Photo: Earl Wilson/The New York Times
Adam Bryant conducts interviews of senior-level executives that appear in his “Corner Office” column each week in the SundayBusiness section of The New York Times. Here are a few insights provided during an interview of Angie Hicks, co-founder and chief marketing officer of Angie’s List, the customer review Web site. She says employees need independence, “but you also have to agree that they’re going to come and tell you as soon as something goes awry.”
To read the complete interview as well as Bryant’s interviews of other executives, please click here.
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Hicks: I started Angie’s List right out of college, so I was all of 22. I didn’t really know what it was like to be an employee, let alone what it was like to be a good boss. Other than a couple of summer jobs when I was a kid, and an internship at a venture capital firm when I was in college, I didn’t have much work experience. So I was very much kind of the doer. Sometimes the best doers can’t make the transition to managers. I would say between that and my young age, it was probably a little rocky early on.
Bryant: Why?
Hicks: I was very passionate about what I did. I tend to be a perfectionist, and that doesn’t always make for the best supervisor. That’s why going back to business school after three years of running the business was great for me, because it gave me a chance to figure out how to be a manager.
Bryant: Tell me a bit about your leadership style.
Hicks: A lot of people I managed early on in different markets tended to be young college graduates. We used to have a motto around the office: “We’re not running the E.R.” It was just a reminder — no one’s going to die. You can get so absorbed in what you’re doing, because there were always seven balls up in the air on any given day. That motto sticks around today — take your work seriously, but don’t take yourself too seriously. What we do is important, but let’s make sure we can laugh at ourselves now and again.