Summary.
In 1992 one of us (Kevin) joined Amgen, the world’s largest biotechnology company, as its president and chief operating officer. Up until then, all Kevin’s key professional influences—in the U.S. Navy, where he began his career, and then at General Electric and MCI—had exemplified certain core principles of leadership. His colleagues were confident, employed a command-and-control style of leadership, and made their expectations clear. Kevin adopted that style, which came naturally to him and allowed him to rise rapidly on the career ladder. He recalls, “My approach was: ‘I’m the smartest guy in the room. Just let me prove that here, in the first five minutes.’ I would even interrupt people and tell them what they were going to tell me, to save us time so that we could get to the really important stuff, which was me telling them what to do. And I got away with it. It worked.”