Marissa Mayer

CEO Tardy to the Party

January 25, 2013

http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer-has-a-bad-habit-of-being-late-all-the-time-2013-1

Business Insider has published a follow-up to their story about an e-mail from an alleged Yahoo employee who accused Marissa Mayer of always being late to meetings. Numerous sources corroborate her tardiness, according to the article. I addressed this e-mail about Mayer and the negative ramifications of CEOs who are habitually late in my recent post: Perpetually late CEOs fail to impress. Bottom line in my opinion: Showing up late to meetings is one of the worst sins a CEO can make.

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Perpetually late CEOs fail to impress

January 15, 2013

Judging By This Angry Email, Marissa Mayer Hasn’t Yet Wowed ALL Yahoo Employees

Photo Credit: zoutedrop via Compfight cc
Photo Credit: zoutedrop via Compfight cc

Every new CEO faces some resistance, and high profile ones like Marissa Mayer are especially susceptible to attention-getting PR stunts from disgruntled employees or people pretending to be them. So this e-mail from an alleged Yahoo employee should be taken with a grain of salt. Regardless of the letter’s authenticity, it does bring up an interesting point about her being late to every meeting so far: I think showing up late to meetings is one of the worst sins for a CEO (especially a new one).

Being late to meetings the CEO probably initiated in the first place basically says to employees: “My time is more valuable than yours – not only each individual employee but everyone at this meeting combined.” This behavior flouts one of the three critical tools I’ve asserted that every CEO needs to excel: caring.  If the actions described in this e-mail are accurate, Mayer will not be a very successful CEO. I’ll write more about how new CEOs can set themselves up for success in a later post.

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