"Jumping into the trenches" (oh, over the weekend!) isn't what the CEO of a multi-billion company does, it's what an arrogant, career-oriented boss who can't delegate does to compensate for his apparent lack of sufficient involvement.
That's absolutely ridiculous. Plenty of CEOs carve out a little time to jump into the trenches and work on things they really care about, or work on fun things to relax and get away from the big stuff for a little bit. Nothing about that says "arrogant, career-oriented boss who can't delegate and requires compensating for lack of involvement." May be Marissa Mayer thinks the logo is important enough to warrant her attention. Or may be she just wanted to work on something fun to get a break from the boardroom for a day or two. Or may be it's both.
Jumping to conclusions about someone you don't know based on a breezy blog post about a logo project seems far more arrogant to me than her taking a few days to work closely on this project.
> That's absolutely ridiculous. Plenty of CEOs carve out a little time to jump into the trenches and work on things they really care about, or work on fun things to relax and get away from the big stuff for a little bit.
Come on, read through the lines :-).
My post isn't to be read in terms of "Marissa Mayer is an arrogant, career-oriented boss"; it's my own experience there, and should be read in terms of "I've seen people do what she did, and they were arrogant, career-oriented bosses". Correlation doesn't imply causation; for all we know, it could be that she's a talented graphic designer with exceptional leadership skills, but I have my doubts on it.
That being said, Yahoo's logo change was a big move. It's the visual spearhead of their rebranding. That's hardly a fun thing you do to relax and get away from the big stuff, so that leaves important.
Leaving management principles aside, the polite thing to do when something is really important is generally to leave it to people who are good at it and not put unneeded pressure on them. The whole stream of action reeked of manipulation -- which, as it always happens, may not have been intentional, but that doesn't make it stink any less.
I am not being intentionally thick or judgmental based on nothing but a blog post. I am relating it to my previous experience, and definitely hope I am wrong (for the sake of Yahoo's employees, if anything).
That's absolutely ridiculous. Plenty of CEOs carve out a little time to jump into the trenches and work on things they really care about, or work on fun things to relax and get away from the big stuff for a little bit. Nothing about that says "arrogant, career-oriented boss who can't delegate and requires compensating for lack of involvement." May be Marissa Mayer thinks the logo is important enough to warrant her attention. Or may be she just wanted to work on something fun to get a break from the boardroom for a day or two. Or may be it's both.
Jumping to conclusions about someone you don't know based on a breezy blog post about a logo project seems far more arrogant to me than her taking a few days to work closely on this project.