Leaders.com

Most businesspeople are familiar with the old style of leadership -- a model that reflects the days when hierarchy and command-and-control reigned. But what does leadership mean in the digital economy, where organizations are as decentralized and as networked as the Web itself? What does leadership mean when the pace of change is so rapid that decisions are made with minimal information? And what does leadership mean when the people in your organization both demand more independence and require more guidance? Are Net-based leaders a different breed? To find out, we asked the leaders of 12 of the Net era's most successful companies. Their answers tell us what's really different about leading an Internet company -- and offer insight into what it takes to win in the age of the Net.

Meg Whitman

President and CEO
eBay Inc.
San Jose, California

Coming from land-based businesses -- Hasbro, FTD, Stride Rite, Disney -- to an Internet startup, I've had to get used to one major factor: the sheer rate of growth. We're growing at 40% to 50% per quarter. That pace absolutely changes the leadership challenge: Every three months we become a different company. In one year, we went from 30 employees to 140, and from 100,000 registered users to 2.2. million. At Hasbro, we would set a yearlong strategy, and then we would simply execute against it. At eBay, we constantly revisit the strategy -- and revise the tactics.

The other critical difference in running an Internet company is our closeness to our customers. This is especially true for eBay, because we enable individuals to do business with one another in a way that's completely new and powerful. As the medium for that new marketplace, we need to be extremely sensitive to our customers' needs. To do that, we use our instant-customer-feedback mechanism as much as we can: We try out ideas on thousands of customers at once, using live discussions or instant customer surveys. We get products into the community as quickly as possible; then we listen to reactions to those products and make changes accordingly. Some of our best ideas -- like feedback profiles, which are now central to our service -- have come from our community of users.

With all that change going on, one of my most important jobs is keeping the company focused on our core values and on the business that we want to exploit. Successful Internet companies have lots of opportunities thrown at them, so getting sidetracked is easy. Our overriding goal is to create the world's largest online person-to-person trading community.

Meg Whitman has held leadership positions at FTD, Stride Rite, Walt Disney, Procter & Gamble, and Hasbro. Since its IPO in September 1998, eBay's stock price has soared from $18 to a high of $314. Today the company has a market value of $19 billion.

Jonathan Bulkeley

CEOM
barnesandnoble.com
New York, New York

In a business environment where the clock is ticking faster than ever, it's not the job of leaders to have all the answers. The "prince of Egypt" model of leadership -- here's the plan, follow me, I'll take you to the promised land -- is out. Leaders today must be evangelists for changing the system -- not for preserving it.

Our business is simple: The United States has 41 million avid book buyers. We want to turn as many of them as possible into our customers as quickly as possible. Everything else is up for grabs. But rounding up those buyers is not my job. My job is to find and develop people who are relentless about asking, "Why does the publishing business work this way?" and who are confident about demanding, "What were we thinking? We need to change now."

That's why, at our last directors' meeting, I handed out copies of my favorite business book -- "Harold and the Purple Crayon." The plot is simple: A little baldheaded kid with a big purple crayon draws himself into and out of various situations. If he's on a path that's too long, he draws a shortcut. If he gets hungry, he draws some pies. If he finds himself in deep water, he draws a boat. The point is, Harold creates the solutions he needs as he proceeds through an uncertain landscape. Harold has the kind of creativity and nimbleness that we need to win in the Net market. The lesson that the book teaches is key -- and so is the fact that it takes only five minutes to read!

Jonathan Bulkeley (jbulkeley@book.com) learned about growing a business at one of the Net era's splashiest success stories: America Online. In 1995, as head of operations in Britain, Bulkeley grew AOL UK from zero subscribers to 500,000 subscribers in just two years. Last year, he was recruited by Barnes & Noble and by the Bertelsmann-owned barnesandnoble.com. His job description: "The answer to Jeff Bezos."