Yahoo has been hemorrhaging high-level employees since the Microsoft takeover bid fell through (handily, technology blog TechCrunch has been keeping track ). Clearly there’s a great deal of dissatisfaction in the company.
Two of the most recent departures were the founders of companies Yahoo purchased (Flickr and Del.icio.us). When this happens, one has to assume that the purchasing company was stifling innovation by not providing effective leadership. Leadership contexts can change depending on the size of the team, the team’s location, and the personalities on the team.
Sensitivity to when people will need to act in different roles can help keep employees happy and make them more productive.

What’s going on at Yahoo? Will CEO Jerry Yang, having just marked one year in the position , be around for much longer? It’s interesting to try to understand his mindset. After not accepting Microsoft’s offers to take over Yahoo, he upset shareholders; his personal desire to keep the company he built independent has destroyed a great deal of shareholder value.
He was holding out for a higher offer—was he aware of some value in Yahoo that the casual observer is not? Sometimes CEOs can adopt a longer term view to the challenges they face and put current concerns in perspective—we found this among senior managers with a great deal of executive accountability in a Cranfield study of the NHS Trust.
But has the potential merger made Yang lose all perspective? He recently wasn’t able clearly answer the question of what Yahoo does . His longevity at Yahoo remains to be seen.