Evaluating a Company to Join, Culture: Senior Leadership

Choosing a company to join can be a worthy challenge.  Fortunately for all of us, Wendy Zhao has kindly agreed to collaborate on this next part!  Welcome Wendy!

While the Culture of a company may be codified in its mission and values, it is expressed through its people.  The people in a company obviously literally make up the company and two groups have an outsized impact on the experience of the culture: Senior Leadership & Your Manager. With this piece we are going to share how to evaluate Senior Leadership.

Senior leadership, the people with the Cs in front of their title, are directly responsible for the culture of an organization. These individuals set the rules for the company, hire / promote / fire, decide how the organizational structure evolves, determine compensation, and communicate the stories that carry the company’s culture and identity to employees, customers & investors. All sins of a company are sins of senior leadership, so it is worth understanding who you are signing…