Mark Zuckerberg’s Memo Isn’t Leadership
It was recently reported that Facebook Founder, Mark Zuckerberg released a letter dealing with intolerant behavior on behalf of his employees. Apparently, within Facebook HQ has a wall where employees are encouraged to share thoughts, ideas or general musings for public consumption. “Black Lives Matters”, the hashtag turned social movement, was among the material written on the wall. Unfortunately to some faction of Facebook employees this was not well received and the words were either erased or replaced with the demeaning counter argument of “All Lives Matter”. Mr. Zuckerberg having already released an internal memo to deal with and denounce these incidents only to have them continue upped the ante in a tersely worded letter to employees. You can read it in full here.
The letter was positively received as evidence of Mark Zuckerberg “getting it”. He was applauded for his clear and unequivocal support for a tolerant work place environment. He also scored points by making a concise case for Black Lives Matter and its relevance given the historical and current social climate. All of these things are good but they are not positions to be lauded. Nor are they examples of visionary leadership.
Peter F. Drucker sums it up perfectly “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”
What Mr. Zuckerberg demonstrates is good managerial skills (with a healthy dose of understanding the power of public relations), nothing more and nothing less. As the Founder and CEO of one of the most highly visible companies in the world it is Managerial 101 to confront any issues of workplace intolerance head on. In this respect he does 100% the correct thing. His messaging is clear and leaves no grey area for the offending employees. But, this is NOT an example of leadership, least of all visionary leadership as many have cited. In short, Mr. Zuckerberg is doing what he is “supposed to do” and as Chris Rock says I can’t give him too much credit for that. Facebook exists within an industry that has rightly come under fire for its shocking lack of diversity. Only 2% of the Facebook total workforce is African American and 4% is Hispanic. Leadership in this context would be an aggressive push to diversify Facebook ranks throughout the organization. Recruiting, hiring and retaining a diverse workforce would prove that Facebook is inclusive in both word and action. The right thing, the visionary leadership thing, is to put forth actionable plans designed to upend the status quo. It is no longer enough to give lip service to diversity while not making concerted efforts to address inclusion. Mr. Zuckerberg is a great manager but we’re still waiting for the leader to emerge as it pertains to diversity and inclusion.
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