Mark Zuckerberg Fits In These Three Bad Boss Categories, Says Expert

If you don’t go with the face of Mark Zuckerberg, you have more reasons not to like him. According to an expert from Harvard University, the CEO of Meta it’s on three types of bad leadership in business—and it can put the company at risk.

The expert in question is Bill George of Harvard Business School. George also has hands-on experience: he was CEO of the medical company Medtronic.

Over the course of 20 years, the professor studied leadership failures and cataloged five types of bad bosses: imposters, rationalizers, glory seekers, loners and meteors. Zuckerberg manages to combine characteristics of three of them.

He talked to CNBC and explained what he sees as so problematic with Zuckerberg.

Put the blame on others

One of the types described by George is the boss who tries to rationalize everything. This may sound good, but in fact it is not: he seeks explanations for not admitting his own mistakes and blaming others.

The professor gives an example of this: Zuckerberg assigned the bad financial results from Goal to iOS privacy changeswhich affected ad targeting, and the fiercer competition, mainly from TikTok.

None of this is a lie, but it is only part of the truth. The goal burned $10 billion in 2021 in the virtual reality division, to build the much talked about metaverse. The CEO did not take this into account when explaining the company’s financial picture.

don’t listen to anyone

Zuckerberg is Meta’s CEO and main shareholder — and he seems to be making a point of running everything himself.

George considers that Zuckerberg avoids developing close relationships and pushes other people away.

It wasn’t always like that. The creator of Facebook took advice from investor Roger McNamee at two key moments for the company.

In 2006, he turned down a $1 billion bid by Facebook. Then he accepted the recommendation to hire Sheryl Sandberg as head of operations—she was crucial for company growth.

But it stopped there. In 2016, McNamee tried to warn Zuckerberg about the Russian campaign to interfere in American elections, but the CEO of Meta ignored it. The episode became one of the most problematic in the company’s trajectory.

Want glory and wealth at any price

George also believes that Zuckerberg seeks success and wealth above all else, and is never satisfied with what he has.

Proof of this is the problems involving the privacy and health of the billions of users of Meta’s products.

Facebook has already been involved in the scandal of Cambridge Analyticaa company that used personal data obtained on the network to microtarget political ads.

Already Instagram ignored that the platform brought mental health and self-image problems to its usersespecially teenage girls, so as not to undermine growth and engagement numbers.

But for Bill George, Zuckerberg doesn’t have to step down or sell his stake in the company.

“He needs to step away, take a gap year to put his feet on the ground and connect with his values ​​and missions”, comments the specialist. “Then bring your team and the board together to recreate Facebook, with a new mission and new values.”

With information: CNBC.