Bill George, a senior fellow at Harvard Business School and former CEO of medical technology company Medtronic, has criticised Mark’s leadership as CEO of Meta, saying that Zuckerberg is dragging the company towards failure rather than helping with its growth.
In his new book titled, “True North: Leading Authentically in Today’s Workplace, Emerging Leader Edition,” George stated that “bosses that lose sight of their most deeply held beliefs, values, and purpose as a leader, are doomed to fail.”
The author went on to say that Zuckerberg and Meta are examples of such failure today and that the CEO is to blame for Facebook losing its market share to TikTok.
In a conversation with Yahoo! Finance, George stated, “I think the wealth went to his head. I think Facebook is not going to do well as long as he’s there. He’s likely one of the reasons so many people are turning away from the company. He’s really lost his way.”
“He’s got a group of young people that are more like Mark’s followers. It’s too bad that Mark is really de-railing right in real-time,” George added.
When asked what leadership change Zuckerberg needs to make, George replied, “An organization needs to say: ‘This is what we stand for clearly. You may disagree, but this is what this company stands for.’”
Adding that, “I think he really has hurt a lot. And frankly, young people are moving away from Facebook.”
Talking about the leadership team at Facebook and how Zuckerberg is dealing with them, George responded, “He had Sheryl Sandberg there. He had some senior mentors on the board. He pushed them all out.”
Earlier this year in June, Frances Haugen, a Facebook whistle-blower stated that Facebook will not be able to recover as long as Zuckerberg is leading the company.
She went on to suggest that Zuckerberg should step down and make room for change, rather than allocating resources to a rebranding campaign.
Meta – Facebook’s parent company – continues to invest heavily into the metaverse and VR under Zuckerberg’s leadership, despite warnings that profits in these areas will be a long time coming. Something that has led to doubts in Zuckerberg’s vision.
Isa Muhammad is a writer and video game journalist covering many aspects of entertainment media including the film industry. He's steadily writing his way to the sharp end of journalism and enjoys staying informed. If he's not reading, playing video games or catching up on his favourite TV series, then he's probably writing about them.
