Alex Bouaziz eschews traditional management structures like weekly 1-on-1s and performance reviews for his 20+ direct reports. Instead, he relies on a continuous, high-frequency feedback loop through daily, informal communication. His role is to enable his leaders by constantly asking what's broken and how he can help, rather than following a rigid cadence.
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Even at significant scale, Alex Bouaziz maintains a deeply hands-on approach, believing it's a critical cultural pillar. Being involved in day-to-day problems and customer issues prevents him from being too far removed from the business. This proximity allows him to identify flaws in org design, response times, and processes that are invisible from a '10,000-foot view'.
Brian Halligan reflects that as HubSpot grew, he was coached out of his natural 'founder mode' instincts (e.g., many direct reports, public feedback) and into conventional 'manager mode' (weekly one-on-ones, private criticism). He now regrets this shift, believing his initial, more unconventional approach was more effective.
Believing traditional weekly 1-on-1s are inefficient and repetitive, V0's leader eliminated them. He favors discussing shared topics in group settings (like a Slack huddle) and reserves direct 1-on-1 time for specific situations like onboarding, rather than a fixed weekly cadence.
Goldcast's CMO structures her week to serve her team: a strategic leadership sync, 1-on-1s framed as "how can I help remove blockers?", and no-agenda skip-level meetings to gather unfiltered feedback. This leadership model prioritizes enabling the team over top-down status updates.
Effective leadership in a fast-moving space requires abandoning the traditional org chart. The CEO must engage directly with those closest to the work—engineers writing code and salespeople talking to customers—to access unfiltered "ground truth" and make better decisions, a lesson learned from Elon Musk's hands-on approach.
Huang eschews traditional hierarchy, engaging directly with employees at all levels and delivering feedback publicly. This "parallel processing" management style ensures rapid, simultaneous learning across the organization, mirroring the architecture of the GPUs his company builds and creating a uniquely flat structure for a company of its size.
As an organization scales, some leaders become skilled at managing up while being poor managers to their teams. Executives must conduct regular skip-level meetings with frontline employees to get direct, unfiltered feedback and catch these bad behaviors that would otherwise be hidden.
To maintain a flat, hands-on engineering culture without dedicated managers, Fal replaces traditional one-on-ones. They feel 1-on-1s can force negativity and instead use small group discussions with mixed tenure and roles. This format fosters more constructive, solution-oriented conversations rather than simple complaint sessions.
Jensen Huang maintains an extremely flat organization with around 60 direct reports and no one-on-one meetings. This unconventional structure is designed to accelerate information travel, empower senior leaders, and weed out those who can't operate without direct guidance.
A top-performing CEO adapted the board practice of an "executive session." He periodically removes himself from his own leadership meetings and asks an HR leader to gather candid feedback on his performance. This powerfully models vulnerability and a commitment to continuous improvement for the entire organization.
