Reddit CEO: ‘Basic Human Stuff’ Makes Good Leaders

Steve Huffman says his leadership advice boils down to “very basic human stuff.”

The Reddit cofounder and CEO was asked what makes a good leader on an episode of the podcast “The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway” released Sunday.

His answer comes down to “trust and presence.”

“I think the most important thing is just being honest,” he said. “What are you trying to do, why do you want to do it, what does it take to get there, what’s going well, what’s not going well, what are your hopes, what are your dreams, what are your fears? I think it’s very basic human stuff.”

Huffman noted it can be easier said than done, though.

“Just being straightforward about what we’re trying to do and why and not sugar-coating things I think is really important,” he said. “Vulnerability builds trust and then trust is what builds cohesive teams, and then you need, of course, cohesive teams to do things.”

Another characteristic of a good leader is “presence,” he said, “showing up and working and caring and being a part of the team at every scale.”

Huffman was also asked how he approaches decision-making.

“First, take your decision, try to escalate it to a value or a principle, and then make the decision using that value or principle,” he said. “I think the thing about values is they exist for one reason, which is to make hard decisions, and so if you’re not using your values to make hard decisions, then they’re not your values.”

Huffman reflected on challenges in the company’s 20-year history, including that “we weren’t running as a business” for a while, he said.

“We were really idealistic, and I think in many ways the idealism has been very good, but we were also idealistic about not being a business — which is not a great way to run a sustainable business,” he said about growing the company after he stepped back into the role of CEO in 2015.

Huffman cofounded Reddit with Alexis Ohanian, his college roommate, in 2005, and they sold the platform to Condé Nast in 2006. Huffman left in 2009 to cofound the travel website Hipmunk before returning as Reddit’s CEO in 2015 at a turbulent time for the company.

“Wrapped up in some of that idealism was also, like, not working very hard,” Huffman added. “In the Bay Area, broadly, is this — it’s almost an entitlement of, ‘I work at these companies, but I don’t have to work very hard and I’m here for myself.”

Huffman recalled telling his employees, “If we don’t work really hard and work really smart and make this thing successful both from a user point of view and business point of view, then we don’t get to do this, and we’ll never achieve our mission.”