Leadership Lessons From Elon Musk
Hint: It's Opposite Day!
As a former power user of Twitter and the founder of a company dedicated to fostering healthy and equitable leadership, I’ve watched the absolute implosion of Twitter with a lot of interest.
There’s a lot to say about how this happened– about narcissism, and hubris, and why the fact that billionaires pay no taxes is a threat to all of us. But for today, I want to discuss a few key takeaways from Musk’s takeover of Twitter, and what his abject failure as a leader can teach all of us.
Great Leaders Know They Don’t Know, and Can’t Do, Everything
Just to go back to the beginning of the Twitter fiasco, one might ask, as a part of this origin story, why on earth the person who acquired an electric vehicle company might consider themselves also qualified to run a massive online social media endeavor that has been referred to as the world’s public square.Â
Hint: there is absolutely no reason why running an electric car company qualifies anyone to run a digital social media platform. Billionaire ego might try to convince one otherwise, but the answer is short and simple: no.
In the decade that I’ve been a leadership consultant, the best clients I’ve worked with are those who know inherently that they don’t know everything, and even better, know that they need to hire qualified people to fill the gaps in their own knowledge.
As I discussed at length in my book, Becoming Heroines: Unleashing Our Power for Revolution and Rebirth (Penguin/Portfolio 2021), some of the most successful and equitable models of leadership are not those that function as hierarchies where one person (usually a cis man) is assumed to know everything, and those below him are lesser beings whose knowledge is somehow inherently flawed. Rather, the most successful models of leadership are in fact those that are team based, where even if one or several rotating facilitators keep the organization moving forward, everyone’s knowledge is valued and known to be unique and critical to the endeavor’s success as a whole.
By adopting a stance of humility and equity as leaders, we make sure that the big gaps in our own knowledge don’t tank the entire organization. And yes, hubris can tank a company. Elon Musk is a prime example.
Make Informed, Well Thought Out Decisions, With Input From Those Who Know the Most About the Issue at Hand, When Not Dysregulated
Recently, we’ve seen Elon Musk poll Twitter users (including the bots and trolls that have run rampant on the platform to even greater degrees since his takeover) about key decisions in the company, or worse yet, make on the fly decisions to suppress the free press based on fabricated threats perceived by Musk that have since been proven false.
As any solid, grounded leader will tell you, while knowing your audience is key to any endeavor’s success, solid decision-making is never made in the middle of the night after your bodyguard has hit someone with your car.
Particularly, in the instances of deciding how to moderate content, Musk might have (had he not fired them all) consulted with the trust and safety council of Twitter to determine whether banning journalists was a solid business decision. Moreover, he might have consulted with government officials to determine whether there were national or international security considerations about banning, say, the Chief Correspondent of Voice of America overseas.
Any person can tell you that making decisions on the fly, or from an uniformed place, or when your emotions are running high due to your need for narcissistic approval, is not a good idea.Â
Ask for input, make big decisions in consultation with key partners, and don’t make decisions when you’re upset.
Your Staff is Your Greatest Asset
It must be hard when you’re a billionaire to understand this, but the people you surround yourself with are the most valuable part of your success. No leader can do it alone.
Indeed, at the company I run, I endeavor to overpay people, I give everyone whatever time off they want, I am profuse with gratitude publicly and privately, and I am under no illusions that without my senior staff, my company will fall apart.
A few things that should be obvious here but plainly aren’t to Elon Musk:
Don’t fire people in the middle of the night
Don’t ignore employment laws
Remember that when you lose people, you lose institutional knowledge
Remember that the people on your team are people, with loved ones, kids, interests, lives and bills to pay
Remember that your staff may be dependent on their employment for immigration status
Do not, under any circumstances, make rash decisions about employment status unless you want to destroy morale and thereby ruin the functionality of your organization
Working families are the backbone of America, and deserve every benefit possible, including healthcare, paid time off, paid vacation, paid sick days, paid family medical leave, and disability, no questions asked
And finally, if hard financial decisions have to be made, make them with empathy, compassion and kindness, and don’t forget massive severance packages.
Understand the Trust Thermocline
Elon Musk should know about the trust thermocline because a huge twitter thread was written about it just days after he took over, but the principles of the trust thermocline tell us that once you lose the trust of your audience, they leave and it’s very hard to get them back.
Any great leader understands that trust is an essential currency to success. Whether you’re trying to win an election or advocate for your cause or lead a company, the trust of your audience is critical.
Make your decisions from a place that considers their impact to the trustworthiness of your endeavor. Posting anti-vax theories or retweeting neo-nazis, for instance, might cause your users to hit that trust thermocline like a brick wall, and justifably abandon ship, never to return.
And Lastly: Seek Help If You are Prone to Self-Sabotage– Good Leaders Don’t Let Organizations Implode For Kicks
There is a mountain that could be written about how Elon Musk’s hubris and narcissism led us to the dumpster fire that Twitter has become, but it didn’t have to be this way. Good leaders know that if serious errors have been made, and those errors continue to adversely impact your endeavor and the lives of all who work for it (not to mention democracy and national security), it might be time to take a look in the mirror and consider whether, to paraphrase Taylor Swift, it’s you, hi, you’re the problem, it’s you.
Many a good leader has needed a coach or a therapist in the best of times to continue to grow their endeavor or their cause in the right direction. This is even more true in times of struggle and challenge and change.
There is nothing wrong with admitting what you don’t know, or that you need help, or that maybe your divorce or your childhood or your general mental health might have something to do with your ongoing issues at work.
Whether it’s your legacy that’s at stake, or tomorrow’s innovation, or maybe just your to-do list, everyone needs help along the way.
Admitting that you have a problem is the first step to solving it, and it’s a critical step to making sure that everything you’ve claimed to stand for and everything you’ve built and, just maybe, your entire fortune, doesn’t go up in smoke.
Need help with your leadership? Good news! We’ve got a new program coming up in January 2023 that is designed to get you where you want to go, whether you’re a corporate leader, a community organizer, or someone seeking to mobilize in your community. We’re calling it Leadership. Reinvented.
Want to know more? Get on the interest list here.
Brilliant thoughts, beautifully written.