Mark Zuckerberg’s Leadership Evaluation
Leadership studies demonstrate that the most effective leaders know how to draw upon self-leadership skills to in turn motivate and lead others to expand their strengths to ultimately better serve the goals of an organization. For this assignment, you will continue to study conscious leadership and look at a leadership example from contemporary media and evaluate how well the particular leader exemplifies the qualities of effective and ethical conscious leadership.
Select a relevant and topical leadership issue from current news media that revolves around ethics and ethical decision-making. Research the situation and gather information in order to evaluate the leader. Keep in mind, the issue that you choose will serve as the backdrop for your evaluation while using the key terms and concepts covered in your course readings. Write an evaluation of a minimum of 1,000-1,250 words of the situation that addresses the following:
The power bases used by the leader.
The influence tactics used by the leader.
The leadership style of the leader.
The outcome (or potential outcome) of the situation.
Conclude by justifying whether you think this leader supports the values of conscious capitalism. Is the leader's leadership style effective? Do you believe the leader acted ethically in the situation? Be sure to consider each tenet of conscious capitalism in your leader evaluation.
Next, imagine yourself as a practitioner of servant leadership. You have been appointed into the leadership role in this same circumstance. Explain how the situation would be different. Address the four criteria listed above in your discussion and incorporate the principles of conscious capitalism by explaining how your personal values and style are influenced by each tenet.
Strengthen your claims in each content section of your essay with supporting citations and specific examples.
This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.
Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.
You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. A link to the LopesWrite technical support articles is located in Course Materials if you need assistanc
Mark Zuckerberg’s Leadership Evaluation
Student Name
Institutional Affiliation
Mark Zuckerberg’s Leadership Evaluation
Introduction
Online Social Networks (OSNs) have become essential communication means for individuals in contemporary society. OSNs, including Facebook, YouTube, Google+, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, to name a few, constitute a significant phase for social interactions, including cultivating relationships and sharing different experiences. Social network spread globally is ever-burgeoning. Privacy concerns have also increased due to personal information shared online. The OSNs have privacy control tools that safeguard user’s private data from the external world. Nevertheless, such privacy mechanisms fail to protect user’s sensitive data from leaks effectively. Facebook is the most widely utilized OSN, with over 2.2 billion active users monthly (Rehman, 2019). This report is anchored on the recent Facebook data scandal involving the University of Cambridge, in which information from millions of its customers who utilized a famous personality application was compromised by exposing their data online for any other person to access.
Zuckerberg’s Power Bases
Mark Zuckerberg’s positional, political, and personal power related to organizational culture and vision combines expert, referent, and ownership since he is the founder and Chief Executive Officer. He holds the initial mission and visions for the future. Referent power is the leader’s capacity to influence their followers via one’s desirable characteristics or traits. Expert power is the capacity to influence followers through skills, abilities, and knowledge. Individuals want to become Zuckerberg’s employees more than their zeal to work with “Facebook.” Zuckerberg has referent power given that he envisioned the service as an avenue to facilitate fast communication and enhance social relationships and networks. In this vein, Zuckerberg’s workers help improve the quality and speed of his vision. Lastly, Zuckerberg’s positional power relates to ownership since creating Facebook’s original vision and thus hired the best talents to achieve his objectives (Bell, 2017).
Zuckerberg’s expert, referent, and positional power significantly influenced how he handled the data scandal. As an expert, the Facebook leader reviewed critical historical occurrences, beginning 2007 until they learned that Cambridge Analytica (CA) had failed to delete the extracted data as required years earlier. He demonstrated the ability to draw referent power by portraying desirable traits as a leader. For example, he made a public statement through this Facebook handle indicating that the company had “a responsibility to safeguard your data, and if we fail to do so, we do not deserve to serve you.” Regarding positional power, the scandal portrayed Zuckerberg as a weak leader who failed to command sufficient respect for safeguarding Facebook users’ security (Duarte, 2020).
Zuckerberg’s Influence Tactics
Influence is the transaction whereby an individual or group acts in a way inclined to alter another person or group’s behavior in specifically intended fashions. In this particular scandal, Zuckerberg used the rational tactic of influence or rationality by providing evidence, data, and facts to influence others. This tactic resonates with the leader’s personal power (expert and referent power), as well as positive positional power (Ansari, Aafaqi, & Chiun, 2015). The Facebook leader made an official statement reiterating the company’s responsibility to safeguard its customer’s data which they failed within their engagement with CA. Upon being summoned by the Senate’s Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg explained how the information security breach happened and the possible ramifications on the firm’s data policy (Arora & Zinolabedini, 2019). Accordingly, he delineated the scandal that involved his organization by recognizing that its policy framework created room for inappropriate utilization of data that punctured customer loyalty. He noted, “… it was also a breach of trust between Facebook and the people who share their data with us and expect us to protect it” (Duarte, 2020). Apart from acknowledging the company’s failure to meet customer&rsqu...