July 18, 2011

Leadership Kudos and Gaffes: Leading and supporting a team, while the other is burying his mistakes

Leadership Kudos this week go to Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer. While founder Mark Zuckerberg gets the media attention, it is Sandberg whois steadily building Facebook into a great growth company. Her steady hand on thewheel is driving a well-oiled machine that continues to take on broader challengesand strengthen its management talent. Watching the P&L as well as numbers ofparticipants, Sandberg is the driving force behind Facebook’s growing market value,estimated by some as high as $100 billion.

Leadership Gaffes go to News Corporation’s founder and CEO, Rupert Murdoch.  Who else? Murdoch has aggressively built his media empire by taking over newspapers and television stations and turning them into mouthpieces for his political goals. Now his tactics, many of them unethical and even illegal, have caught up with him. He can fire Rebekah Brooks and Les Hinton (or “bury his mistakes,” as he likes to say), but the buck stops with him. His scandal threatens even the British political establishment. Is it time for him to accept responsibility and step down?