Excerpts
With those four words, Yahoo’s chief executive, Carol A. Bartz, did something Tuesday afternoon that dismissed managers almost never do: She told the truth.
Ms. Bartz’s blunt statement, sent in an e-mail blast to Yahoo’s 13,400 employees, immediately ignited a debate: Was she a pioneer trying to provide more transparency and authenticity at the top ranks of prominent companies, or was her salvo an unprofessional tirade that was a personal and professional mistake?
Jeffrey Pfeffer, a Stanford professor who is an expert in organizational behavior, is in the first group. “The truth helps you improve,” he said. “When people lose their jobs and there’s no acknowledgement, the potential for learning is lost.” Ms. Bartz’s comments also served her own cause, the professor said. “She’s acting as if this is not her fault. She’s not embarrassed. She’s controlling the story.”
But Jennifer Chatman, a professor and chair of the Haas Management of Organizations Group at the University of California, Berkeley, said Ms. Bartz’s angry words could help sink the struggling search portal. Now the directors who ejected Ms. Bartz are under attack at the moment employees need them to save Yahoo.
“A chief executive who was thinking first about the long-term interests of her company would not have done this,” Ms. Chatman said, adding that there are problems of perception in this case as well: “She’s one of a handful of top female business leaders. It would be easy to attach this to a stereotype of women leaders as not in control of their emotions.”
Whatever the effect on Yahoo, unvarnished comments like Ms. Bartz’s are likely to become more common. Chief executives are increasingly conscious of their personal brand and how it can diverge from the corporate brand.
Authenticity, though, can backfire, and vulnerability is not always something to be desired. Executives who are not on their way out are learning that broadcasting their feelings can have unintended consequences.
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