Jerry Yang has stepped down from his role as chief executive of Yahoo. Announcing his resignation in a memo sent to Yahoo’s staff on Monday evening, Mr Yang said he would continue as acting CEO until the board appoints a successor.

Yang, a co-founder of Yahoo, has been CEO for the last year and a half after he took over from Terry Semel, a Hollywood studio boss that Yang had chosen for the job. Unfortunately, during this time, Yahoo has been marred by a declining share price, a botched merger with Microsoft, board room strife, and a decision to retrench 1,500 employees.

Yahoo has hired head hunters Heidrick & Struggles to help look for candidates. Upon appointing Jerry Yang’s successor, the outgoing CEO plans to remain actively involved at Yahoo as a key executive and member of the board.

Yahoo’s share price increased by over 4 percent in after-hours trading following the news, indicating that shareholders are pleased that Jerry will no longer be CEO.

Source: Brad Stone and Claire Cain Miller, “Jerry Yang, Yahoo Chief, Steps Down”, The New York Times, November 17, 2008

TechCrunch has started a ‘layoff tracker’ to track employee layoffs in the tech sector.

As at October 24, 2008, 19,683 tech layoffs have been announced since mid-September, not counting the 24,600 people at Hewlett-Packard who will be retrenched as a result of its merger with EDS.

Five large companies make up more than 90 percent of the layoffs: Xerox (3,000), Dell (8,900), Yahoo (1,500), eBay (1,500), and Qimonda (3,000). The remaining 33 companies on the Layoff Tracker are generally startups, accounting for 1,683 layoffs. Removing three large companies (Sony Ericsson, Nvidia, and TicketMaster) from the list, and TechCrunch estimates the number of layoffs at tech startups to be 573.

Looking down the list, some of these layoffs constitute a substantial part of the relevant companies’ workforces. For example, the 20 people to leave Imeem constitute a quarter of its workforce.

Sources: Erick Schonfeld, “19,683 Tech Layoffs And Counting”, TechCrunch, October 24, 2008, TechCrunch Layoff Tracker

I spend part of my week consulting with a large company on its Internet marketing strategy. This particular company is currently in the process of merging with another company in the same industry…

As you might imagine, for all the exciting possibilities promised by the merger, a lot of people are uncertain about their future in the merged entity. Will they keep their current jobs after the merger? Will they even have a job after the merger?

These questions are being asked at all levels. In fact, there is every likelihood that those at the very top will be shuffled around and may not retain their current positions.

Yet, while the staff and management may speculate about their future, they still need to get on with their jobs. In particular, the same senior leaders and managers who may not have the same roles (if any roles) in a few months’ time must continue to lead and manage right now.

I attended a recent management briefing where the question was raised as to what someone should do to best demonstrate that they should keep their jobs after the merger. The CEO said that, for those in leadership positions, now is the time to demonstrate their ability to lead. He acknowledged that this would be difficult, given the personal uncertainty faced by these very same people, but added the following:

“True leaders are those who lead when their own future is uncertain.”

The CEO went on to explain that the essence of a leader is someone who can rally people behind them, give them hope, and empower them to continue moving forward… when the leader is, in fact, the person who is most vulnerable in an uncertain future.

I agree. It’s all very well to lead people when you have nothing to lose… it’s all very well to lead people when the only “lives” at stake are theirs… it’s all very well to lead people when you equally face uncertain times… but what if you have the most to lose?

Can you still lead in that situation? That is the real test.

Being able to lead when you have the most to lose - that is true leadership.