Facebook Inc. crises this year have put immense pressure on Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, undermining her authority and tainting an image that was burnished by the social-media company’s meteoric rise.
Some of her staff, who saw the executive as larger than life, now blame her for Facebook’s woes. At times, she prioritized her own brand over Facebook’s; surrounded herself with trusted lieutenants who filtered bad news; and didn’t address problems quickly enough or treated them as perception issues not opportunities for real change, according to eight current and former Facebook employees from her side of the organization.
Ever since the 2016 presidential election, Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has been criticized for his failure to understand the potential downsides of Facebook's products. Sandberg escaped direct scrutiny until a New York Times report earlier this month linked some of Facebook's current woes to her decisions. From now on, “she is always going to be tainted,” said one Facebook worker. The person asked not to be identified for fear of losing their job.
When Facebook was growing quickly and its shares were soaring, Sandberg was lauded for her leadership and meticulous management of relationships. After writing the 2013 book “Lean In,” which advocated for women in the workplace, she became the most famous female executive in America.
But this year, a series of company scandals and missteps, including misinformation on the social network and privacy breaches, have caught up to the 49 year-old executive. As COO, Sandberg oversees advertising and is rightly praised for masterminding an explosion in revenue. But she also leads legal and policy at Facebook, making her largely responsible for rising regulatory risks, souring government relationships and a 39 percent slump in Facebook’s stock since late July.
“Many of the most pressing problems fall under Sandberg’s responsibility,” said Brian Wieser, an analyst at Pivotal Research Group. “Placing the blame on Sandberg would be a convenient path forward for them.”
Zuckerberg is only really accountable to himself; he holds the majority of Facebook's voting power and is chairman of the board. But he doesn’t seem interested in shifting blame. He’s fiercely loyal to Sandberg after a decade in business together, and recently told CNN he hopes to work with her for “decades more to come.” Still, Sandberg will have to change the way she works to undo the damage to the company and her reputation. There are signs she’s already altering her approach, changing key advisers and creating a “strategic response” team to speed her reaction to hiccups that could turn into the company’s next crisis.
Until now, Sandberg focused on growth, often tackling obstacles with strategic messaging, rather than addressing the root cause of problems, according to the current and former employees who spoke with Bloomberg.
In October 2017, Facebook was preparing for its first-ever congressional hearing on Russia’s interference in the U.S. presidential election. Before the public grilling, Sandberg wanted to make a personal visit to Washington D.C., thinking she could smooth things over behind the scenes. But the company didn’t have much to say about how it was fixing holes in its system that let Russia run its manipulation campaign, and it didn’t have satisfying answers about why it failed to catch the operation. So the company’s policy advisers asked Sandberg not to go. And if she did go, they suggested she listen more than talk, according to people familiar with the matter.
Sandberg went anyway, with plenty of talking points. It didn’t work. She mostly told lawmakers that Facebook should have moved faster to find problems, and promised to do better. In some cases, like in a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus, the lack of substance backfired. Members of the caucus told the media afterwards that they wanted concrete changes, not promises.