patch such ideas to implement the projects successfully.
Another leadership strategy used by Zuckerberg to ensure his company remains top is that of building a long-term team for carrying out the essential roles in the company. Most of the members in his management role have grown in the role for quite some time which ensures that his management ideas and experience are perfect for effective running of the company. This approach ensures that there is efficiency since the executive members working in unity know exactly how to get things easily done. In addition, there is good alignment of values and the expected trust.
The final strategy employed by the CEO is that of hiring brilliant brains that are qualified for their roles. Zuckerberg argues that the difference between good and great companies lies in the members of staff hired. He further argues successful companies surround themselves with greater and better talent (Robinson et al., 2017). Therefore, the company has a rule in hiring new staff members that they hire staffs that have great brains and in case the tables overturn the existing workers can work along with the new members. This strategy ensures that the company evolves through the new employments made. It is obvious that different members have different attributes which contribute to the development of the companies differently.
The strategies and behaviours employed by Marc Zuckerberg in running of the company impact the project and the behaviour of workers significantly. First, the styles used clearly affect the organizational structure of the company. The structure created by Marc Zuckerberg is open, relaxed, and in the structure, there is always a room for creative minds to come up with better ideas of running the projects in the company. Marc is at the helm of the structure since he is the CEO of the company and he holds most of the responsibilities in the management.
The strategy used makes the Facebook structure more of different structure compared to other organizational structures because the structure is a narrow span of a structure where just a few minor members are accountable to the manager (Robinson et al., 2017). The structure of the company is flat since the managers in the company have a narrow span to control in their departments. This structure employed from the strategies reduces the costs and speeds up communication between the members of the organization which leads to a reduction of costs and more flexible work rates.
The strategy in place also ensures that the CEO focuses on group relationship and the sensitivity of the people and the sharing of ideas to the executives from the minor staff members (Amah, 2017). The strategy in place also ensures that the company hires expertise in its various departments to ensure new ideas are brought about. The company consists of high expertise such as software engineers, marketing communication managers, data engineers, and vendor managers. Mark Zuckerberg traits including the fact that he is a democratic leader also ensures that his leadership style is responsible for promoting better job satisfaction and ensuring higher productivity in the company from the projects undertaken by the company.
Conclusion
The leadership strategies employed by the Facebook’s CEO in running its projects and businesses are, therefore, focused towards the mission and the vision of the company which entails creating a diverse world that is connected to the internet. To achieve the goals and the missions of the company Marc leads the company through three pillar strategies which include building the perfect and most ubiquitous mobile product, creating a platform which contains of a social app to enhance sharing, and creating an engine which is a social platform and enables people to share their views, opinions, experiences, and life stories. Apart from that, the 5P’s elements of success have enabled the creation of a successful business. These elements of success include purpose, passion, people, product and partnerships.
References
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Kerzner, H. (2018). Project management best practices: Achieving global excellence. John Wiley & Sons.
Koseoglu, G., Liu, Y., & Shalley, C. E. (2017). Working with creative leaders: Exploring the relationship between supervisors’ and subordinates’ creativity. The Leadership Quarterly, 28(6), 798-811.
Little, B., & Winch, A. (2018). “just hanging out with you in my back yard”: Mark Zuckerberg and Mediated Paternalism. Open Cultural Studies, 1(1), 417-427.
Moran, R. E. (2018). Examining switching power: Mark Zuckerberg as a novel networked media mogul. Information, Communication & Society, 1-16.
Robinson, J., Harrington, M., Cartwright, C., & Walsh, K. (2017). Connective Leadership: From Zero-Sum to Inclusion. In Breaking the Zero-Sum Game: Transforming Societies through Inclusive Leadership (pp. 209-225). Emerald Publishing Limited.
Saleem, H. (2015). The impact of leadership styles on job satisfaction and mediating role of perceived organizational politics. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 172, 563-569.