UBER CEO's Theory of Leadership: Mixes Peter Drucker and Milton Friedman, Leaves Out Employees

 In these difficult times leadership is again a hot topic. With the top layers of organizations having the upper hand there's no sugarcoating that what's going down is their call. And that call is under close scrutiny. It is increasingly easy for employees to lose their livelihood. 

So it should get plenty of attention that Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, when changing human resources policies, should justify the move, reports CNBC, by declaring this:

" ... the job of leadership is to do what’s in the best interest of our customers and shareholders.”

The customer part comes from who is probably the father of modern management Peter Drucker. He says that a business is about creating and serving customers. 

The shareholder part is from the "doctrine" of Milton Friedman. He hammers that the purpose of a corporation is to produce the return to investors. 

Note, there's no mention of employees. 

It was at one of those town hall meetings that Khosrowshahi made the announcement that RTO would shift from two to three days and that eight years of employment, not five, would be required for a sabbatical. Of course, all that didn't go off well. But the leadership response was essentially that is that.

Will this ethos continue to dominate the workplace? In my faith-based coaching I am hearing fear in the voices of clients. It has become all too easy to lose a job. And once knocked out of the box there aren't many places to go. The option: Start your own business.

That kind of fear mirrors the stories I had heard from my parents, aunts and uncles who had been through The Great Depression. Even when the post-war economic boom kicked in they had never felt safe about their ability to get and hold work. 

Khosrowshahi's public statement about leadership could encourage others who have power to also embrace a narrow understanding of what they're responsible for.  And make no apology for that. 

Overwhelmed by the uncertainty? Special expertise with transitions, reskilling and startups. Complimentary consultation with Intuitive Coach Jane Genova (Text 203-468-8579, janegenova374@gmail.com).


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

America Not Hiring in 2026: Back to Golden Age of Solopreneurs?

 For hiring, 2025 was a brutal year to search for a job. The Wall Street Journal reports that 2026 could be worse: "At a gathering of CEOs in Midtown Manhattan this month organized by the Yale School of Management, 66% of leaders surveyed said they planned to either fire workers or maintain the size of their existing teams next year. Only a third indicated they planned to hire." The WSJ adds that pullback from adding manpower could be temporary. But given shareholders' demand for cost-efficiency and the continual improvements in AI, chronic unemployment could become standard. However, there is a solution. An old-fashioned one. That's becoming a solopreneur, that is setting up your own business without partners or employees. The model dates back to ancient times.  The golden age of the solo business owner in America had been from the late 1800s to about the mid 1920s.  There had been a wave of immigrants, discrimination against them and few jobs. They drove pushcarts ...
Read more

Scott Barshay's Leadership at Paul, Weiss Torpedoed, PR Nothing But a Joke, Sympathy for Brad Karp

  Last week was a bad, gone worse and worse, one for law firm Wachtell.   This week starts out as what could upend the new leadership of Scott Barshay (The Decider) at Paul, Weiss.  Today's very long-form article in The New York Times  by Michael Schmidt and Jessica Silver-Greenberg depicts Barshay negatively. Understatement. He is rolled out as one-dimensionally power-driven, abrasive, divisive and downright naive about the power of the media. About the latter, he blew off any concern about the media's response to the law firm's removing from the website the Center to Combat Hate.  An example of the beating delivered Barshay? Here is the NYT coverage of the response by some at Paul, Weiss when Barshay was hired: "But there was unease among some at Paul Weiss. Partners and associates learned from lawyers at Cravath that some people there were not unhappy to see Mr. Barshay go. His ego made him difficult to work with, the Paul Weiss lawyers were told." No ambigu...
Read more

Newly Minted PhDs in Economics Face Unwelcoming Job Market: Of Course, I Left My PhD in Humanities Off the Resume

Monitor postings on Reddit subunits focused on careers and it's no longer news that PhDs, both newly minted and those already in the labor market, generally are finding the credential an obstacle in the search for a job or even contract assignments. No, not an asset.  Let's cut to the chase. The highly educated have to get smart about this, fast. With some exceptions, I advise those I coach to leave the PhD off job-search materials. The negative assumptions among those hiring range from that you expect too much money to you'll be a know-it-all.  When my boutique collapsed post-9/11 and I had to land a survival job I lopped off everything but the BA. At the interview I dumbed-down my vocabulary. Sure Harvard was started in 1636 but America remains anti-intellectual. In addition, the integration of AI into strategy and operations makes knowledge work in general less and less marketable.  That's the narrative of our times: Advanced degrees having low or no ROI. The result,...
Read more