Elon Musk: On the Assembly Line
One of the most impressive things I read from Walter Isaacson’s Elon Musk book is Elon when things get tough with manufacturing, he’s right there on the front lines on the assembly lines with everyone else.
I never heard of this level of commitment from any modern leader at his level. Sure, some may have started from the assembly line - have any of them ever returned?
Even more ironic - according to the book, Elon never worked on an assembly line.
By being the CEO on the assembly line, questioning every single step in the manufacturing process clears bottlenecks fast.
When a company gets to any size, humans get in the way of each other becuase of dividing and conquering, which is the right approach, yet there is a cost: nobody has a whole picture of everything.
This is where I find Elon’s approach admirable: use his authority to get the whole picture and clear problems quickly.
My management style is to let those doing the work to handle the problems - they are the ones seeing the problems every day and subject matter experts. In a way, be hands off, trust, grow, and empower those doing the work.
After reading Elon’s approach, I question how effective being a hands-off leader is?