Subscribe to the Three Star Leadership Blog

The Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training.

For weekly tips and resources pointers, check Wally's Three Star Leadership Letter

Find out more about having Wally speak to your company or convention.

Find out more about Wally's coaching services.

Hear that sound? It's the chickens coming home to roost at Yahoo. And as the chickens arrive, they're driving out one executive after another.

Miguel Helft has an excellent piece in today's NY Times titled "At Yahoo, the Exodus Continues." At Business Week, Catherine Holahan wrote another fine story called "Bidding Yahoo Adieu." And at TechCrunch they're even tracking the departing Yahoo execs.

None of this should come as a surprise. As a general rule, people tend to leave companies when it seems like the leadership is clueless.

For an overview of this, read Joe Nocera's devastatingly on-target column, "Oh Jerry, It’s No Longer Your Baby." The column is written as if it were a memo from Nocera to Jerry Yang with the subject line: "Shafting Yahoo’s Shareholders."

The column itself is too rich in both details and memorable phrases to summarize, but one paragraph will give you the core idea.

"Jerry, you’re a billionaire because people all over the world bought your stock, and trusted you to do right by them. That’s the compact you make when you take a company public: you get to be really rich, but in return, you have an obligation to do everything you can to ensure that shareholders get a healthy return on their investment. It doesn’t matter that you would like Yahoo to remain independent, or that you can’t stand Microsoft. Your feelings aren’t supposed to get in the way of your fiduciary duty."

There will be lots more written about Yahoo and Jerry Yang. And whatever happens next, it probably won't make Jerry happy. I'm reminded of the line from Fiddler on the Roof: "Whether the stone hits the pitcher or the pitcher hits the stone, it's going to be bad for the pitcher."

So what lessons can we carry away from all this. One is simple.

Just because you're really, really smart doesn't mean you can lead a company or a Cub Scout Pack. But if you're going to try there are some things that help.

If you're going to lead a business, it helps to know how business works.

If you're going to lead a business, it helps to know how people act.

If you're going to lead a business it helps to have a sense of service instead of a sense of entitlement.

Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.

Request your free copy of "Meeting the Challenges of the Boomer Brain Drain: An integrated approach."

Wally Bock has helped people learn to be great bosses for more than a quarter century. His latest book, Performance Talk: The One-on-One Part of Leadership, makes learning key leadership principles almost effortless by teaching through a story and providing lists of resources for further growth.

Click here to find out more about Wally's coaching services.

For weekly tips and resources pointers, check our Wally Bock's Three Star Leadership Letter.

Click here to find out more about having Wally speak to your company or convention.