This man changed Silicon Valley forever

The leadership philosophy of Bill Campbell, coach of big titans like Sergey Brin and Steve Jobs

Orel Zilberman

Jun 14, 2024

Bill Campbell has coached many of the largest companies today’s CEOs.

From Larry Page and Sergey Brin, founders of Google, to Steve Jobs, helping him pull Apple out of bankruptcy.

In today’s article we are going to cover Campbell’s life story, his coaching history and his leadership philosophy.

Key takeaways

Humanity + Compassion in the work place = Happy employees.
Build a psychologically safe workplace environment.
Earn your employees respect. Don’t demand it
Team dynamics > technical individual skills
Part of a leader’s job is to be a cheerleader.

I will start by sharing Campbell’s coaching history and then diving deep into his philosophy.

In the end of the article I will elaborate more about his life, for those of you who want a little bit more knowledge.

Campbell’s coaching history

Steve Jobs (Apple) - Late 1990s to 2011: Campbell and Jobs had a close relationship. Campbell served as an advisor to Jobs during his second tenure at Apple. He helped Jobs steer Apple from the brink of bankruptcy to becoming the second most valuable company in the world (3.02 Trillion, close after 3.15 Trillion Microsoft).
Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Google) - Early 2000s to 2011: Campbell developed a relationship with Google's founders soon after the company's inception. As a mentor, he was integral in creating Google’s innovative culture and leadership ethos.
Eric Schmidt (Google) - Early 2000s to 2011: During his tenure as CEO, Schmidt relied on Campbell’s counsel to manage Google’s extreme growth and the complexities of leading Google.
Sheryl Sandberg (Google, Facebook) - Mid-2000s onward: Sandberg was guided by Campbell initially at Google and later at Facebook, where she served as COO. Campbell’s coaching helped her navigate the challenges of scaling operations and building effective teams at two of the world’s most influential tech companies.
Jeff Bezos (Amazon) - Consultations: While not a regular coach to Bezos, Campbell was known to have provided advice and support on several occasions.

Campbell’s leadership philosophy

Campbell’s philosophy can be summarized into a simple equation:

Humanity + Compassion in the work place = Happy employees = Productive employees

He believed that team members who feel genuinely listened to, respected, and cared for - will work harder, feel happier, innovate, and be more motivated and fulfilled.

According to Campbell’s, a leader’s primary role is to help the employees succeed, by maximizing the performance of the team rather than the individual.

And that in such a cut-throat industry, the only way to thrive is to build a high-performing team and have a both caring and strong operations leader.

His leadership principles can be divided into four themes:

Operational leadership, Building trust in the workplace, Building strong teams, Leading with love.

Operational leadership

Don’t demand respect; Earn it.
Build a team spirit in the workplace
Lay off employees with dignity and respect.
Don’t make decisions by consensus. Let the team analyze every possibility until they reach the best idea.
Use staff meetings for big-picture operational issues and one-on-one meetings to focus on individual performance.

Example:

Jerry Kaplan, the founder of GO, whose technology helped develop the first smartphone and tablet, sought a one-on-one meeting with Campbell, the CEO at the time, to discuss the company's competition with Microsoft.

Campbell insisted that this issue is crossing over many company departments and that it should be discussed in a team staff meeting, not a one-on-one.

Building trust in the workplace

Listen to your employees. Don’t just hear them.
Create psychological safety. For people to be innovative, they must feel “safe” to be wrong and take risks.
Don’t tell people what to do. Guide them to making better decisions by asking insightful questions or sharing personal stories.
Give tough and candid feedback. To get most out of your employees, give honest and direct assessments, sometimes even though critiques, to nudge them forward.

Build stronger teams

Technical skills are not everything. Hire team-players and strong people skills people.
Pair people to work on problems together.
Be extremely positive. A big part of the leader’s job is to cheerlead.
Remember: When times get hard, that’s when your team needs you most.

Example:

Just before Google IPO, a very critical point in any company, Eric Schmidt wanted to quit. His board has asked him to step down as chairman and CEO. They wanted to keep him as CEO only.

Campbell knew Schmidt feelings were hurt, but he knew that the best thing for Google was for him to stay the CEO.

He convinced Schmidt to step down temporarily and that he would see to it that he will be reinstated later.

Schmidt swallowed his pride and hurt to do what was best for his team and for Google.

Leading with love

Know your employees as people. Learn about their families, hobbies and interests.
Be generous with your time, money and connections.
Support your colleagues and employees even when they decide to leave the company

Example:

In 2017, Eric Schmidt announced he was stepping down from the board of Google.

Campbell was no longer alive to coach him through that, and his teammates feared that he would struggle with the transition to the life outside of Google so they grouped together to help him plan the next stage of his career.

Campbell’s career

Campbell started his career as a football player in high school and was the team captain of Columbia University and won the Ivy League title.

Fast forward a few years, he took a job as an assistant football coach at Boston College and later became the head coach of Columbia University.

And as you would expect from a legendary coach, his team was… A dismal failure.

There were many factors that caused, it but Campbell insisted on blaming his over-sensitivity to his players’ feelings.

At age 39, Campbell’s football career was over as he started his move into Silicon Valley.

Within five years he became a senior executive at Kodak (Then fortune-500 company).
This career has led him to Apple, where he was the vice president of sales and marketing.

He held a few CEO positions at several other companies before becoming the legendary executive coach that he was.

Campbell was a coach for almost 30 years, until his passing in 2016 from cancer.

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