Leadership Analysis: Mark Zuckerberg and Transactional Leadership

This essay provides an in-depth analysis of Mark Zuckerberg's leadership style, specifically focusing on his transactional approach and its impact on the success of Facebook. It begins with a brief biographical sketch of Zuckerberg, highlighting his early coding skills and educational background. The essay then defines transactional leadership and identifies its key characteristics, such as motivating employees through rewards and incentives, setting clear goals, and maintaining a structured workflow. It argues that Zuckerberg embodies these qualities, citing examples such as his open communication with employees, the employee-friendly environment at Facebook headquarters, and the emphasis on employee well-being and professional development. The essay also touches upon Zuckerberg's innovative and disruptive ideas, his courage and confidence, and his ability to encourage open debate and idea-sharing, all of which contribute to his effectiveness as a leader. The essay concludes by emphasizing how Zuckerberg's leadership has fostered a culture of innovation and growth at Facebook.

Running head: LEADERSHIP FOR GLOBAL HOSPITALITY
LEADERSHIP FOR GLOBAL HOSPITALITY
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Although there are a number of successful leaders who have created history in their own
domain, I believe Mark Zuckerberg is one of the most influential and one of the wealthiest men
in the world. Zuckerberg was born in the year of 1984 in New York, White Plains. His family
consisted of his father, a dentist; his mother, a psychiatrist and three of his sisters. He hails from
an Ivy League college, and unequivocally was a dropout. From a very early age he started to
code in a brilliant manner, Zuckerberg’s father taught him BASIC and then software developer
David Newman was hired to teach him privately. Newman declared Zuckerberg as a prodigy and
according to him it was quite difficult to stay ahead of Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg completed his
graduation from Mercy College and was coding all through his teenage years vigorously. He
almost created the primitive version of AOL messenger that allowed his home computers and the
computers at his father’s office to communicate with each other. This essay is going to focus on
the leadership style that Zuckerberg follows which has made his company Facebook reach the
position it is today.
A good leader is one who has the ability to motivate his employees for better work and
look after their well being too (DuBrin, 2016). Looking at the leader, Mark Zuckerberg, I believe
that it can be stated that he possesses a good number of managerial qualities. I believe that his
leadership style can be stated to be transactional. He has learnt his lessons from the mistakes he
committed, he has successfully taken risks and he has helped his company grow in the way of a
leader who is almost visionary. At this very young age, Zuckerberg has, with his own merits,
determination and guidance from his mentors secured a position among the top ten CEOs across
the globe. He has to his credit building the most popular social networking site, named
‘Facebook’.

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The beginning of Facebook had been in Zuckerberg’s university, Harvard. He created a
program called CourseMatch back at college that helped the students to choose their respective
classes and also the study groups correctly. And not only this, even during his college years he
created a site called Facemash that used the Harvard student’s database to collect the pictures
and allowed any student to choose the best looking picture and rate them accordingly. The very
next day the college had to pull the site down due to its incredibly heavy traffic. This was almost
a very crude prototype of the Facebook that he started to code after a year. Initially it was known
as “the facebook”, but slowly and gradually things started taking shape and “the facebook”
transformed to the modern day Facebook. The journey of this transformation had definitely been
not a smooth one and it was Zuckerberg’s leadership skills from the very beginning that helped
Facebook to survive in the long run. The creation of Facemash shows that Zuckerberg had been
creative and innovative from his very early age.
Transactional leaders are the kind of leaders who emphasize on maintaining the proper
workflow of the operations they are dealing with. Leaders who fall in this category generally get
their works done by motivating the employees with tangible and intangible rewards and also by
encouraging them to perform better (DuBrin, 2016). The transactional leaders get themselves
satisfied by completing targets on a regular basis. They take short term goals and fulfill it and
then again take the next one (DuBrin, 2016). Their main strategy is to motivating the employees
working for them which they do by offering incentives and maintaining a high incentive scheme
as well as provide other opportunities for professional and personal growth (DuBrin, 2016). I
believe that Mark Zuckerberg has all the mentioned qualities of a transactional leader as his
working style matches the requirements that define transactional leadership qualities. He is
known to motivate his employees by giving out a clear picture of the future of the company.

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Besides giving out plans for the growth of the company he also gives a brief on how to work in
order to achieve the goals. His disruptive and innovative ideas, his courage and confidence and
his energy for work make him one of those leaders whom the employees are happy to follow,
which ultimately leads to the growth of the company.
The leadership style of Zuckerberg can be better understood from the environment of the
Facebook headquarters which is situated in California, MenloPark. Zuckerberg, being a
transactional leader has kept the platform for an open discussion among the employees and users
on every Friday. On this platform the founder Facebook himself shares his ideas and thoughts
about the growth and aims of the company. The ambience at the Facebook office remains quite
employee friendly given the leadership style of the CEO of the company. The employees get
regular incentives, salary hikes, extra rewards for better performance as well as rewards that are
more personal such as celebrating one’s birthday or honoring some personal achievement. The
office of Facebook offers employees with a high quality eating space and also provides them
with facilities like doctors, therapists and chiropractors. It has also got yearly recreational events
planned for the mental well being of the employees so that the employees can work with fresh
mind and vigor.
Zuckerberg following the qualities of a transactional leader allows the employees of the
company to choose the projects they feel most interested to work in. This method of leading the
team of workers give them a sense of confidence as well as importance which make them work
better and in a more concentrated manner.
I believe that the transformational leadership style that Zuckerberg follows has helps and
continues to help Facebook towards a promising and brighter future. He as a leader has

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flourished with every successful step that Facebook took and continues to do so. His leadership
style can also be defined in terms of aggressive, innovative, demanding and encouraging. He
allows his employees to have debates which are friendly and also encourages them to put
forward any ideas they have for the betterment of the company. I believe that these very qualities
make him a leader who can be looked up to.

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References:
DuBrin, A. (2016). Research Findings, Practice, and Skills. Boston, Massachusetts: Cengage.