Employee Leadership

Best-in-Class Management in the High-Tech World

What kind of company are we trying to create at Xilinx and what role does leadership play in that creation?
We are building a company that sets a new standard for managing in the high-tech world. We want to be "best-in-class" when it comes to leadership.

In the marketplace, our goal is to be both a tough competitor and a great place to work; a company that meets the needs of customers, employees and investors while remaining a supportive team that is firmly values-based; an enterprise that does "well" and does "good" at the same time.

These are some of the important management principles we implement at Xilinx to achieve our goals:

Desire Success

Our leading premise is that the people we hire are good people. They want to achieve personal success and help the company flourish too. It is management's responsibility to provide employees with the tools, the support, and the training to attain that success. That means treating every individual with respect and dignity; the way we ourselves want to be treated.

Lead Naturally

Everyone Is expected to be a leader. A leader isn't only the person who has "manager" or "director" or "VP" in his or her title. Everyone at Xilinx is expected to be a leader. Leading means understanding our business, seeing patterns and trends, and changing what you do to further the organization. It means listening well. It means feeling free to make decisions that will move the company forward. An excellent manager will work to unleash this spirit of leadership in all of us.

Make Others Successful

We ask leaders to encourage the professional achievements of their employees and manage every day by creating an environment of learning and growth. This includes outlining explicit roles for employees and communicating how each person fits into the big picture. It also involves setting clear expectations, giving ongoing performance feedback, and supplying employees with the resources they need to get the job done. The central idea is to capitalize on an employee's strengths; and make their weaknesses irrelevant.

Make Decisions Democratically, Execute Them Dictatorially

At the end of the day, a leader's job is to get results. In order to accomplish this, we trust in an open, consensus-oriented decision-making process that welcomes a wide variety of opinions and creative thought. But once the decision is made, execution is driven from the top and decision-makers are held accountable.

Exemplify Our Values

Leaders are asked to use the CREATIVE values of the company along with their own best judgment to help them manage their businesses and employees on a day-to-day basis. Understanding those values and making decisions in line with them will help leaders do the right thing and contribute to the bottom line at the same time.

Welcome Change

A learning organization welcomes change. It's a leader's responsibility to create an environment in which learning and employee development are valued at every level. This involves the art of teaching and sharing. Leaders who encourage new thinking and ideas can more easily initiate change.

Communicate Openly and Honestly

Free-flowing and trustworthy communications are critical in a high performing company. We ask leaders to inform employees about where the company and their departments are going, how they will get there, and what that means to every employee in the group.

It is the day-to-day attention paid to these principles, and the insistence that leaders be accountable for practicing them that creates an environment where each of us can be a leader.