AppId is over the quota
We were delighted to hear Yahoo! has appointed Marissa Mayer as its new chief executive, making her one of the few female CEOs in Silicon Valley. In the UK also women are underrepresented in technology and the more high profile women in this sector the better - role models play a key part in inspiring others to follow in their footsteps.
She’s the firm's third CEO in the space of a year and in last five years, Yahoo's stock has tumbled 41% which means she certainly has her work cut out. Turning Yahoo’s performance around will require exceptional leadership, great vision and strong execution.
Mayer was with Google for 20 years and in her final years there, she was Vice President of Local, Maps, and Location Services and, before that, Vice President of Search Products and User Experience. She’s certainly demonstrated vision and the ability to deliver great things. Intrigued, I wanted to find out more about her views on leadership and after a bit of yahooing! it didn’t take long to stumble upon a short interview on CNBC and this is what she said:
Her definition of leadership. “…. Really, leadership is about painting a bright vision for the future and what can be achieved. I think that’s true in good times and in bad”. I agree communicating a bright and clear vision is key as it keeps everyone focused on the end goal. It’s particularly important when times are tough as it keeps the team motivated and focused on the task in hand rather than spiraling into negativity.
Do you have to fail to succeed? “I think in order to be a good leader you need to be very pragmatic and try lots of things and that ultimately means really freeing yourself up and being open to failure so you can ultimately learn from it”. I’ve spoken to many female leaders who’ve told me that coming through failure or situations that didn’t go according to plan has made them stronger, more determined and less risk adverse. As a leader you can’t afford to dwell on the failure, you do need to learn from it, pick everyone up and move on.
Can you learn to be a good leader? “I think leadership can definitely be learned, I also think that leadership emerges in different situations based on skill set and circumstance.” Strong leaders we’ve spoken to, know they need to keep learning and that’s what makes them great. People are not simply born leaders there are many elements to being a great leader and these skills can be developed over time.
Finally Marissa, if you’ve yahooed! yourself and found this blog, a huge congratulations on your appointment and we wish you all the very best of success in your new role!
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