On Learning the Wrong Lesson From Elon Musk’s Success

Adam Grant kicked off a storm with his latest piece in The New York Times. His thoughts are timely right now, tackling the topic of leadership styles—and whether Musk’s berating and yelling as a matter of course is effective.

Short answer, it’s not.

The evidence is clear: Leadership by intimidation and insult is a bad strategy. Belittling people doesn’t boost their productivity but diminishes it.

For years I’ve followed the work of great—as a descriptive term, not necessarily admirable—Silicon Valley tech founders: Gates, Jobs, Zuckerberg, Page, Brin, Musk, Altman, and many more.

Their books are inspirational and aspirational. Biographies and memoirs of these leaders regularly top bestseller lists.

There’s a lot of good we can glean from their stories, but also tons of examples we shouldn’t emulate.

When my friends—living outside tech but still engulfed in its effects—start telling me how much they admire these leaders then it’s clear something has changed in the culture itself. Those of us who got into tech decades ago, mainly out of a love for geeking out on things that were not cool back in the 90s, can’t help but feel that something’s changed.

Tech is mainstream. And with it every aspect of what’s made these giants successful.

So with leadership styles I’ve wrestled through what’s effective and what we should try and do as people and team members within organizations.

You can see it with elite athletes. In a study of nearly 700 N.B.A. players, those who had an abusive coach performed worse for the rest of their careers. Six years later, after changing teams, they were still adding less value on the court. They were also more likely to lash out and get charged with technical fouls.

That’s nuts. The abuse from these coaches had lasting effects. It caused real damage—and for companies who care—effects the bottom line.

The problem is, berating gets results. Short term. I’ve used it myself, and still remember the times I’ve resorted to raising the volume of my voice—and to this day I regret it.

If you’re not paying attention to the longterm you’ll only see the immediate results of the abuse on your workers. It’s like the Age of Empires II scenario editor—yes this is a deep cut—put in a condition and an effect, and see what happens. But if the effect takes years to show you’ll miss it.

You may get someone to stand up and pay attention with abuse. They may come around to what you are demanding. But something is lost as a result. Maybe—if you are the type of organization only looking for short term wins—you won’t care. That person won’t even be around long enough for it to matter.

But frankly I’m not interested in building that type of organization, and neither are you if you’re reading this.

We need to look to another path. It’s the slower path.

Years ago, I was spinning up a small team for a large contract project. The client, a Fortune 50 company, needed work done quickly, and had the budget to pay for it. Over time we worked on multiple projects, each with different needs.

For the first project I brought on a designer, and started to onboard them into the work. The client balked after the initial work. The designer wasn’t catching as quickly as they needed, so the stakeholder requested I pull them from the project. I pushed back, arguing for more time, that they’d rise to the occasion. I then worked closely with the designer, ensuring they had everything they need, and encouraged them forward—never berating them.

A few months later the stakeholder commended the designer, mentioning that they were exceeding expectations, and the project was a success due to their efforts. That was a massive win. I didn’t share the concerns with the designer, instead put out the extra effort to make sure they were able to rise to the task. And they did. I believed in them, and they made it work.

Contrast that with another designer I brought into a similar project. The deadlines were brutal, I was under tremendous pressure, and the project stalled. The client again shared their hesitations, for different reasons, and I carried that pressure back to the designer. In a moment I’m still not proud of I laid into the designer, raised my voice, and berated them for not performing. They accepted the feedback, then quietly explained that the lack of progress was due to not understanding all the pieces—a failure on my part.

It was the same problem as before, but I’d reacted differently. I realized my error and changed course, helped the designer, walked them through the steps, and weeks later the project was back on track—and a success by the end.

But the first deisgner has no baggage from the situation, no feelings of unease, no mark in their mind of ill performance. They were a great designer, and needed a nudge. Same with the second designer, the only difference was how I acted as a leader.

There is never an excuse for losing it. That doesn’t mean tough decisions should be avoided, but rather the way in which those choices are handled matters.

In the face of workplace aggression, people are less productive, less collaborative and more inclined to shirk their responsibilities. Abusive bosses break confidence and breed resentment. And ruthless, haphazard downsizing can cause the highest performers — the ones who have the best opportunities elsewhere — to jump ship.

The ones who stay and accept the abuse are the ones who don’t have a clear alternative. They feel trapped. That is never a situation you want to be in as a leader—only counting on the handcuffs of your team to keep them in place.

Now comes the inevitable question: How then do you explain Mr. Musk’s success? With Tesla and SpaceX, he’s built two wildly prosperous companies, disrupting one industry and supercharging another. But those results have come in spite of the way he treats people, not because of it.

The two examples I shared, working with different designers on separate projects, underscores this point. Both projects were a success, the difference is in the lasting effects on the people themselves—and that matters. It may be hard to track on a spreasheet, but it’s not the world I want to operate in—a world where we see abuse as the key to success.

Adam Grant ends the piece with the contrast between Steve Jobs and Musk. Jobs was known for abusing his team. But from the numerous accounts I’ve read of his life, there was a contrast between his earlier years and the later return to Apple.

Mr. Jobs “went through a fairly dramatic change, and he became kinder and more empathetic,” his longtime Pixar collaborator Ed Catmull told me.

He realized that burning people credit with colleagues would only get him so far. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t require excellence, but how you go about it matters.

It’s a pattern I’ve seen time and again in my research: Givers add more value than takers. Studies show that tech companies are more profitable when servant leaders are at the helm.

We have a chance to build great teams based on giving and leading with kindness. It’s not weak, it’s a quiet strength.

Via Adam Grant on The New York Times.