This interview of Michael Mathieu, C.E.O. of YuMe, an online video advertising firm in Redwood City, Calif., was conducted, edited and condensed by Adam Bryant.  Q. Do you remember the first time you were somebody’s boss?  A. Yes, my first management job was at AT&T, and I went from being an individual contributor to managing a small team.  Q. How old were you at the time?  A. Late 20s. I’ve always been pretty confident in my ability to do a job, so I kind of had this fearlessness. If I’d known what management was all about, I probably would have had a lot of fear, but going into it, as a young kid, I figured, “I can do this.” There was some apprehension because I’d never really managed a team before. So I had to learn very fast.  I think part of the reason I got the job was really my personality, which is about, how do I make everyone around me better? What can I do to help make people more successful? And I always thought that if I do that, it will ultimately make me more successful. So the transition was relatively easy because of that perspective.  I never had this management style where I would order people around. It’s really about, what’s our goal, and how do we, as a team, collectively make it happen? So my first management job was really treating myself not as a manager. I may happen to be on the organizational chart above you, but think of me as a colleague and how we can help each other be successful.  Q. How did you learn that lesson at a young age?  A. My parents were immigrants from Haiti, and both of them are doctors, against all odds. They’ve persevered, and the lesson they taught me was not necessarily humility, but that the key to success is to wake up every day and do the best you can do.  Their focus was never about competition, although I am competitive because I was an athlete as a kid. But my parents always taught me to be introspective and go after success with my own measurement, not other people’s measurements.  Luckily for me, my expectations were higher than what other people expected of me. I learned that collaboration and getting the most out of other people seemed to be where most people got their success.  I did karate when I was a kid. In karate, 90 percent of success is internal, preparing for that moment to win, and you do that by struggling internally about who you are, what you do, and how can you maximize your skill set for that moment when you do need to compete against other people. My sensei in karate never talked about himself. He never talked about what he could do. He always talked about the group, how we could help each other.  Because of the six kids in my family, I had to learn how to compromise and maximize. I think it’s a combination of having a large family and getting some early leadership lessons from something as simple as karate class.  Q. What about leadership lessons from particularly good or bad bosses?  A. You’re a collection of all your experiences, good, bad, indifferent, and great leaders you’ve worked with. Actually, you learn a lot from the worst managers you’ve had. You learn probably more than from the great managers.  A. Absolutely. I think my worst bosses were hyper-controlling. I’ve learned that leaders actually do the opposite, which is to give their best people complete freedom to do the job. The worst managers come in and believe, “O.K., I’m going to control this.” They’re very structured. And what I’ve learned is that actually stifles high performers.  People who are really good at what they do want freedom. They want to be able to be innovative. So I try to hire the best people and give them the freedom and flexibility to do the job they were hired to do. But they have to sign up for things to get that freedom.  Q. What are those things?  A. One is, make people feel like they’re part of the team. To do that, you’ve got to make people feel like they can come in and talk about anything with absolutely no fear of, “O.K., this could be stupid.” They need to feel like their voice is heard, and feel completely fearless to have those conversations with me.  Two, they have to be clear on what our goals and vision are. This is the mountain we’re trying to go after, and let’s be clear on what we have to do. And if you do sign up for that, you’re going to be accountable. If you give good people clear goals, you can let them be accountable and go after it in their own way. And then reward and recognize.  Q. Give me an example of how you reward and recognize.
In interviewing job candidates, Michael Mathieu of YuMe says he looks for âleadership characteristics and the ability to thrive in ambiguity.â