A key saying I provide all my clients with in regards to corporate culture and behaviours: a fish rots from the head.
Usually this means things like 'if the boss is ten minutes late to every meeting, staff will assume it's acceptable for everyone to be ten minutes late to a meeting'.
Given Zuckerbeg's reputation for sneaky behaviour and this example of his PR team, I now have an excellent example to share in the future: 'If the boss uses sneaky, underhanded and/or arrogant methods to launch 'his' business, staff will assume it's acceptable for them to use sneaky underhanded and/or arrogant methods to promote it'.
> I now have an excellent example to share in the future
Your comment intuitively seems correct, and I'm inclined to agree with you. But I can't help but wonder if you just end up picking examples that support this claim. Most examples of corporate wrong-doing probably can't be correlated with traits of their CEO (they're just mistakes made by inept, or possibly malicious, individuals or groups).
Statistically, some percentage of corporate wrong-doing will correlate to some event in the CEO's past. I'm not sure that necessarily means that we can point to those cases as proof that a fish rots from the head.
Saying that the "head" has to be the CEO is taking it too far.
In most large companies, you are only aware of the behaviour of the two levels of management above you. If you see your boss or your bosses boss behave in a certain way, you will think that this behaviour is acceptable.
For example, the CEO of some bank might be very long-term, risk free, investement oriented, but if the boss of the trading desk only cares about the next paycheck and is willing to take risks to get his bonus, chances are all the traders will do whatever it takes to get good results without more than a year ahead.
I work in a company of about 140k people and I'm far more aware of the CEO than I am my boss or his boss. I don't even know who my boss' boss is or what he does, but I hear about the CEO on a regular basis (beyond just showing up in movies). It seems to me that in a large company, you're aware of your boss and the figureheads and everywhere in-between those two levels are given the gift of obfuscation.
The personality of the CEO trickles down to the rest of the organization. His VPs take his philosophy to their subordinates, and so on and so forth. Not only that, but the CEO's policy decisions directly affect the culture of an organization.
It seems to me that organizations tend to take on the personality of the strongest person in the chain. EVERY large company has one or two rogue units inside of it that behave very differently (usually for the better) than the overall culture. In each case I've dealt with, there has been a leader who had a tremendously strong personality that drowned out everything above him.
Most of the time, however, middle management tends to reflect and pass-on the tone and traits that the CEO presents just as you say.
Most examples of corporate wrong-doing probably can't be correlated with traits of their CEO (they're just mistakes made by inept, or possibly malicious, individuals or groups).
Nobody expects the CEO to be an angel. What's important is how the CEO reacts when someone under him screws up at the expense of customers, stockholders, or both.
Case in point, the Sony rootkit fiasco. Products go out the door with Sony's name on them, equipped with a 'feature' that would get any of us little people hauled before a judge on criminal charges. Response from the executive suite? Promote the manager responsible to President of the Global Digital Business division. Fast forward a few years, and consumers are still wandering around with confused, vaguely hurt looks on their faces, wondering why they never seem to get a square deal from Sony.
Same situation with Facebook: can a leopard change his spots?
Usually this means things like 'if the boss is ten minutes late to every meeting, staff will assume it's acceptable for everyone to be ten minutes late to a meeting'.
Given Zuckerbeg's reputation for sneaky behaviour and this example of his PR team, I now have an excellent example to share in the future: 'If the boss uses sneaky, underhanded and/or arrogant methods to launch 'his' business, staff will assume it's acceptable for them to use sneaky underhanded and/or arrogant methods to promote it'.