Zuckerberg’s Decline In Popularity Has Important Lessons For Business Leaders

Like the stock market, the reputations of business leaders have their ups and downs, which has certainly been the case for Mark Zuckerberg. Unfortunately for the CEO of Facebook, his reputation has lately suffered more downs than ups.

The newest hit to Zuckerberg’s image came this week when, according to Bloomberg, his approval among some Facebook employees slipped, dropping him from Glassdoor’s ranking of the Top 100 CEOs for the first time in eight years. The good news for Zuckerberg is that he still has an 88% approval rating among employees.

According to Business Insider, “In 2013, when Glassdoor started the list, Zuckerberg ranked first with a 99% approval score. Employee approvals of him declined most in the final months of 2020 and in early 2021, when Facebook was grappling with the fallout from the U.S. presidential election and misinformation about Covid-19, Bloomberg reported.”

What’s At Stake

The words and actions of business leaders can help or hurt their image, credibility, and success and that of their organizations. Often the activities, culture or policies of companies—under the direction or guidance of its leaders—can impact the reputation of those leaders.

For a variety of reasons — whether it’s the immediate or cumulative impact of controversies, scandals, and other crisis situations, what Zuckerberg has said and done; or how he leads (or is perceived to lead) — this CEO’s popularity and reputation have fallen dramatically over time.

For Facebook and Zuckerberg, the numbers tell the tale.

Commitment To Privacy

• In 2018, NBC News reported that only 28% of Facebook users surveyed after Zuckerberg’s testimony before Congress about the Cambridge Analytica data scandal believed the company was committed to privacy—down from a high of 79% in 2017.

Favorability Rating

• Last July, Forbes.com reported that only 20% of registered voters had a favorable view of Zuckerberg, according to a survey conducted by Accountable Tech and GQR Research. Forbes reported, “Zuckerberg’s favorable rating has dropped by 28% since 2016, and he is viewed unfavorably by both[political] parties—leading GQR Research to note that while President Donald Trump is also viewed unfavorably by 56% (favorably by 39%), Zuckerberg is less popular, as he does not have any strong base of support.”

Trust

• In September, Facebook ranked last in digital trust among consumers, according to Insider Intelligence’s annual U.S. Digital Trust Survey.

Zuckerberg did not immediately respond to a request for comments about the decline of his popularity or how the perception of his leadership is impacting Facebook. 

Words Matter

Kunal Sawhney, CEO of Kalkine Group, thought Zuckerberg’s statement in 2020 that, “we don't fact-check political ads” “...dented the Facebook's co-founder’s image more than anything else.”

“The biggest stakeholders of Facebook are the very people who use its services to connect with the wider world….the tech giant has an indisputable obligation [to stakeholders] of serving their wider interests that include informed and unprejudiced decision-making, especially during polls,” he said.

“We need to understand that nothing is more dangerous to the democracy when misinformation shapes people's voting decisions. And that was where Zuckerberg likely put the discipline of business ethics on the back burner,” he speculated.

Facebook said, “We’ve learned the lessons of 2016 and have built strong defenses to stop people from using Facebook to interfere in elections. We now have more than 35,000 people working on safety and security. We’ve been involved in more than 200 elections around the world since 2017, and have built new products and developed stronger policies to help us prepare for future elections.”

Cause And Effect

Trey Taylor is the managing director of Trinity Blue Consulting, a consultancy focused on strategic planning and executive coaching. He said, “The role of a CEO is to shepherd the culture within a company and, in that, Zuckerberg has failed, which plays a significant role in his declining reputation. This is huge because his responsibility isn’t just to shareholders, but to all stakeholders.

“When stakeholders learned that Facebook, a company supposedly founded on the principles of community, was actively doing things that ran counter to their stated principles, his reputation plummeted and continued [to do so] since then.”

“One example of this was when we learned that [in 2012] Facebook was actively manipulating what users saw or didn’t see in their feed, in an attempt to manipulate public opinion. Even outside of the company’s stated principles, this creates significant ethical issues and demonstrates poor leadership, and violates the trust of all stakeholders,” Taylor said.

Writing on Medium.com in March, 2021, Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs, argued that there is no algorithm manipulation on Facebook.

‘Constantly Flip-flopping’

“Another example is that Facebook is constantly flip-flopping between claiming to be a platform or a publisher, depending on which role suits the company in a particular situation. The 1st Amendment says, basically, that you can say what you want as long as you’re not intentionally inciting violence.

“Because of this, a publisher can establish a particular viewpoint and if they lie, they can be held accountable…A platform, however, simply gives people a place to express their own views, and can’t be held accountable for what they say,” he observed.

Contradicting Principles?

“But in order to be considered a platform, a company must allow everyone to have a voice. It can’t censor topics simply because leaders within the company don’t agree with them. Because of this, Facebook is acting as a publisher, not a platform, and that contradicts the principles Zuckerberg claims the company operates on. This incongruency is why so many in the investment community believe that Zuckerberg is the biggest threat to Facebook,” Taylor concluded.

How To Get Back On Course

Jeremy Knauff is the founder of digital marketing agency Spartan Media. “If Zuckerberg truly wants to get the proverbial ‘ship’ back on course, he needs to do two things. First, he needs to address the complaints from users and business customers that have gone unanswered by Facebook for years. Then, he needs to make an effort to communicate clearly, and effectively, which may require training from high-level coaches or consultants.”

Facebook’s New Focus

In a conference call with investors in January, 2020 to discuss Q4 2019 earnings, Zuckerberg said, “My goal for this next decade isn't to be liked, but to be understood. In order to be trusted, people need to know what you stand for.

“So we're going to focus more on communicating our principles— whether that's standing up for giving people a voice against those who would censor people who don't agree with them, standing up for letting people build their own communities against those who say that new types of communities forming on social media is dividing us, standing up for encryption against those who say privacy mostly helps bad people, standing up for giving small businesses more opportunity andsophisticated tools against those who say targeted advertising is a problem, or standing up for serving every person in the world against those who say you have to pay a premium in order to really be served.

“These positions aren't always going to be popular, but I think it's important for us to take these debates head on.

“I know that there are a lot of people who agree with these principles, and there are whole a lot more who are open to them and want to see these arguments get made. So expect more of that this year.”