Thoughts on Corporate Culture
Leadership without expertise invites mediocrity
Decisive Leadership
To quote Colin Powell, “Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity. You’ll avoid the tough decisions, you’ll avoid confronting the people who need to be confronted, and you’ll avoid offering differential rewards based on differential performance because some people might get upset. Ironically, by procrastinating on the difficult choices, by trying not to get anyone mad, and by treating everyone equally ‘nicely’ regardless of their contributions, you’ll simply ensure that the only people you’ll wind up angering are the most creative and productive people in the organization.” Effective leadership requires making hard choices, holding people to account, and rewarding excellence.
The Need for Technical Acumen
The idea for this article stemmed from a podcast I was listening to titled, "The Best Leaders Are Also Technical Experts." I believe corporate cultures that value technical expertise, empower engineers, and foster rigorous innovation have historically driven the most groundbreaking advancements. Conversely, when financialization and corporate politics take precedence, incompetence often follows.
Boeing’s corporate transformation offers a cautionary lesson. During my MBA, I remember a lecture on mergers and acquisitions in which the professor highlighted the Boeing and McDonnell Douglas merger as an example of where to look to see who acquired whom. His point was to look at the C-suite, McDonnell Douglas dominated the C-suite positions coming out of the merger, so the name on the building didn’t matter as much as the brain-trust running it. The new Boeing was led not by engineers, but by executives from finance, marketing, and operations. This shift was not merely managerial but cultural. There have been numerous articles examining how Boeing lost its engineering-driven culture, the result of a fundamental shift in leadership philosophy, one that placed short-term financial performance above long-term technical integrity. Without domain expertise, executives struggle to evaluate technical recommendations and often fail to identify the best experts to advise them.
Technical managers understand what the job requires, know how to evaluate individual contributors (ICs), and can communicate in an engineering vocabulary. In a 1985 interview, Steve Jobs emphasized the value of ICs stepping into management, “You know who the best managers are? They’re the great individual contributors who never, ever want to be a manager, but decide they have to be a manager because no one else is going to be able to do as good a job as them.” A more recent critique by Elon Musk, “There’s the M.B.A.-ization of America, which I think is maybe not that great. There should be more focus on the product or service itself, less time on board meetings, less time on financials.” Successful technology companies not only embrace technical expertise at all levels, they encourage intellectual challenges. Consider Intel’s former CEO, Andrew Grove, who encouraged open debate to ensure the best ideas win, regardless of corporate hierarchy. Successful companies in any high-tech field must actively promote and empower technical experts rather than diminish their influence. Leadership must go beyond general management principles and integrate domain-specific decision-making.
Maintaining technical excellence within a company depends on investing in the next generation of experts. This investment includes mentorship programs and informal knowledge transfer pairings. It is critical to ensure that technical expertise is not lost. Companies should also provide structured career paths for technical employees, enabling them to achieve leadership positions without being forced into formal management roles. To cultivate future subject matter experts, organizations must encourage participation in high-level technical discussions early and often, provide continuous professional development opportunities, and offer clear and respected technical career paths.
Technical knowledge is also essential for identifying and cultivating future leaders. Studies indicate that simply surrounding oneself with experts is not enough; effective leaders must have the ability to evaluate expertise, advice, and determine its applicability. Without domain knowledge inside the leadership ranks, organizations risk misinterpreting data, following poor recommendations, and consequently making flawed strategic decisions. Therefore, effective leadership hinges not only on managerial acumen but also on a nuanced understanding of the domain itself. Leaders with domain-specific expertise can better assess risks, challenge flawed assumptions, and ensure sound technical decision-making. Leaders with a technical background tend to make better decisions grounded in reality, are more effective at communicating with engineers and stakeholders, and have the ability to challenge weak assumptions. There is a ‘shall statement’ for confident and secure leaders; otherwise they will not handle robust debate and descent.
Organizations that champion technical leadership create a foundation for sustained innovation and long-term success. By fostering a strong technical culture, developing future subject matter experts, and ensuring that leaders possess domain knowledge, companies can position themselves to thrive in an increasingly complex and competitive landscape. Every company gets to decide what kind of company it wants to be, but the laws of physics don’t bend for financial models.