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 Gregory B. Maffei, president and chief executive of Liberty Media.

He says he encourages employees to ask tough questions at meetings, and to challenge ideas.

To read the complete interview and Bryant’s interviews of other executives, please click here.

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Sure, Take Me On. You Might Get a Promotion.

Bryant: You worked for Bill Gates, and now you’re working for John Malone. What have you learned from each of them?

Maffei: I have been very lucky to work for several strong, smart individuals, and you obviously try to take lessons from them. Starting with Bill, he’s in many ways an egoless thinker. Bill never walked into a room saying, in effect: “I’ve got this idea and it’s got to be right. Let me tell all of you.” You’re Bill Gates. You don’t need to win the argument. You’re trying to get the right answer. So Bill was always great about saying: “What do you think? What do you think?”

That was a great lesson — that you’ve got to be careful when you’re the C.E.O. not to say, “I think this, therefore that must be the right answer.” And if Bill Gates has to think about that, then all of us need to think about it.

Bryant: And John Malone?

Maffei: John is amazingly creative. One of my compatriots says he has a “frictionless mind,” because sometimes he just turns on a dime. He’s always rethinking and rethinking. The ability to look at a problem in a new way doesn’t mean it’s the right answer, but you do learn something from completely turning it on its head. John is very good at putting things in a new light, and he is incredibly creative at thinking what else could be there.

Bryant: How would you describe your leadership style?

Maffei: Well, there’s always a risk in how you perceive your leadership style and the reality of it. But I try and take those lessons about “Let’s have a dialogue. Let’s not tell people what to do just because I think it.” I want to hear what they think. That doesn’t mean I’m not without opinions, but I try to make sure I get everybody else’s in a fair light.

Bryant: You studied religion as an undergrad, but ended up in business. What was behind some of your career decisions?

Maffei: I never would have guessed that I was going to end up where I ended up. I was a religion major in college because I thought it was interesting. I didn’t think I was going to be either a professor of religion or a practicing preacher or something like that. I’ve always had this view that you get something out of anything you do, including learning how to think critically about different religion structures or religious organizations. You get something from that.

I then became a financial analyst, which was a big change, but I figured I needed to learn how to do that if I ever wanted to have a career in business. And then I went to business school at Harvard.

You just keep your eyes open, to a degree. I always try to keep the door open for the next thing. I never really know exactly how it’s going to play out.

Bryant: What’s been the constant in your career path? Why do you think you got to where you are today?

Maffei: If I have a strength, I think it’s probably an intellectual curiosity. I can find interest in a lot of different things and try to put that to work in a positive way, connecting the dots and considering how the pieces fit together.

Bryant: Talk about the culture you’re trying to foster at your company.

Maffei: There has been a general change in a lot of organizations. There’s more transparency, more openness, and at least some of the trappings of the imperial boss have been reduced. And I think that’s good. I try very hard to do the things that I appreciate, like being direct about what the organization is doing. We make sure we have quarterly meetings that are very open and encourage questioning, so people feel like they are part of the organization.

Bryant: Can you elaborate?

Maffei: I’ve always felt most comfortable in a culture where people do feel, regardless of the size of the organization, that there is an ability to have dialogue, and that there is an ability to feel like you can ask the C.E.O. any question. Too much formality or reverence can get in the way of a good exchange of ideas. So how do you make that happen? You’ve got to somewhat walk the walk and talk the talk. In our meeting with all employees, I try to be candid about what we did right and what we did wrong in the quarter, what’s the longer term, how we’re doing and what some goals are. And you try to get them to ask tough questions.

So I usually make sure there’s at least one or two that I know somebody will ask, that are going to be viewed as tough, because they want to make sure they get covered. Because you want to set a tone of, “Hey, people get to ask those questions.”

Bryant: So how do you do that?

Maffei: Well, I know there are some people who are more comfortable asking the tough questions, and I’ll say: “Hey, do you think that people know enough about this? If you don’t, maybe you want to ask about it.” You do that a couple of times and people know that somebody can ask a hard question, and you give them a straight answer as best you can.

 

Bryant: And how do you set that tone in smaller meetings?

Maffei: You’ve got to give credit for ideas that others have, and make sure you show people you appreciate them. One way is to say: “Look, I thought this, but Albert said that, and he’s right. I agree. Albert’s got the right answer. Let’s go that way.”

Here’s another example: At Liberty, one executive challenges me more than everyone else. I respect his opinion enormously, but he’s not always easy with his challenges. And he was the first guy I gave a promotion to. Two of the other executives came up and said to me, “Well, if we knew beating up on you was the way to get promoted, we would have done it, too.” But they probably used words that were more graphic than “beating up on you.”

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Adam Bryant, deputy national editor of The New York Times, oversees coverage of education issues, military affairs, law, and works with reporters in many of the Times‘ domestic bureaus. He also conducts interviews with CEOs and other leaders for Corner Office, a weekly feature in the Sunday Business section and on nytimes.com that he started in March 2009. To contact him, please click here.