6 Leadership Tips From Top Tech CEOs by Amanda Peterson

Success in a leadership role is not guaranteed; it takes a lot of hard work to be effective in a position of authority, especially as a CEO. In fact, according to the Corporate Leadership Council, nearly 40% of CEOs fail in their roles within the first year and a half, and a Harvard study revealed the median tenure for a CEO is just 5 years. 

Though those statistics are daunting, there are plenty of executives who have surpassed that 18-month mark and have proven to be successful at their jobs long-term. Many of those industry leaders have proffered their advice regarding the best ways to lead, inspire and run a successful company. Although every leader is unique and every situation requires different skills, these CEOs have to sage advice to offer anyone who’s looking to follow in their footsteps.

Mark Hurd – CEO of Oracle

“Leading is not just about managing people. To lead, you have to help people understand where we’re trying to take the company and what their role is in getting it there.”

Hurd bases his leadership on the employees he works with each day. For him, leading is not about bossing people around or simply delegating tasks. Hurd strives to help each employee better understand their purpose as it relates to the company as a whole and the integral role they play in its success. Each member of the team should feel they’re a crucial part of reaching a common goal.

Tim Armstrong – former CEO of Oath

“In a CEO job, you have to be OK with risk and you have to be OK with failure. I have a saying: ‘You have to fail toward a goal.’ As long as you’re failing, if you know what the goal is, it’s OK to fail in that direction. And that’s the advice I got from people.”

For Armstrong, success doesn’t always come in the form of reaching the specific end goal. Instead, it means progress toward that goal. He knows not every venture will end in victory, but each one should be an effort to get closer to the end goal. To Armstrong, good leadership is knowing there will be successes and failures along the way, but always keeping your eye on the prize.

Jonah Peretti – co-founder and CEO of Buzzfeed

“You shouldn’t be a CEO or even a startup executive or employee if you don’t like things that are hard and challenging and you don’t like trying to do things that are difficult where you have to figure out new things that don’t exist yet. That has to be part of why you do it. It has to be part of the fun. They say when there’s a bubble or lots of money flows into startups, you have a lot of people who come in because they want to make a lot of money.”

It’s just a lot harder than it looks. Harder meaning the day-to-day is trying to create something new and trying to be a little guy in a giant industry. If you love that, if you love the struggle, and that’s part of why you do it, it also makes selling a company a lot less appealing. Because if the idea is, you’re doing it so you can relax, you wouldn’t be building the company in the first place.”

At this point, the entertainment site Buzzfeed has become a household name. Jonah Peretti bases his leadership style on a challenge and hard work. Although the opportunity to make money is a big draw when joining a startup company, your reasoning has to be deeper than that. Leading employees on the idea of an end goal is not how Peretti operates. Instead, his form of leadership is all about loving what you do. It has to come back to that, or, in Peretti’s eyes, an employee will simply not succeed.

Dan Schulman – CEO of PayPal

“When I came back, my team had really hung in there with me and I just realized that what we had accomplished was completely what they had accomplished. I gave them full, 100 percent credit. What I learned there is, giving credit to others actually attracts more and more people to your team because … they know that it’s a team that is going to work together as one … Nobody’s going to try to take credit over somebody else. In many ways, leadership is about defining reality and inspiring hope, but if you have these great people around you and they know that what they do is going to be recognized, it can be incredibly powerful.”

Dan Schulman believes leadership means giving credit where credit is due. It’s not lost on him that his company would not be nearly as successful as it is without the help of his team of employees operating under his management. Teamwork is the cornerstone of leadership success. By allowing his team to flourish in their jobs and recognizing the hard work they put in, Schulman creates a positive atmosphere for his employees and a great place to work for any prospective job seekers.

Howard Schultz – former CEO of Starbucks

“In this ever-changing society, the most powerful and enduring brands are built from the heart. They are real and sustainable. Their foundations are stronger because they are built with the strength of the human spirit, not an ad campaign. The companies that are lasting are those that are authentic.”

Starbucks’ former CEO and the driving force behind the company’s global success believes that for a business to be successful, it must be led from a place of love and passion. Shultz leads with his heart and knows that the reason he was so prosperous in his role stems from the human spirit he carried with him to the office every day. His leadership style followed suit as he did his best to instil that same sense of heart in each of his employees.

Ginni Rometty – CEO of IBM

“For CEOs today, it’s all about achieving growth and efficiency through innovation. It’s not about product innovation so much anymore as about innovating business models, process, culture and management.”

Rometty, one of the most notable female CEOs in business, focuses her leadership efforts on constant change and innovation. She doesn’t mean that her company’s product offering needs to change on a daily basis but rather evolving the way in which she runs the business. She believes great leaders are looking to improve themselves and the organizations they represent There’s always room for improvement, and Rometty believes striving for that is the best way to lead her company.

Amanda Peterson is a contributor to Enlightened Digital and software engineer from New York City. When she’s not trying to find the best record store in the city, you can find her curling up to watch some Netflix with her Puggle, Hendrix.

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