Brian Chesky's Leadership: A Study of Management Attribution

This report provides an analysis of Brian Chesky's leadership and management skills, focusing on his contributions to Airbnb's success. It highlights Chesky's skills in vision casting, storytelling, and problem-solving, as well as his democratic leadership style that values critical thinking and relationship building. The report also identifies weaknesses in his management approach, such as communication gaps and handling regulatory challenges. It suggests improvements like implementing intranet software and enhancing communication strategies to foster better stakeholder engagement and organizational efficiency. The analysis concludes by emphasizing the need for Chesky to address these weaknesses to further enhance his leadership effectiveness and ensure Airbnb's continued success.

Running head: MANAGEMENT ATTRIBUTION AND SKILLS
Management Attribution and Skills
Student’s name:
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1MANAGEMENT ATTRIBUTION AND SKILLS
Introduction of 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 a unique travel experience.
a. Explaining skills and competencies which have contributed to the success of the business
After his college days; Brian Chesky started working as an 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 a 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. Brian Chesky believes that
frequent advisors tell many things to do and not to do. Being an entrepreneur, Brian always
encouraged himself to knock on doors to meet the users and investors face-to-face. 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. 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 a 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

2MANAGEMENT ATTRIBUTION AND 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 a 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. 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 a network which can generate the trust,
generosity and values of the generation.
Brian Chesky has engineering design background and his parents are social workers.
Brian has observed rent-situation and Airbnb was born out of the 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 a decision of the business.
Chesky's instinct is trust and humility and he treats his brand as calling to oppose the career
opportunity. At first; it was never easy to open Airbnb as Airbnb was listed as trash in the US
and the host's identity was stolen. The 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
Airbnb is a community-based online platform and it lists the listing and rental of local
homes. 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

3MANAGEMENT ATTRIBUTION AND SKILLS
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. He had to believe
senior management about the decision-making process of business. Brian used his fast-track
learning of managing the organisation as he always tried to take 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 an 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. The 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.
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 with 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 the decision-
making process.

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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].
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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.,
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Cohen, M. and Sundararajan, A., 2015. Self-regulation and innovation in the peer-to-peer sharing
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Gallagher, L., 2017. Brainstorm Tech 2015 The Education of Brian Chesky. Fortune, 172(1),
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Galloway, L., Kapasi, I. and Sang, K., 2015. Entrepreneurship, leadership, and the value of
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Guttentag, D., 2015. Airbnb: disruptive innovation and the rise of an informal tourism
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Lewis, K.V., 2015. Enacting entrepreneurship and leadership: A longitudinal exploration of
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Zervas, G., Proserpio, D. and Byers, J.W., 2017. The rise of the sharing economy: Estimating the
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