Wikimedia Foundation Reviews

As expressed in many reviews here, the leadership culture and specifically the c-team, their incentives and thinking, are really prime examples of American corporate leadership culture gone wrong. Little to no accountability, deep distrust, inability to hear "no", self-serving and personally ambitious, disrespectful of the values of staff and movement, focused on corporatizing and growing their control over participating as respectful partners to staff and volunteers. Years of negative staff surveys, particularly around leadership vision and accountability are basically shrugged off. The situation is particularly bad for middle and upper managers or people with significant experience. It can be a good place to work, but do not expect effective, thoughtful, values driven leadership. And do not trust the responses from HR or whoever that it is being "fixed". Thats been the song and dance for 5+ years of ups and downs. The incentives are not there for the leadership to change their behavior or way of thinking. HR can only do so much, and they too report to 2 c-levels who are part of the problem. So it is likely to remain this way, though more ups and downs, leaders coming and going, until economic circumstances or governance reforms force a change.

- Democratic to the point that decisionmaking is extremely difficult, slowing down product development - Tech (MediaWiki software) is very old-fashioned and inaccessible to would-be volunteers - Non-inclusive; if you haven't worked here since the beginning and/or do not have an aggressive personality type, no one will listen to you or take you seriously - Management thinks they understand sexism and diversity but make classic sexist and non-inclusive mistakes in hiring practices, promotions, and conflict resolution. - Criteria for advancement is not clear and varies vastly from department to department based on that team's management's attention to it. Some people are promoted every year with no previous experience, while others don't even qualify for promotion for several years, even with extensive previous experience in their field. - Re-orgs and inner turmoil abound. A lot of energy is spent trying to organize itself, its priorities, it's strategy, etc. - Many people in management have never managed before, and it shows. However, they are largely protected, even if they cost the org donors great amounts of money because of their inability to steward those funds and other resources properly - Underperformers and people who do not complete projects or show up aren't held accountable - If you mention any issues you are marked, and dismissed, unless you are in management or have other status in the movement