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An Analysis of Mark Zuckerbergs Leadership Style

Jiayi Yang
Dr. Brent Ruben
Organizational Leadership
Rutgers University

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Introduction
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Faceback, is the
youngest self-made billionaire in history that his personal wealth is estimated to be 28
billion dollars in 2014. (Mac, 2014) Scholars mainly focus on the impact of Facebook
rather than Zuckerbergs leadership style, and some even consider Zuckerberg as an
accidental billionaire (Mezrich, 2010). Admitted that Zuckerbergs success is
contributed to external factors to certain extent, such as the fast development of
Internet and strong demanding of social network sites, his unique leadership style still
plays the most critical role in his success and the direction of this company. Moreover,
Zuckerberg is viewed as an icon of the youth globally today (Alef, 2010), revealing
and analyzing the factors and obstacles of his success could be an instruction and
guidance for young people to pursue their dreams.
Backgrounds
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg was born on May 14, 1984, in White Plains, New York,
to his well-educated parentsa dentist father and a psychiatrist mother. When Mark
Zuckerberg was in the sixth grade, his parents bought a computer and the book C++
Dummies for him. (Alef, 2010) Soon after that, Mark Zuckerberg was obsessed with
computer programming. In his senior year, he transferred from a public school to a
private school called Phillips Exeter Academy where he still continued to work with
computer and made some influential achievements. (Dobinick, 2012) Collaborating
with his classmate Adam DAngelo, Zcukerberg created the Synapse, a plug-in for
MP3 players that allowed players to learn a users preference and create tailored
playlists based on that information. (Mezrich, 2010) They put it online with free
download that caught the attention from some large IT companies including
Microsoft. (Alef, 2010) However, Mark Zuckerberg rejected Microsofts offer
because he preferred to attend in Harvard University.
In his sophomore year, Zuckerberg created an online program called Harvard
Facemash that allowed students to compare two images of female students and vote
which one was the hottest. For acquiring all student images, Zuckerberg hacked into
the Harvard computer system and then downloaded the facebooka list with
students profiles and pictures maintained by Harvard dorms. The website gained
impressing attention among students, while Zuckerberg was nearly expulsed by the
board because of his violation of school regulation. (Mezrich, 2010)
The facemash was so wide spread that three other Harvard students, twins Tyler
and Cameron Winklevoss and Divya Narendra asked Zuckerberg for help to their
Havard Connection project, and he agreed to write code for them. (Alef, 2010) Soon
Zuckerberg seemed to lost interest in this idea, but he did not make that clear to the
Winklevosses and Narendra. Instead, he came up with a new idea of an innovative
social network site: TheFacebook.com, and then he launched it on February 4, 2004
with the help of his friends: Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Huges.
TheFacebook.com is the original version of Facebook, but it only allowed Harvard
students to register with their Harvard E-mail address at that time. Then they
expanded the site to other colleges and later, to the rest of the world. The sites had
over one million users by the end of 2004, and officially became Facebook company
in September 2005 for dropping the out of its name. With the fast development of
Facebook, they reach one billion users in September 2012. (Walter, 2013)
However, just six days after TheFacebook launched, the Winklevosses and
Narendra accused Mark of stealing their ideas of Harvard Connection. (Carlson,

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2010) The three filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg that finally resulted in an agreed
settlement in 2008 that Facebook agreed to transfer over 1.2 million common shares
and pay $20 million in cash to them. (Arthur, 2009) Mark also involved in another
lawsuit filed by his friend Eduardo Saverin, while terms of settlement were sealed. To
certain extent, both lawsuits damage Zuckerbergs reputation. Despite that, Time
magazine named him as one of the most influential people in 2008, and as person of
the year in 2010. (Grossman, 2010) Now, his personal wealth is estimated to be 32
billion dollars and becomes the youngest self-made billionaire in history.
Literature Review
The first biography of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook is The Accidental
Billionaires (Mezrich, 2009). This book is divided into two parts: the first part centers
on Zuckerbergs college life at Harvard University, and the second part focuses on his
business in Silicon Valley. The book, to a large extent, surrounds with the relationship
between Zuckerberg and his friends Eduardo Saverin, and the conflict between
Zuckerberg and the Winklevosses twins. And finally, both relationships became worse
and involved with lawsuits. While the author admitted that Zuckerberg declined to
speak with him for this book despite his numerous requests, this book is from the
perspective of Eduardo Saverin. To certain extent, this book does not portray
Zuckerberg in the kindest right. From later interviews of Zuckerberg, he argued the
reliability of this book for some wrong details. Nevertheless, Zuckerberg stayed cool
about its influence of his public persona. Despite that, authors attempt of
reconstructing scenes of Zuckerbers life is still meaningful for readers to know more
about the background of lawsuits and the creation of Facebook.
Alef (2010) reveals in Mark Zuckerberg: The Face Behind Facebook and Social
Networking that Zuckerbergs proclivity of privacy and his reticence for interviews
causes limited resources about his life. Unlike Mezrich, Alef attempts to tell the true
story of the creation of Facebook and Zuckerbers life by separating fiction from fact.
Alefs book includes a timeline from Zuckerbergs early life to Initial Public Offering
(IPO) of Facebook with brief but informative writing. He also emphasizes that
Zuckerbergs impact on American culture is unprecedented. Though the length of this
book is shorter than normal biography, the author provides reader with video
interviews of Zucerkberg that make them have deeper and vivid understanding of the
Facebook founder.
Dobinick (2012) provides extensive information on how Zuckerberg created
Facebook, then the controversies on it, and ideas people came up with for improving
the website in her book. Distinguishing to Alefs book of Zuckerbergs life, Dobinick
(2012) mainly focuses on how Facebook came to be and describes Zuckerberg as an
innovative thinker. By describing the creation of Facebook, this book reveals
Zuckerbergs vision and purpose in the process of decision-making, and thus, viewing
Zuckerberg as a business man and a leader of big company.
Another biography edited by Beahm (2012) discloses that the key to Facebooks
success depends on Zuckerbergs own ideas and vision. Instead of focusing on what
he has done and experienced, Beahm details Zuckerbergs visionary thoughts and
opinions through direct quotations from Zuckerberg himself. Through the analysis of
his words in public and in open letter to users, we can explore Zuckerbergs leadership
style more correctly.
The book Think Like Zuck (Walter, 2013) mainly focuses on the philosophy of
Mark Zuckerberg and concludes five key elements of his success: passion, purpose,

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people, product and partnership. Walter illustrates that how Zuckerberg leads his team
with great passion and clear purpose, how he dedicated himself on product
development, and how he collaborates with partners to build the social network
empire. This book provides organizational viewpoints toward Zuckerbers life and
sheds light on Zuckerbergs business behaviors. Therefore, the author offers readers
with another explanation of Zuckerbergs phenomenal success that is not mainly for
his fortune and technical skills, but for his leadership style that can be learned by any
people. So this book is more practical that readers can apply the lessons they absorb
from this book to their own business.
As a veteran technology reporter, David Kirkpatrick (2010) researches the history
of Facebook and its influence to our lives in his book The Facebook Effect. By
chronicling the achievements and failures of this company, the author attempts to find
out the reasons of its flourish and anticipate the future of this company. The author
points out that Facebook as an innovative instrument based on the real world
relationships between individuals, it has strong emotional power that can influence
our offline interaction. Besides, this book also explores the impact of Facebook in
other areas, particularly in political field. Therefore, it presents diverse perspectives
for readers to assess the current situation of Facebook and Zuckebergs decisions.
Discussing different effect of Facebook is critical for analyzing Zuckerbergs
leadership sytle, because we can have a deeper understanding about how he makes
this company unique in marketing and altering public policies.
Vargas (2010) reveals in The New Yorker that Zuckerbergs business model
depends on how much information people has shared on Facebook. That is why
Zuckerberg emphasizes the importance of information sharing and transparent online
environment. The author also indicates that despite Zuckerbergs goal of global
openness, he is unwilling to speak to the press and the public about himself. From this
interview report, we can find that Zuckerberg has more interest in discussing
Facebook instead of his personal life. Such preference can be viewed an expression of
his passion.
Leadership Analysis
One of leadership strategies Zuckerberg practiced is authentic leadership because
he appears to be genuine and real. (Northouse, 2013, p. 254) From a developmental
perspective, scholars imply that authentic leadership is composed of self-awareness,
internalized moral perspective, balanced processing and relational transparency.
(Northouse, 2013, pp. 255-260) A leader can improve their authentic leadership by
learning these four types of behaviors. First and foremost, Mark views integrity as the
most important principle in his life. He emphasized for several times that having two
identities for person should be regarded as a lack of integrity. (Grossman, 2010) That
is why Facebook does not allow people to create two or more profiles of them. He
strives to create a transparent environment and believes that such transparency can
make our community healthier. Moreover, except for being known as an entrepreneur
and a computer programmer, Zuckerberg is also a philanthropist. (Alef, 2010) He
signed the Giving Pledge in 2010, an agreement that giving most of his wealth to
charity. (Schroeder, 2010) Before that, he donated 100 million to Newark Public
Schools (Odell, 2010) and an undisclosed amount to the open social network project
Diaspora, which is one of the competitors of Facebook. (Grove, 2010) Besides,
Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan donated almost one billion to the Silicon
Valley Community Foundation, and this donation was recognized as the largest
charitable gift on public record in 2013. (Bailey, 2013) Definitely, acting morally and

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philanthropically improves the reputation of Facebook, and more importantly, creates
a better community for human being. Zuckerbergs self-awareness of being
responsible to society indicates that he develops his authentic leadership intentionally
or unintentionally. In these cases, we can find that Mark has positive psychological
qualities and strong ethics, which are important characteristics of an authentic leader.
(Northouse, 2013, p. 254)
Team leadership is the second strategy Zuckerberg practiced for operating
Facebook. This theory emphasizes that a leader needs to diagnose the group
deficiencies and environmental changes, and then decide to take action or not.
(Northouse, 2013) By recognizing the employees need, Zuckerberg provides them
with various sorts of benefits including three free, great meals a day, free
transportation, unlimited snacks, free dry cleaning, paid vacation days, 4,000 dollars
for new parents, etc. (Tan, 2011; Grossman, 2010) Such efforts create a comfortable
workplace for employees and improve their welfare, so that make them work more
efficiently. Also, according to team theory, competent team members is one of eight
characteristics consistently related to team effectiveness and should be viewed as an
important criteria of team excellence. At the beginning of Facebook, Zuckerberg
collaborated with his friends and roommates and formed them into a strong team. He
assigned Eduardo Saverin as the chief financial officer of Facebook because Saverin
was good at business as well as president of Harvard Investment Association. And he
named Chris Huges, an extroverted and outspoken guy, as the director of publicity of
Facebook.Mezrich, 2009, pp.117-119Then Sean Parker, the founder of Napster,
was incorporated into their team, and played the most critical role in Facebooks
expansion and financial acquiring. In 2007, Zuckerberg invited Sheryl Sandberg into
Facebook to take the position of Chief Operating Officer. With her help on marketing
and advertising, Facebook became profitable. Before that, Zuckerberg and his team
only focused on building a cool website to help people connected. (Grossman, 2010)
Therefore, Zuckerberg has the ability of identifying core competencies of candidates,
choosing the most suitable and competent person for specific positions, and then
coordinates their activities to accomplish their goals. Further, according to a survey
from Glassdoor.com in 2012, Zuckerberg had 94% of approval rating among his
employees according to a survey from Glassdoor.com in 2012. (JVG, 2012) This
implies the good leader-follower relationship in Facebook and reveals the nature of
his strong team.
Another leadership strategy taken by Zuckerberg is path-goal theory. According
to Northouse (2013), path-goal theory mainly focuses on how leaders motivate his or
her followers to achieve their common goals. This strategy underlines diverse
behaviors of leader, including their directive, supportive, participative and
achievement-oriented leadership. (Northouse, 2013, pp. 138-140) Zuckerberg has
constantly insisted on his vision that making the world more open and transparent.
This vision includes the goals of helping people keep in contact and maintain empathy
for others, sharing information and having their own voice in the world. (Grossman,
2010) His belief in these goals is so strong that he declined to the acquisition offer
from Yahoo for one billion dollars in 2006. (Leonard, 2013) At that time, Facebook
was only two years old and Zuckerberg was 22 years old-as young as a college
student. One billion dollars was a lot of money for the company and this young man.
Despite that, Zuckerberg truly believes in his goal and wants to achieve it with his
own team. In fact, he only viewed the company as a good vehicle for accomplishing
goals and getting stuff done rather than making money. (Grossman, 2010) Before

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Sandberg joined, Zuckerberg and his team basically focused on building a cool
website to help people around the world connected without considering much about
profits. (Auletta, 2011) In order to achieve these goals, Zuckerberg does not
compulsively assign tasks to his employees, instead, he encourages them to engage in
the projects they are interesting in. (Grossman, 2010) This behavior can be viewed as
a strategic way of maximizing subordinates abilities and potential, because
employees very likely become more passionate on the projects they chose and thus,
feel valued in this company. Further, for motivating his employees to accomplish the
ultimate goal, he always takes advice from his employees in the process of decisionmaking and thus, gains much support from them to collaborate actively.
However, people still question about his leadership style. The first is his weak
communication skills, especially when he faced to his investors. In 2012, since he
didnt inform the situation of Facebook in detail to investors, the uncertainty among
investors caused them to sell their stock or wait to buy their stock. Thus, Facebooks
stock had been slumped and the morale of this company became lower. Also, he was
involved in two lawsuits with his Harvard classmates. Both lawsuits damage the
reputation of Facebook to certain extent. While many journalists indicates that
Zuckerberg actually is good at communication with people in-person. (Grossman,
2010) If Zuckerberg loses interest in your conversation, it is possibly that your words
cannot attract him and he does not want to waste time. He did not tell the Twins
Winklevosses and Narendra clearly about his opinions of HarvardConnection,
because he believed that he had more important things to do. And he did not explain
the situation of Facebook to his investors because he did not think that it was
necessary. As a leader of a large global company, his behaviors are detrimental to the
prospect of Facebook. The lesson Zuckerberg should be learned is that a leader needs
to deal with various groups of people, especially to help ease investors concern
regardless of his unwillingness.
Second, Zuckerberg has trouble forecasting external changes, especially of
privacy issue. In November 2007, Facebook launched Beacon, an advertising system
that told your friends about your buying habits. However, users felt that they lost
control of their information. A month after it launched, Mark apologized, and he
finally scrapped it. In this case, his decision mainly contributes to his weak
diagnosing ability of monitoring environmental problems that sometimes customers
are reluctant to share information with acquaintance. In this case, the conflict between
Zuckerberg and users is that they have different perceptions of privacy. Zuckerberg
believes that sharing information with people you know is safe and thus, strives to
improve the privacy setting of Facebook account. While users may not want to share
everything with their acquaintance, they declined to use this new feature when
Zuckerberg introduced the Beacon. Therefore, it would be necessary for Zuckerberg
to improve his communication skills with stakeholders as well as his monitoring skills
of external changes.
To evaluate Zuckerbergs leadership, the dichotomy of transparent and opaque
needs to be clarified. Considering that Zuckerberg strives to create a transparent
online environment with technical support, his behaviors that caused unclear situation
among stakeholders are ironic. Transparency implies that a leader should fully
disclose his or her plan to stakeholders, while opacity means partial disclosure would
be more effective. From organizational perspective, both two words cannot be
discussed separately. Given the importance of transparency in organizational
communication, Zuckerberg should explain current situation of Facebook to his

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shareholders explicitly and timely. But it does not mean that he needs to tell
everything of his company, such as irrelevant details. Being appropriately opaque can
make the team focus on core problems and address it efficiently with shareholders.
Therefore, integrating transparency and opacity, instead of separating them, is a
significant strategy for leaders to communication with stakeholders.
Conclusion
Through analysis of his leadership style, authentic leadership, team leadership
and path-goal theory are the most critical strategies Mark Zuckerberg has practiced.
While Zuckerberg lacks of some certain abilities in operating such large company, he
is very young that still evolving as a person and CEO. Considering his age and his
promising company, it would be tenuous or even inaccurate to draw conclusions about
Mark at this stage of his life. But it is still meaningful to explore his leadership style
not only for businessmen, but also for young people who want to pursue their dreams.

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