Online Tutoring on Ethics, Leadership & Decision Making

Introduction

Ethical behavior is the most debated issue within modern organizations. This theme draws attention to the issues like: values, emotions, perceptions, ethical behavior, good or bad, right or wrong, legal or illegal, moral reasoning, justice, moral rights, entitlement, culture and choices. Managers are always expected to behave ethically during business dilemmas. Literally, an ethical dilemma is ‘a situation in which the person does not know how to act because of conflicting beliefs about what is axiologically required’ (Lurie & Albin, 2007); i.e. despite recognizing the potential benefits to self or organization, some acts are considered unethical by some. Such conflict of interest usually occurs in organizations when the organizational culture clashes with the employee’s personal ethics (Ahmad, Ansari & Aafaqi, 2005), and ethical behaviors are putted in the spotlight resulting in a conflict.

Yahoo Inc. has been in the news lately as the company’s CEO – Marissa Mayer – implemented a ban on telecommuting, preventing all employees from working from home. All the remote employees were sent memos to relocate to the office facility before the given deadline. This shook the foundations of managerial attempts to promote work-life balance and resulted in an uproar from the employees who were accustomed to flexible work arrangements (Dowd, 2013). This approach of Mayer’s created an ethical dilemma at Yahoo Inc. where most of the employees claimed this policy as unethical and unjustified; whereas from the company’s viewpoint it was meant to increase the productivity (Wright, 2013). Here, we shall conduct a critical analysis of this dilemmatic situation analyzing Marissa Mayer’s ethical typology, decision making approach and leadership style in the light of the relevant literature.

 

 

Critical Analysis

In order to critically analyze Marissa Mayer’s ethical typology, decision making and leadership style, it is crucial to answer to few key questions first: Who is Marissa Ann Mayer? What personality traits does she possess? Where is Mayer working? What is she working on?

Marissa Ann Mayer is the current CEO of Yahoo Inc. with a 13-years former experience at Google. She is a Master of Science from Stanford University and is now counted among the highest paid CEOs within America, heading a workforce of more than 12,000 people. As a person, Marissa Mayer is smart, serious, strictly professional, bold, yet socially shy. She takes responsibility of her work and is specifically interested in getting things done, and done rightly (Campbell & Brown, 2015). She connected with Yahoo Inc. three years back in 2012 when the company was a wrecked ship. Yahoo’s websites were getting fewer and fewer visitors every year; Yahoo’s mobile apps were being largely ignored; its most talented engineers and executives have been leaving the company and the ones on the board seemed bored! They came late, left early and some only worked from home. The entire culture of the company was vulnerable and needed a good fix (Carlson, 2013). Since the beginning, Mayer was committed to make an absolute overhauling across the company’s processes, people, policies and culture. According to Forbes, Mayer’s used five elements to kick start the Yahoo culture: over-communication, employees’ recommitment, employee engagement, supporting innovation and celebrating progress (Forbes, 2013). Her prominent moves include over hauling of all company policies in the areas of human resource management; initiation of a weekly all-employee meeting to discuss Yahoo’s future strategies, take questions, and get employee’s feedback; replacement of all employees’ Blackberry phones with either iPhones or Android-based phones; free food at the company cafeteria; free new MacBook’s Air for the workforce; and launch of a program ‘Process, Bureaucracy, and Jams’ (PB&J). The aim behind PB&J program was to encourage people to give suggestions to transform Yahoo into the best place to work, and therefore improve the work culture and increase productivity (Sellers, 2013). These steps collectively helped Mayer to fix thousands of problems at Yahoo, some big and some small.

Ethical Reasoning

Ethics is the branch of philosophy that explores the nature of moral virtue and evaluates human actions. Ethical reasoning observed by people substantially influences their decision making process (White, 2005). Ethical reasoning is based on four dominant typologies to analyze the correctness or incorrectness of a decision when ethical dilemmas arise. These ethical typologies are: Virtue ethics, Deontological ethics Ethical learning and growth, and Teleological ethics. Virtue ethics focuses on individual ethical character rather than fulfilling duties or bringing good consequences. Deontological ethics denies the existence of intrinsic moral value of human actions; rather it emphasizes on the basic principles of doing the right. Ethical learning and growth theory centers self-interest and ethical egoism for moral reasoning. Lastly, teleological ethics is a result oriented approach that stresses upon the good or bad consequences of the actions as the basis for moral reasoning.

Mayer’s ethical approach can best be regarded as the Teleological one. She implemented a ban on telecommuting, eliminating work location flexibility at Yahoo, and ultimately generating a conflict. This decision by Mayer represents a teleological style of ethical decision where actions that produce more benefits than harm are right; while actions that cause more harm than benefits are wrong (White, 2005). It means that Myer focused on the goal of the more welfare i.e. to make Yahoo the best place to work and to get people to reconnect with each other. By the side of this collective welfare, this action imposed difficulties on individual lives of many men and women working remotely from different locations and making their living.

This ethical behavior can also be claimed as the utilitarianism which argues that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others. Therefore, one has to be forgone to acquire the other. Further, Utilitarianism view comprises that the morally right action is the action that produces the most good. As this the theory is a form of consequentialism, it is note-worthy that an action is evaluated as right or wrong entirely in terms of consequences produced (Ahmad, Ansari & Afaqi, 2005). Rather than maximize individual welfare, utilitarianism centers on collective welfare and it recognizes goodness with the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people (Mill, Bentham & Troyer, 2003). Thus maximizing benefits for the greatest number of people involves net assessments of benefit. Similarly, Mayer considered overhauling of the organizational culture more beneficial than the individual work comfort; and traded off one for the other.

Telecommuting, in particular, can also be analyzed through a utilitarian lens. According to Mintz, (2013), telecommuting has more advantages for employees as well as employers as compared to the disadvantages. He claims that with the advent of technology, companies are striving to remain competitive through cutting costs and attracting the best talent in the market through using telework as a competitive tool. Yahoo’s policy to ban telecommuting might cost them good employees in the long run, but it is worthwhile to keep in view the virtues of the such a decision for the company’s relative situation. For evidence, Myer wrote in a memo to employees: “To become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side”, “Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home”, “That is why it is critical that we are all present in our offices”, “(…) and the best is yet to come”. These words indicate that Mayer had a clear idea of the consequential vice and virtues of her actions. Further, a justice approach was also employed where the ban was unanimously imposed on all the workers across the hierarchy. She pursued a vision of collective welfare for the company and counted all the benefits of implementing a ban on telecommuting.

Decision Making

Decision making is simply an act of making a choice from among two or more alternatives in order to achieve a pre-determined outcome. Rational decision making (also called normative) involves an approach where decision problems are split into their elements so that the choices, the uncertainties and the outcomes can be explicitly given (Polič, 2009). However, it is accepted that in all cases, all information is not available and the quality of decision making has to be compromised by the means of heuristics and biases. According to Jones (1999), other than rational method of decision making is supported by bounded rationality where decision makers are intentionally rational – i.e. they are goal-oriented and adaptive – but because of human cognitive and emotional architecture, they sometimes fail, occasionally in important decisions. This means that for highly complex decision situations were all elements cannot be taken under consideration, rationality is partially replaced by intuition or gut-feeling. The factors driving decision makers away from rationality include time, availability of information, accuracy of information, ability to analyze and influence of other groups (Polič, 2009). Aforementioned factors force the decision maker to compromise his rationality and take support of bounded rationality.

Currently most of the ethical decision-making models provide a logical and reasoned process for making ethical judgements. These models prevail despite the fact that many non-rational factors influence the ethical thought and behavior, including context, perceptions, relationships, and emotions (Rogerson et al., 2011). Decisions taken by managers are critical for determining an organization’s future.  In strategically critical times, managers need to think broadly about the standing issues and analyze the direct and indirect impact of his actions onto the organizational system (DuBrin, 2013). Rational method of decision making implies that all the factors and consequences must be accessed; but Mayer’s decision to ban telecommuting is clearly an attempt supportive of bounded rationality. The decision seems to be based on a desire for increased productivity and a more connected company culture; i.e. the decision says more about the type of company (and culture) Mayer is planning to rebuild, and less about the state of telecommuting and flexible work schedules as a whole. Mayer’s decision was criticized in the following word: “And how disheartening to watch Mayer – an iconic success story in a male-dominated industry – put forth a decision that’s so lousy for women” (Dowd, 2013). Here, she is accused of not looking at the whole picture while taking the decision and overlooking the perceptions, relationships, and emotions of the employees who will be most affected by the decision.

Nevertheless, decision making in ethical dilemma is based on individual characteristics. Ethical reasoning, in particular, substantially influences one’s decision making process (White, 2005). Observing a utilitarian approach in this ethical dilemma, Mayer has encompassed the broader outcomes of the decision onto the future of the entire organization; and overlooked the smaller impacts on individual lives.

Leadership Style Analysis

Leadership style plays a crucial role in shaping up one’s ethical perception, which influences his decision making and ultimately impacts the organization on the whole. DuBrin (2013) argues that a leader is responsible to create a vision for the organization steering change and adaptability to new products, new markets, new competitors, new customers, and new work processes. Nevertheless before analyzing Mayer’s leadership skills, it is important to draw a clear line between leadership and management. The literature suggests that management deals with functions such as: planning, organizing, directing, and controlling; consequently, it produces order, consistency, and predictability. leadership qualities, in contrast to management, involves having a vision of what the organisation can become and moving people to accomplish. Moreover, top-level managers just manage or maintain organizations, whereas top-level leaders are likely to transform their organizations and influence change (DuBrin, 2013).

Marissa Myer has a characteristic management style as compared to other CEOs who steered Yahoo. Most of the CEOs in Yahoo’s past came in, developed a strategy and delegated it to their lieutenants passing it from top to bottom. Contrary to this, Myer entered Yahoo and executed a bottom-up approach. Some might argue that she is a micromanager in the extreme, and at one time she personally approved every hire Yahoo made (Carlson, 2013). Therefore, it is possible to identify a great capacity from Myer to plan, organize, and specially control. Moreover, it is also noteworthy that she has a systematically spelled out vision for the company in mind (Forbes, 2013); which she is trying to pursue by bringing all the employees on board, pushing them into the offices and recommitting them to their work. Therefore, she is more likely a leader than merely a manager.

Furthermore, leadership demands more than the administrative aspects of a manager, it requires for a leader to have inspirational, motivational, and influential skills. These skills must be followed by effective communication and teamwork, as the contemporary framework of leadership is founded upon a partnership between leaders and group members, including a sharing of leadership responsibility (DuBrin, 2013). As a leader, Myer is considered by some as a role model; she created a new vision for Yahoo, she institutionalized change, and tried to revitalize Yahoo’s culture. She widely communicated and over-communicated her vision for the future of Yahoo, she influenced employees to re-commit requesting everyone to work on-site (hands on) through a “take a personal part in changing Yahoo for the future” invitation, she gave permission for employees to try to take risks and to learn from failures, she asked employees to participate and to give ideas, she provided the support that nurtures innovation, and she celebrated every little progress as a part of her motivational leadership (Forbes, 2013). Apart from this, Myer showed a great passion for her work and a great commitment to Yahoo. These are the traits of transformational leaders; they pour immense amount of their time and energy in articulating values, infusing a sense of urgency in the workers, commits to greatness, communicating the plans to co-workers and then acting such that to reinforce the company’s new vision through their actions (DuBrin, 2013). Mayer has successfully undertaken all of these transformation roles to revive Yahoo Inc.

Nevertheless, Myer’s decision of banning telecommuting draws attention to few characteristics of autocratic leadership. She imposed her perspective about productivity to all the employees irrespective of their nature of work or nature of work arrangements; and all of the employees had to be physically present in the office for work (Wright, 2013). She had been ignorant to the fact that for many of her less-privileged sisters with young children, telecommuting is a lifeline to a manageable life (Dowd, 2013). This attitude indicates that she maintained the decision confidentiality, assuming that her co-workers and sub-ordinates shall comply, and she believed that it was the only way to get things right, and she was not overly concerned with their attitudes the decision and its impact. DuBrin (2013) determines this style as autocratic style of leadership. Her former colleague Mr. Salar Kamangar from Google mentions that Mayer has an I-know-the-best, teacher’s attitude and often she does not allow anyone else to enter the debate (Carlson, 2013). Conclusively, Mayer has practiced the golden leadership rules of collective participation and involved the employees; yet her dictatorial and work-inclusive personality has lead her to being autocratic and oversee the employee emotions with regards to few rigid steps that she thought were critical for long-term organizational success.

 

Conclusion

Managers are always expected to behave ethically during business dilemmas. It is found that elements including ethical reasoning, decision making approach and leadership style play a critical role in determining how managers respond to ethical dilemmas. The ethical dilemma arisen at Yahoo Inc after the ban of telecommuting has well explained how ethical reasoning, decision making approach and leadership style of the leader steer the outcomes of a dilemmatic situation. Marissa Mayer considered overhauling of the organizational culture more beneficial than the individual work comfort; and practiced a utilitarian approach for ethical reasoning. Her decision making was based on bounded rationality where she ignored the context, perceptions, relationships, and emotions of the remote employees. Nevertheless, her overall leadership style is transformational yet she displayed the characteristics of autocracy in this situation, taking rigid decision for the employees without their consent.

 

Reference List

Ahmad, N. H., Ansari, M. A., & Aafaqi, R. (2005). Ethical reasoning: the impact of ethical dilemma, egoism and belief in just world. Asian Academy of Malaysian Journal, 10(2), 81-101. Retrieved from http://web.usm.my/aamj/10.2.2005/aamj%2010-2-5.pdf

Campbell, M., & Brown, B. A. (2015). Toxic leader transition mini case study: Yahoo! Inc. 2009-2012. Phoenix:Arizona: University of Arizona.

Carlson, N. (2013, Aug 24). The Truth About Marissa Mayer: An Unauthorized Biography. Business Insider. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer-biography-2013-8?op=1

Dowd, M. (2013, Feb 26). Get Off of Your Cloud. The New York Times, p. A25.

DuBrin, A. (2013). Leadership: Research findings, practice, and skills. Mason, OH: USA: Cengage Learning.

Forbes. (2013, Jul 18). 5 ways mayer’s trying to kick-start the Yahoo! culture. Forbes Online. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkotter/2013/07/18/the-marissa-mayer-method-5-steps-to-kick-starting-the-yahoo-culture/

Jones, B. D. (1999). Bounded rationality. Annual review of political science, 2(1), 297-321.

Lurie, Y., & Albin, R. (2007). Moral dilemmas in business ethics: From decision procedures to edifying perspectives. Journal of Business Ethics, 71(2), 195-207. doi:10.1007/s10551-006-9134-1

Mill, J. S., Bentham, J., & Troyer, J. (2003). The classical utilitarians: Bentham and Mill. Hackett Publishing.

Mintz, S. (2013, Mar 20). Workplace issues in telecommuting. Workplace Ethics Advice. Retrieved from http://www.workplaceethicsadvice.com/2013/03/workplace-issues-in-telecommuting-.html

Polič, M. (2009). Decision making: Between rationality and reality. Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems, 7(2), 78-89.

Rogerson, M. D., Gottlieb, M. C., Handelsman, M. M., Knapp, S., & Younggren, J. (2011). Nonrational processes in ethical decision making. American Psychologist, 66(7), 614-621. doi:10.1037/a0025215

Sellers, P. (2013, Oct 22). How Yahoo CEO Mayer fixed 1,000 problems. Fortune. Retrieved from http://fortune.com/2013/10/22/how-yahoo-ceo-mayer-fixed-1000-problems/

Velentzas, J. & Broni, G. (2010). Ethical dimensions in the conduct of business: Business ethics, corporate social responsibility and the law. The” ethics in business” as a sense of business ethics. International Conference on Applied Economics–ICOAE, (pp. 795-819). Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.473.9713&rep=rep1&type=pdf

White, T. I. (2005). Resolving an ethical dilemma. Los Angeles: Loyola Marymount University.

Wright, A. D. (2013, Feb 26). Yahoo phases out telecommuting. SHRM Online. Retrieved from http://www.shrm.org/hrdisciplines/technology/articles/pages/yahoo-bans-telecommuting.aspx