Todd McKinnon is the co-founder and CEO of enterprise identity provider Okta. He discusses leadership challenges in getting unvarnished feedback and real operational context from employees.
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“It's the CEO filter, I call it. Everyone that talks to you is putting on their CEO filter, like, what does the CEO want to hear? What does he not want to hear? What kind of mood is he in? It's natural, right? Anytime you talk to someone that has a prominent position, you're going to want to be careful a little bit, and I find that that sometimes is It impedes my ability to figure out what's going on and get that context to make good decisions.”
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More from Todd McKinnon
Disclosure
McKinnon: Okta's biggest early mistake was relying on contingency recruiters
“One of the, I think, the mistakes we made early in Okta is we didn't hire recruiters, full-time recruiters that worked for the company. This is obviously very early, but we waited too long to hire full-time recruiters. We tried to use contingency recruiting fi…”
Todd McKinnonFeb 22, 2021▶ 17:1720VC: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon on How To Approach Effective Decision-Making in Leadership, When Is The Right Time To Hire Recruiters and Heads of People, Balancing the Expectations of Wall St with Long Term Vision and What Truly Successful Board Management
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McKinnon: Leadership vulnerability becomes unproductive past the point of building trust
“I definitely think you can be vulnerable to a point where it's almost, you're a downer, you know. I have this problem, and I have this angst, and I'm, I have this hang-up, and this is messed up, and you come across as a complainer, or as a, or it's just not pr…”
Todd McKinnonFeb 22, 2021▶ 19:4120VC: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon on How To Approach Effective Decision-Making in Leadership, When Is The Right Time To Hire Recruiters and Heads of People, Balancing the Expectations of Wall St with Long Term Vision and What Truly Successful Board Management
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Todd McKinnon: Platform shifts offer the best opportunities to build new companies
“And whenever there's a platform shift in terms of how applications are built and how services are delivered, whether it's PCs or mobile or in this case, the cloud, there's a big opportunity to build new companies, or at least you have the best opportunity to b…”
Todd McKinnonFeb 22, 2021▶ 3:5220VC: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon on How To Approach Effective Decision-Making in Leadership, When Is The Right Time To Hire Recruiters and Heads of People, Balancing the Expectations of Wall St with Long Term Vision and What Truly Successful Board Management
Insight
McKinnon: Very few business decisions are truly irreversible
“I think there are very few irreversible decisions. I think if you think about really irreversible decisions, you could get into paralysis.”
Todd McKinnonFeb 22, 2021▶ 10:0320VC: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon on How To Approach Effective Decision-Making in Leadership, When Is The Right Time To Hire Recruiters and Heads of People, Balancing the Expectations of Wall St with Long Term Vision and What Truly Successful Board Management
Insight
McKinnon: Effective leadership decisions require arguing with yourself
“To make effect good decisions, you have to be able to argue with yourself. You have to be able to, in your head, hold opposing viewpoints.”
Todd McKinnonFeb 22, 2021▶ 12:0120VC: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon on How To Approach Effective Decision-Making in Leadership, When Is The Right Time To Hire Recruiters and Heads of People, Balancing the Expectations of Wall St with Long Term Vision and What Truly Successful Board Management
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McKinnon: Radical transparency in recruiting self-selects better long-term talent
“You should go the other way than your instinct. You should be super transparent about that and embrace what you are. Like, don't try to be the coolest thing on the block. Embrace what you're doing. It's more effective because it's just, it comes off as more ge…”
Todd McKinnonFeb 22, 2021▶ 18:5920VC: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon on How To Approach Effective Decision-Making in Leadership, When Is The Right Time To Hire Recruiters and Heads of People, Balancing the Expectations of Wall St with Long Term Vision and What Truly Successful Board Management
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