Poor little Research in Motion just can’t catch a break. Following last year’s woes, with the days-long BBM network disruptions and the colossal failure of the BlackBerry PlayBook, 2012 doesn’t seem to be their year either. One of the biggest criticisms levelled at the company by investors and tech journalists alike has been that of stale leadership, and you’d think that they’d welcome a new man at the helm.

While long-time co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie were shown the door, an insider, COO Thorsten Heins, was given the reins. The German-born Heins is highly rated within RIM, but wasn’t the transformational outsider that investors were looking for. They signalled their lack of faith in the company by selling stock, leading to a drop of 13% from the end of Friday’s trading to the start of Tuesday.

While by Thursday the stock has partially rebounded and is now only down 4%, it’s a worrying drop for the company and certainly underscores the need for Heins to make some big changes happen fast. With rumours of a vastly smaller raft of new phones this year and continued problems with its new operating system, RIM and Heins will definitely need some good luck and heavy focus to turn things around.

This article was written by William Judd. William writes for Mobile Fun, the UK’s leading online retailer of mobile accessories including mains USB adapters, Brodit accessories and Samsung headphones.