Facebook’s foundation was built on these five core values by Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg has been in the limelight for his lack of transparency. The paper will cover a brief evaluation of Mark Zuckerberg’s influence tactics, power base and leadership style during the time Facebook faced data privacy issues. It is only a few pages in length. This paper will address conscious capitalism and its ethics as well as the role of servant-leadership in such a situation.
Evaluation of power bases
Legitimate power a type of organizational power that involves an individual’s ability to influence other peoples behaviour because of the position one holds within that particular organization. Also known as position or formal authority, this power can be referred to as legitimate power. This power is what Mark Zuckerberg and his company Facebook have. The Zuckerberg lack transparency and violation of data privacy was clear evidence. Because of his technical skills, Zuckerberg was able to rise to the legitimate leadership of Facebook (Lunenburg 2012).
Jan Kuom’s intransparency meant that Facebook could not respond to the data privacy violations and bug misuse. Jan Kuom, Kevin Systrom cofounder Instagram, and Brendan Iribe founder Oculus were all forced to resign. All this was attributed to the fact that they were not in a position to question what Facebook was doing with users’ data because they were not the legitimate leaders of the corporation. The New York Times reports that an investigation found that executive staff could not delay, denial, or divert from these matters. Facebook is alleged to have fired Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey because of the donation of $10000 made to an anti-Hillary Clinton group during 2016 presidential election, this was contrary to the company’s tolerance of diverse political views (Wong & Nieva, 2019).
Analyse Influence Techniques
Zuckerberg designed a dual-share structure to make sure he has complete control of Facebook for as long as he lives. Zuckerberg, who is the chairman of Facebook and holds 60% of its board members’ power, is also president. Zuckerberg used legitimacy strategies during the Facebook ethical crisis (Sonnenfeld 2018, 2018.
After the revelations about the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg were not allowed to attend any crisis meeting with employees. This meeting was lead by the company’s deputy chief counsel and employees weren’t allowed to ask any questions. In this instance, Zuckerberg’s legitimization tactics were obvious. He did not raise concern with his COO until Zuckerberg deemed it necessary to appear as the legitimate owner of Facebook. They made an appearance before the media five days later to talk with the public. The exchanges were defensive, but also apologies. Zuckerberg was confident that no one could question his leadership credentials and managed to get away. The executives further delayed denied and deflected a series of scandals according to a New York Times investigative report because they knew their legitimization into power and their ways could not be questioned what so ever (Hayden, 2018; Wong & Neiva 2019).
Assessment of Leadership Style
Zuckerberg used his autocratic leadership to violate his data privacy policies. This is because the leaders are responsible for making decisions without taking inputs.
Facebook’s data privacy scandal was made public five days later. Zuckerberg seemed to be speaking directly to media, without consulting any of his employees or staff. At the same time, he made several defensive comments and said sorry. He was clear in stating that his ownership and legitimacy of the business were not at risk. It wasn’t even possible to know if employees held valid views (Hayden 2018, 2018). Palmer Luckey, founder of Oculus was fired for allegedly giving $10000 to an Anti Hillary Clinton group. This goes against company policy. This showed that opinions contrary to that of Zuckerberg should not be tolerated (Wong & Nieva, 2019)
Zuckerberg didn’t adhere to four principles of conscious capitalism: stakeholder orientation and higher purpose, as well as conscious leadership. It is clear that Zuckerberg did not stand for his company until five working days after the scandal. Oculus CEO Palmer Luckey was fired for allegedly opposing Zuckerberg’s views. This was not in line with the conscious capital principles of conscious culture, conscious leadership and stakeholder orientation (Wong & Nieva, 2019).