Brian Chesky of Airbnb: Skills, Competencies, and Leadership Style

This presentation provides an analysis of Brian Chesky's management and leadership skills, focusing on the competencies that contributed to the success of Airbnb. It explores his ability to channel vision, tell compelling stories, and manage resources effectively. The presentation also describes Chesky's management style, highlighting his decision-making process and emphasis on critical thinking and relationship building. Furthermore, it identifies potential weaknesses in his leadership, such as communication challenges and the need for improved organizational structure, and suggests improvements for more effective democratic leadership. The analysis is supported by various academic sources and aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of Chesky's leadership within the context of Airbnb's growth and challenges.

MANAGEMENT
ATTRIBUTION AND SKILLS
Brian Chesky

BRIAN CHESKY
Brian Chesky is an American entrepreneur and he was the co-founder
of hospitality exchange service company Airbnb.
Brian Chesky is the CEO of Airbnb and he was named as ‘100 most
influential people’ in the year 2015 by the Time’s Magazine.
Brian Chesky was born in 1981 in New York. Brian Chesky
graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design where he
received a Bachelor of Fine Arts Industrial Design
(Press.atairbnb.com 2018).
Net worth of Brian Chesky was US$ 3.8 billion in 2017 (Gallagher
2017). Brian Chesky sets the strategy of the company to connect
people to provide unique travel experience.

A. EXPLAINING SKILLS AND
COMPETENCIES WHICH HAVE
CONTRIBUTED TO THE SUCCESS OF
BUSINESS
After his college days; Brian Chesky started working as industrial designer and strategist in Los
Angeles. After sometimes; Chesky shared his apartment with Gebbia in San Francisco.
Both of them needed money and they gave their room for rent. They named their first website
‘Air Bed and Breakfast’ and at first; Chesky did not believe that this business has flash of
genius (Lewis 2015).
Brian Chesky has the skill to channelize his vision to do something good. Brian Chesky grew up
to be an artist and this is similar of an entrepreneur what has the vision to be free to create
something new.
Artist has the resources to create something new and the entrepreneur also shares the vision to
bring it to the world.
This is not possible for millions of users; however, this policy helps to make loyalty among users
and customers. Brian Chesky has the ability to tell the story well to the people, to the
customers, investors, media and the employees.

CONTD…
Brian focused on the entrepreneurship on first three years very
hard and he did not know the coding well.
Brian asked Nathan Blecharczyk to join Airbnb as Nathan was
Harvard Graduate and famous technical architect. Therefore;
Brian Chesky showed the ability to manage money as they sold
cereals to have funding (Cohen and Sundarajan 2015).
Brain Chesky did not brainstorm start-up ideas and he just solved
the problem. Moreover, Brian always had the idea to build the
platform is tough; therefore; he made the platform for both
sellers and buyers via Airbnb.

B. DESCRIBING BRIAN CHESKY’S
MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP STYLE
Management skills
Younger companies do not always take younger leadership as Brian Chesky exhibits
classic leadership trait of the new generation.
Brian Chesky took the business decision carefully when he asked Nathan to join
Airbnb as he knew that a coder is needed for the company. Brian Chesky started
venture of ‘Cap’n McCains’ and ‘Obama O’s’ cereals in order to have the funding
(Bogomolova et al. 2017).
Y Combinator was impressed with the idea of cereals and started funding programme.
Brian imposed decision-making as opposed to collaborating and he follows the
hierarchical structure.

CONTD…
Brian imposed decision-making as opposed to collaborating
and he follows the hierarchical structure.
Brian Chesky values the critical-thinking and the relationship-
building.
Brian Chesky asks the employees and management to be tech-
savvy and management must follow the shared vision and
diverse team working (Zervas et al. 2017).
The business concept of Brian Chesky is unique and it needs
network which can generates the trust, generosity and values
of the generation.

LEADERSHIP
Brian Chesky has engineering design background and his
parents are social workers.
Brian has observed rent-situation and Airbnb was born out
from overcrowded property design market of San Francisco
(Bmtoolbox.net 2018).
At the early days, Chesky knocked door-to-door of the early
adopters and he spent one year to experience everything first
hand.
He took interviews of the first 100 employees and he ensured
the ethos to use in the business culture.
Brian Chesky followed the democratic leadership style in
making decision of the business. Chesky’s instinct is trust
and humility and he treats his brand as calling to oppose the
career opportunity.

CONTD…
At first; it was never easy to open Airbnb as Airbnb was
listed as trash in the US and host’s identity was stolen.
Internal debate started and Chesky took charge to solve the
issues.
Brian Chesky openly admitted their mistake and he offered
$50k maximum guarantee for the hosts in case of
property damage (Galloway et al. 2015).
Brian Chesky conducted racial bias training for the hosts
and Airbnb started refugee programme and he also
started the fundraising campaign.

C. IDENTIFYING THE WEAKNESSES OF
BRIAN CHESKY’S MANAGEMENT AND
LEADERSHIP STYLE WHICH COULD BE
IMPROVED
The business model of Brian Chesky allows the hosts and travellers to meet each other and it
facilitates the process of renting without owing any rooms itself.
The business model of Airbnb cultivates the sharing economy by allowing the property owners
which gives rent to private flats. Brian Chesky faced the difficulties in leadership and
management because Brian lacked the traditional management experience.
Brian Chesky has little formal preparation (Amaro et al. 2017).
Chesky has faced the issue of communicating his story and vision to the employees of the
organisation. With the advancement of time; the organisation has been growing bigger. It
became difficult for Brian to manage everything with proper notice.

CONTD…
Brian used his fast-track learning of managing the organisation as he
always tried to taking notes, asks questions and identifies the genre of
improvement (Press.atairbnb.com 2018).
Brian Chesky lacks the communication with the employees and the
hosts; it has made issue for the business.
Brian Chesky fails to follow Housing Laws and Regulations in many
of the countries as in Housing Laws, guests and hotels are prohibited
in residential areas.
Leadership style of Brian Chesky is democratic and he has been
criticised for his leadership as he kept silence after the Airbnb host
apartment was destroyed violently (Guttentag 2015).
His leadership style lacks the promptness which can reduce the
efficiency with accountability.

CONTD…
Brian Chesky needs to start intranet software and it will be helpful for
the management to keep track of the employees and employees will
be able to communicate with the management along with share their
concerned.
Brian Chesky can fix the organisational hierarchy where the
employees and hosts can share their concern easily to the
management.
Brian Chesky needs to communicate more clearly about tax obligation
in home sharing business with internal and external stakeholders.
Democratic leadership can be made better through better
communication with stakeholders, organised structure of the
organisation, suggestions to the employees to improve employee
proficiency and suggestions to the management regarding decision-
making process.

REFERENCE LIST
 Airbnb Press Room. 2018. Brian Chesky - Airbnb Press Room. [online] Available at: https://press.atairbnb.com/about-
us/leadership/brian-chesky/ [Accessed 13 Jul. 2018].
 Amaro, S., Andreu, L. and Huang, S., 2017. Generation Y Travelers’ Intentions to Book Airbnb Accommodation: An
Abstract. In Marketing at the Confluence between Entertainment and Analytics (pp. 43-44). Springer, Cham.
 Bmtoolbox.net. 2018. Airbnb-Brian Chesky [online] Available at: https://bmtoolbox.net/stories/airbnb/ [Accessed 13
Jul. 2018].
 Bogomolova, E.V., Selezneva, L.Y., Izmalkova, I.V., Popova, E.V. and Troyanskaya, M.A., 2017. Development of
Modern Entrepreneurship: Competition and Cooperation. European Research Studies, 20(3B), p.539.
 Cohen, M. and Sundararajan, A., 2015. Self-regulation and innovation in the peer-to-peer sharing economy. U. Chi. L.
Rev. Dialogue, 82, p.116.
 Gallagher, L., 2017. Brainstorm Tech 2015 The Education of Brian Chesky. Fortune, 172(1), pp.93-100.
 Galloway, L., Kapasi, I. and Sang, K., 2015. Entrepreneurship, leadership, and the value of feminist approaches to
understanding them. Journal of Small Business Management, 53(3), pp.683-692.
 Guttentag, D., 2015. Airbnb: disruptive innovation and the rise of an informal tourism accommodation sector. Current
issues in Tourism, 18(12), pp.1192-1217.
 Lewis, K.V., 2015. Enacting entrepreneurship and leadership: A longitudinal exploration of gendered identity
work. Journal of Small Business Management, 53(3), pp.662-682.
 Zervas, G., Proserpio, D. and Byers, J.W., 2017. The rise of the sharing economy: Estimating the impact of Airbnb on
the hotel industry. Journal of Marketing Research, 54(5), pp.687-705.