How to Be a Great Leader According to Google

It took Google years of study to discover the formula. It will just take you five minutes to see if your boss is one.

It took Google years of study to discover the formula. It will only take you five minutes to see if your boss is one

Picture: Adobe Stock

Google hasn’t always appreciated management. The tech company had a progressive vision: to run the business without bosses.

In 2002, Google conducted an experiment to see what could happen — and got rid of all managers. It didn’t go that well. People were left searching for answers to basic issues as well as guidance in career advice, among other important matters.

So, a few years later, a team of researchers went back to prove that managers don’t matter. But very quickly they discovered the opposite. Managers matter a lot.

Google’s Project Oxygen pivoted from “Do managers matter?” to “What if every Googler had an awesome manager?” The company spent over ten years solving this puzzle.

Then, the tech giant began asking team members to answer a few questions. Each statement addresses one of the ten behaviors of successful managers at Google. It takes less t…