Leadership Principles
| Content Maintainer |
|---|
| Tristan Handy |
| Megan Pittman |
We create remarkable experiences.
Every touch point with dbt Labs should be remarkable—for customers, for community members, for employees, and for every other stakeholder of the business. Leaders are allergic to mediocrity, and hire and coach their teams to envision, identify, and create the remarkable.
We are customer-obsessed.
Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.
We drive results.
Leaders deeply understand how value is created and relentlessly focus on it. Despite setbacks, changes, and challenges, leaders rise to the occasion and deliver outcomes for our customers and for the business. We solve problems, exceed expectations and amplify the impact of those around us.
We are pleased, but not satisfied.
While we are proud of what we’ve accomplished, leaders prefer to focus on how much more there is to do in service of our mission and our customers. We do not rest on our laurels. We push ourselves and each other to be better every day.
We earn trust.
Leaders know that trust is the single most valuable asset that any group of humans can have, and we know that building trust requires work. We do that work day-in, day-out, with our customers, our teams, and our peers. We are authentic, listen to be wrong, and live up to our commitments.
We have a bias for action.
Speed matters in business, and it is one of our strengths. Leaders help teams move quickly by setting pace, energy, and context and by making good decisions quickly. We take calculated risks while learning quickly from our failures. Leaders only slow down a decision when we are faced with a one-way-door.
We are owners.
Leaders never take off their owners hat. We act on behalf of our entire company, not just our own team. We spend the company’s money as if it were our own. We take ownership for both good and bad outcomes. We never sacrifice long term value for short term results.
We are self-aware.
Leaders need to have a clear understanding of their own skills, abilities, behaviors and areas for improvement. They recognize and compensate for their weaknesses, biases, and blind spots. They understand how their actions impact others. Leaders embrace challenging feedback as an opportunity to build self-awareness.
We debate and decide.
Leaders lean into debate and work to disconfirm our own beliefs. We find the most credible people who disagree with us and try to understand their reasoning. We support our fellow leaders by asking hard questions and disagreeing in public. Ultimately, leaders make decisions, at which point the organization as a whole commits to moving forwards.
We have fun.
Leaders know that humans only come together to produce remarkable results when there is a spark of fun. They work to inject fun—and their own idiosyncratic human selves!— into their work and their teams.