--- title: Mark Zuckerberg Says This Habit Is Key to Becoming a Better Boss description: Mark Zuckerberg is one of the best known CEOs around. But the Facebook founder's best advice comes from a lesson he learned the hard way. authors: - name: Kristen Bahler role: Managing Editor url: https://money.com/author/kristen-bahler/ bio: Kristen Bahler has spent more than a decade turning culture, work and consumer spending trends into conversation-driving stories. Today, she leads Money's sponsored content channel and reader-favorite franchises like Best Places to Live and Best Places to Travel. education: Northeastern University, MA Journalism at_money_since: 2016 articles: 52 covers: - Career Advice - Banking - Business - Credit - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristen-bahler/ published: '2018-01-25T19:00:16.000Z' modified: '2023-05-04T21:48:58.000Z' section: Career Advice tags: - CEO - facebook - freakonomics - Mark Zuckerberg - podcasts - Silicon Valley word_count: 428 canonical: https://money.com/mark-zuckerberg-skill-boss/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Mark Zuckerberg Facebook](https://img.money.com/2018/01/180126-zuckerberg.jpg) *Facebook CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg* "The Secret Life of CEOs," a six part podcast series by the people behind *[Freakonomics Radio](http://freakonomics.com/)*, is packed with tasty little thought nuggets from some of the most celebrated executives in the world, like Richard Branson, PepsiCo's Indra Nooyi and G.E.'s Jack Welch. Oh, and Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. In the [newest episode](http://freakonomics.com/podcast/become-c-e-o/), host Stephen Dubner chatted with the social media titan, who revealed that he has come along way as a manager — and there's one important takeaway a boss or manager can do to make his or her company a better place to not only work at — but thrive. In Facebook's early days, listeners learn, Zuckerberg was a notoriously bad listener. "I thought he showed an incredible audacity to not learn and listen as a leader," says Jeff Sonnenfeld, a leadership scholar at Yale. "Oh my gosh, has he changed. And he’s had a great board, great mentors, and also he’s just been a great learner. He has been remarkably different now as a leader than he was when he first became CEO." What changed, exactly? In Zuckerberg's words, it was only a matter of trust. He started green lighting more ideas, and stopped outwardly dismissing the ones he disagreed with. And once he relinquished some of his control, Facebook became the social networking legend it is today. Here's the exchange he and Dubner had: > ZUCKERBERG: I actually think the most important thing is what decisions and what processes on a day-to-day basis you choose to let people have the freedom to do, and just not get involved with. > > A huge part of how Facebook works is giving a large amount of freedom to our engineers at the company, and to people who use the product to make with it what they will. And trusting people to do that, rather than —— > > DUBNER: Was that hard for you to get to, or … ? > > ZUCKERBERG: I think it’s hard every day. Because when you’re running something, you, of course, have the ability to make as many of the decisions as you would like. The real art is not — not when you know that you have someone who is a superstar, who is going to make great decisions, but deciding to let people do things that you disagree with, because on principle, and it’s just going to free up more creativity and people will feel like there’s more potential to try different things in the future that may be better, if you let them go do those things, even if you disagree with them. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/mark-zuckerberg-skill-boss/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Career Advice", "item": "https://money.com/career-advice/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Skills", "item": "https://money.com/skills/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Mark Zuckerberg Says This Habit Is Key to Becoming a Better Boss" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/mark-zuckerberg-skill-boss/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/mark-zuckerberg-skill-boss/", "name": "Mark Zuckerberg Says This Habit Is Key to Becoming a Better Boss", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2018-01-25T19:00:16.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/mark-zuckerberg-skill-boss/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/mark-zuckerberg-skill-boss/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2023-05-04T21:48:58.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Mark Zuckerberg Says This Habit Is Key to Becoming a Better Boss", "articleSection": "Career Advice", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2018/01/180126-zuckerberg.jpg", "width": 4000, "height": 2667, "caption": "Mark Zuckerberg Facebook" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Kristen Bahler", "url": "https://money.com/author/kristen-bahler/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/kristen-bahler/#author", "description": "Kristen Bahler has spent more than a decade turning culture, work and consumer spending trends into conversation-driving stories. 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