Learn Katie Burke's proven people leadership strategies for building high-performing teams, managing culture at scale, and driving business growth through st...
People Leadership That Drives Results: Katie Burke's Framework for High Performance
Core Summary
Katie Burke, Chief Operating Officer at Harvey and former Chief People Officer at HubSpot, shares transformative insights on modern people leadership that challenges conventional HR wisdom. Rather than focusing on making employees happy, Burke emphasizes creating conditions where people can do their best work—a distinction that separates successful organizations from those struggling with culture and retention. Her approach combines radical transparency, demanding excellence, and genuine care for employees as whole human beings. This comprehensive guide explores how leaders can build strategic people functions that directly contribute to business success, manage difficult conversations with integrity, and create organizational cultures that attract and retain top talent in an increasingly competitive market.
Key Insights
- People leadership is strategic, not just operational: The best people functions directly drive business outcomes like revenue targets and customer satisfaction by focusing on execution-oriented hiring, effective management, and succession planning
- Transparency and trust are non-negotiable currencies: Companies that practice radical transparency—from sharing executive mistakes to disclosing employee feedback—build stronger cultures and competitive advantages in talent markets
- Demanding excellence and showing genuine care are complementary, not contradictory: Great leaders push people harder than they think possible while simultaneously showing up as their biggest supporters during difficult times
- Title management matters more than leaders admit: Career growth opportunities and clear leveling frameworks significantly impact retention and recruitment, even at fast-growing organizations where ambiguity is necessary
- AI is fundamentally changing the people function's operational landscape: Automating painful processes like performance reviews and onboarding enables managers to focus on mentorship, coaching, and strategic people decisions that drive real impact
Building Strategic People Functions That Drive Business Results
The traditional HR department views itself as a service function—processing paperwork, running training programs, and maintaining compliance. Katie Burke reimagines this entirely. At both HubSpot and Harvey, she's positioned the people function as a strategic driver of business outcomes. This fundamental reframing changes everything about how people leaders approach their work.
The starting point is understanding that employees, like customers, are choosing how to spend their time and attention. This insight, borrowed from Burke's marketing background, means that internal communications and employer branding must be as compelling and differentiated as external marketing. Too many companies assume they have a captive audience and overload employees with information that doesn't resonate. Instead, Burke treats every communication as an opportunity to earn attention, making it clear, interesting, and relevant to what people actually care about.
Another distinctive practice involves hiring deliberately from outside traditional corporate environments. Burke actively recruits from hospitality industries—restaurants, hotels, and service businesses—because these professionals inherently understand how to conceptualize guest and employee experiences. This diversity of perspective drives innovation that wouldn't emerge from homogeneous corporate backgrounds. At HubSpot during the pandemic, this approach led to quickly establishing an online Montessori school, a solution that emerged from understanding parental needs and thinking creatively about support systems.
The "build the table" philosophy represents a core distinction in Burke's approach. Rather than simply "getting a seat at the table"—the traditional HR aspiration—her team focuses on building the table and setting the menu. This means ensuring all employee programming directly supports overarching business strategy. It's not about HR initiatives for their own sake, but about how each program contributes to winning in the market. Company values exemplify this principle. After two failed attempts with too many values or unmemorable acronyms, HubSpot established five core values under the acronym "HEART." But establishing the values was just the beginning; the real work involved truly embodying them through daily decisions and difficult conversations.
Transparency in practice looks different from transparency in theory. When HubSpot went public, advisors recommended withholding certain business information, a standard practice. Burke made a counterintuitive decision: designate everyone as an "insider" and continue sharing information at the same pace. Employees experienced this as receiving a "mini MBA"—dramatically increased exposure to business information that companies typically reserve for executives. This approach extended to releasing the entire employee Net Promoter Score survey, including critical comments about leadership and specific programs (excluding harassment). For transparency to be a genuine strategic priority, it meant living the value even when difficult.
Other unconventional practices that emerged from this philosophy proved remarkably effective. During the pandemic return-to-office decision, rather than imposing a universal date, Burke gave employees choice through "home," "flex," or "office" options, with annual opt-in decisions and aligned stipends and desk arrangements. This flexibility provided significant recruiting advantage when many companies struggled with talent acquisition. A "failure forum" where executives openly discussed mistakes—not generic "I work too hard" confessions, but concrete examples of failures and their causes—fostered immense loyalty. When a VP of Product described a customer launch that created a three-day support backlog, apologizing to customers while specifically acknowledging the impact on the support team demonstrated humility that builds organizational loyalty, particularly in competitive talent markets.
Succession Planning and Leadership Development as Strategic Imperatives
Most organizations view succession planning as addressing "what happens if someone gets hit by a bus." Burke reframes this entirely. The real question is: What leadership skill set do we need in one year or ten years that we don't have now? What are our current gaps? What is our leadership team genuinely excellent at, and where do we underperform?
This forward-looking perspective transforms succession planning from defensive risk management into proactive capability building. Executive recruiting becomes a tool for solving specific leadership skill gaps rather than simply replacing departures. This approach requires honest assessment of current capabilities, humility about where the team underperforms, and strategic thinking about future state requirements.
The Chief People Officer's role in leadership assessment is uniquely delicate and critically important. Unlike other functions, the CPO serves as an HR business partner for the entire executive team. This requires flipping between support mode—"Let me help you with your organization and do an X-ray of your structure"—and accountability mode—"The way you showed up in that meeting doesn't align with our expected behaviors." Being the most trusted person in the room is essential, but it requires absolute discretion. If executives sharing vulnerabilities suspect their confidences are being shared, they'll never open up again.
However, the CPO also has a duty to the company, customers, and board to provide honest assessment of leadership team capability. This involves conversations with not just the CEO but also the board about how the current team stacks up, including the CEO and their team, and where the organization needs to be for success in one to three years. The most important currency in this role is trust; the second you break it through sharing confidences, you lose your effectiveness entirely.
The distinction between individual confidentiality and thematic feedback is crucial. Burke shares thematic patterns—"The executive team is concerned we're not doing enough here"—without attributing specific comments to individuals. This approach satisfies both duties: protecting individual confidentiality while ensuring the company benefits from critical feedback. The imperative is clear expectation-setting, ensuring leaders understand that momentary opportunities for seizing power cannot come at the expense of trust, which you need every single day to do your job.
Managing Executive Underperformance and Difficult Transitions
When an executive isn't meeting expectations, the conversation typically follows a structured approach. The ideal scenario involves the executive's self-awareness prompting them to recognize the gap themselves. When self-awareness is lacking, direct feedback becomes necessary: addressing specific areas where performance falls short, team trust issues, and misalignment with organizational standards.
These conversations are genuinely hard and painful, but providing this feedback directly is more humane than allowing someone to wonder, exit without understanding what went wrong, or learn after termination. The conversation might sound like: "I think where we're falling short are in a few different ways. Number one, your team doesn't have the trust you need. Number two, the results aren't there. Number three is, as you're showing up as a leader within our executive team, I don't think we have the bar we're looking for."
When performance issues persist, the CEO and board must understand what that looks like. Critically, not every exit needs to be a "fiery exit." Some people are genuinely great leaders or executives, just not for that particular time period, stage, or company. A significant part of leadership involves creating as many graceful exits as possible, allowing people to move forward without damage to their careers or self-esteem.
Transparency about terminations requires nuance. While radical transparency is important, it's not about sharing every bit of information; it's about accessing as much information as is safe for the company to share. If an executive is terminated for performance reasons, publicly disclosing the "why" creates two problems: it can impact their ability to get another job, and it creates rumors and speculation—people make up stories worse than the actual situation. Burke's approach with her team emphasizes transparency about things that are the company's information to share and thoughtfulness about information that isn't theirs to share, including reasons for departures.
However, situations exist where explaining a termination makes sense. If someone publicly violates the code of conduct, briefly stating they didn't meet organizational standards is fair and appropriate. The key is being clear without excessive detail. Over time, when people understand this is how the organization always handles exits, they typically become understanding. The empathy test is simple: "How would you want us to treat you if you were in this position?"
The Layoff Experience: Long-Term Cultural Impact and Recovery
Layoffs emerge as one of the most challenging intersections between values and business reality. When HubSpot conducted a layoff in 2023, the outrage centered on a perception that the action violated the value of empathy. Burke acknowledges reasonable arguments that the approach didn't meet the standard the organization set for itself. This represented one of the hardest periods in her career when trying to align values with necessary business decisions.
An earlier crisis in 2021 proved equally complex. CEO Brian Halligan's near-death accident created uncertainty about medical information, family concerns, public company disclosure requirements, and precedent issues. Transparency became genuinely tricky when medical information and a family's privacy were at stake.
Working through the tension in layoffs required comprehensive board and executive alignment, since a layoff is a one-way route requiring complete buy-in. The question becomes: How do you infuse as much empathy as possible into an incredibly difficult situation? At HubSpot, this included being extremely generous with severance packages (receiving board approval for above-market packages), creating office hours where anyone impacted could speak with senior leaders, and making space to complain, get mad, or yell.
The principle underlying this approach is critical: when making hard decisions, you never want to be so far from people that you don't feel the weight of that decision. Burke will never forget how that felt—incredibly hard, hardest on impacted people, but crucially, making yourself available to feel the decision's weight is critically important.
The long-term lesson proved equally valuable: layoffs have a cultural hangover of two to two and a half years. Initial shock gives way to survivor guilt among remaining employees, followed by ongoing fear that another layoff is coming. Understanding this timeline upfront shapes workforce planning decisions. The implications aren't just business decisions; they're cultural decisions with impact for years.
This reality requires constant organizational nurturing after layoffs while remaining mindful of the two-and-a-half-year recovery process, not a ninety-day process. During hypergrowth, balancing adding substantial headcount—mission critical for goal achievement—with considering contractors or flexible staffing approaches becomes essential. The decisions leaders make carry significant weight on people's lives and families' lives, and keeping that front and center is always crucial.
Headcount Planning and the AI-Driven Future of Workforce Design
Resource allocation often feels "squishy" and imprecise. Determining whether four people, nine people, or three people can complete a task, or how many additional people would make it easier, highlights fundamental lack of precision. This mess is a major reason many companies experience tremendous bloat. The gravitational pull toward increasing headcount comes from executives building fiefdoms where power is measured by direct reports, or from asking for more resources than necessary, anticipating negotiation cuts.
Effective headcount planning is something very few organizations have mastered. It's inherently messy, complicated, and human. With AI agents increasingly integrated into the workforce, it's becoming even messier. The key is defining the work that needs to be done before simply requesting a certain number of heads. A bottom-up model where teams merely state their desired headcount without detailing actual work inevitably falls short because it neglects existing power structures and alignment needed for critical functions.
Strong emphasis on understanding what work needs completion, required effort levels, and clear accountability between finance and business teams is essential. People must fully grasp that every new hire adds not just skill and capacity but also potential for dispersed ownership. If two people are responsible for the same thing, chances of effective execution are limited. Adding more people necessitates implementing greater discipline to ensure clear goals and expectations for timely achievement.
When a new executive joins, the organization needs flexibility to ensure headcount plans, even if developed recently, remain relevant to their vision and needs. A new Chief Product Officer joining from another organization requires two-day onboarding and time with the team, customers, and direct reports before finalizing headcount decisions. An annual plan, especially in rapidly evolving AI environments, becomes stale quickly. Organizations may need to re-plan quarterly rather than annually, not scrapping everything but rather adjusting approach for the next quarter to ensure thoughtfulness and calibration.
Another critical mistake involves insufficient recruiter capacity. Setting ambitious Q2 headcount targets for regions like EMEA without considering lengthy notice periods creates unrealistic targets. The key is aligning headcount primarily with business needs, pushed by business drivers rather than individual preferences for hiring specific people without clear strategic rationale. The challenge is finding balance between agility and rigorous planning. When new leaders arrive, remaining open to their feedback on existing plans prevents the gap between initial intentions and actual implementation from becoming too wide.
At Harvey, the approach involves annual comprehensive financial and headcount planning with quarterly mini-replans, adjusting based on business needs, geographical considerations, and other evolving factors. With AI now in the equation, organizations must think about work units to be done, skills needed, and whether those should be people or agents. This conversation should be led by people leaders rather than followed as an afterthought.
Culture Philosophy: Demanding Excellence While Showing Genuine Care
The evolution of organizational culture from the late 2010s and into the pandemic created tension. Many organizations adopted a "nanny state" approach, focusing on employee happiness with the idea that everyone should arrive at work dancing down the street. The "Disneyland approach" to employee experience proved problematic. However, organizations have since overcorrected, embracing the belief that work should be relentlessly hard, eliminating perks and the humanity from work.
Burke's VP of Talent Maggie Landers offers a useful principle: "The resort has to match the brochure." When it comes to culture, what you say you do must align with what you actually do. Many companies went too far in the 2010s, then overcorrected into environments that eliminated necessary human considerations.
When interviewing founders, Burke asks how they think about severance packages for employees who don't work out. One founder responded that he takes care of people who work there, not those who don't. While Burke acknowledges the point, employees took a bet on the founder, and fairness and ethics warrant thoughtful consideration. Feedback from her co-founders emphasizes doing whatever is fair in the market, knowing former employees talk to others in the industry and influence the talent flywheel.
At Harvey, the culture is described as incredibly intense with no apologies for that reality. However, "intense but reasonable" means if someone has a doctor's appointment or is taking parental leave, they can actually take it. The organization hires great humans while making clear this isn't a 9-to-4 culture. This approach simply requires transparency about who you are and ensuring your interview process aligns with people's day-to-day experience.
There isn't one globally correct way to run a culture. Burke actually believes Amazon has a good culture because they're clear about who they are. They openly pit internal teams against each other, and this is communicated in their interview process. That's a functional culture because people know what they're signing up for. Her bigger concern is with companies advertising a "unicorns and rainbows" environment but being cutthroat in reality.
At different career points, everyone, including HubSpot and Burke herself, probably overemphasized employee happiness. What they eventually aimed for was clarifying that the job isn't to make employees happy every day, but to create an environment where they can do the best work of their careers. This vision is communicated explicitly, but making it a daily reality is challenging. There were certainly days when they leaned too heavily into the "unicorns and rainbows" ideal, disappointing people and requiring rebalancing.
Incentive Design: Simplicity, Alignment, and Understanding Manager Incentives
Charlie Munger's principle that "incentives rule the world" applies directly to people functions. Compensation, bonuses, promotions, and proxy metrics are all complex incentive levers affecting business outcomes. The goal is delivering for customers and creating shareholder value through effective incentive design.
The first key takeaway is that incentives must be as simple as possible. When designing executive compensation or company-wide bonus programs, there's temptation to include many variables, believing this makes gaming harder. This is fundamentally untrue; simplicity is crucial for effective compensation. There are typical cycles: starting with simple bonus structures, realizing they're being gamed, then adding more metrics until achieving increasingly counterproductive complexity. Playing out failure modes with the board—understanding potential failure points and acceptable trade-offs—reveals that simplicity ultimately wins.
The second insight involves understanding manager incentives. Counterintuitively, most managers aren't primarily self-serving. They see their immediate team as their priority and view their role as protecting and lobbying for them. Therefore, managers often prioritize their team over the customer or the company. Understanding this dynamic shapes how organizations approach promotion calibrations, granting managers autonomy over performance ratings, and making compensation and equity adjustments.
The focus should shift from assuming individual self-interest to understanding how managers perceive their role as team lobbyists and how to effectively intermediate that dynamic. While the people function plays a critical role, intermediation should primarily be the executive's responsibility. The people function holds the executive accountable for their directors' actions, but ultimately executives must manage this cascading incentive problem.
To prevent every layer, from engineer manager to the very top, from prioritizing direct reports and creating collective organizational bias, Burke starts every performance cycle by asking "What are we solving for?" before diving into the "how." Leaders articulate whether they want a high-performance culture or to retain the top 10%. Pulling up blinded performance reviews and asking leaders what rating they think someone received often delivers a humbling moment. If leaders allowed something in their own teams last cycle, the question becomes whether that aligns with the culture they want to create.
Burke comes in with a straw man proposal about what should roughly happen, but often holds up a mirror from the last review cycle. Using verbatims from actual performance reviews proves much more effective than talking in abstract terms or pulling from performance management books. Real examples from managers or from the HRIS from the last cycle are much more likely to actually change people's behavior.
Titles, Career Ladders, and Growth Opportunities at Fast-Growing Companies
Executives who say titles don't matter are delusional—they matter to people, and so do opportunities to grow. However, if someone in the interview process is mostly focused on their title, their behavior during the entire duration suggests red flags. People are on their best behavior as candidates; if someone is difficult in negotiations, that tendency will likely emerge even more strongly once hired.
On titles, simplicity is essential. At Harvey (650 people), the organization deliberately doesn't have an SVP layer yet. They have head of layers, VP layers, and C-level layers, intentionally avoiding this level of complexity. However, they also don't have a perfectly rigid career ladder. Interviewees ask about exact ladders; Burke responds that the organization is growing so fast they have guides and rough leveling, but not a clear structure like "if you do this in two years, you'll be promoted." This ambiguity is part of joining a fast-growing AI startup, but requires comfort with the uncertainty that accompanies it.
The question of when to make career ladders explicit versus maintaining ambiguity hinges on organizational size and growth stage. At Harvey, the approach uses a federal system where federal guidelines are set at the top, but states (departments) are responsible for leveling each individual. Doing actual leveling at the federal level was quite painful at their stage and size, but around 300 people, before doubling or tripling in size, it became necessary. Bringing in new people without framework only makes things messier.
Leveling is exactly as messy regardless of stage—whether exercised at 300 people or 8,000 people at HubSpot. The exercise targets people's self-identity, awareness, and title alignment. Executives must appreciate the emotional depth behind leveling decisions. Then picking a lane that includes trade-offs and setting the course becomes the focus. The emotional component shouldn't be underestimated or dismissed.
Managing Feedback, Complaints, and Organizational Dissatisfaction
Being a Chief People Officer is not for the faint of heart. At any given moment, roughly 20% of people are unhappy with you and your decisions. At large organizations, that's substantial numbers. The worst response is saying that doesn't matter or they're wrong, which shuts down important critical feedback that matters.
The balance involves listening to substantive complaints about things that genuinely matter, stand in the way of winning, or conflict with organizational culture, while simultaneously ignoring things that don't matter. HubSpot's old COO had an expression "protein versus sugar"—substantive complaints deserve attention, while complaining about snacks doesn't.
The famous "Berrygate" incident illustrates this perfectly. HubSpot provided fresh berries as a perk until the finance team created a chart showing berry consumption grew disproportionate to headcount. An important management meeting convened to address this. The solution seemed elegant: eliminate fresh berries but open a smoothie bar, naming smoothies after customers, creating health-forward non-drinking options. Leadership felt they'd nailed it and deserved applause.
However, returning to her desk, Burke noticed a trusted team member avoiding eye contact and clearly uncomfortable. It turned out a Slack channel had spawned discussing employees hadn't been consulted. Complaints emerged about whole berry fiber content versus smoothies and why the CFO hadn't held town halls for input. Burke had completely lost sight of what mattered.
She sent a note stating that for issues like berries, the organization wasn't consulting the entire company. They'd make decisions with inevitable winners and losers, making tough calls in the interest of scaling. She added that if anyone spent 45 minutes complaining about "Berrygate" in Slack, it suggested they didn't have enough work to do and needed a different conversation.
This moment became a rallying cry for what people actually cared about. Loyal employees were glad she spoke up, recognizing entitlement had been an issue. As CPO, distinguishing between feedback that truly matters and feedback that doesn't is crucial. Incredibly tough feedback improved Burke; she had to listen because it mattered. An engineer in Dublin had opinions on almost everything; he was right about 75% of his emails. Burke always considered what she could do better and took him seriously.
The temptation is ignoring all noise, which is a mistake. Paying attention to the noise explains why CPO tenure averages short—sometimes it's business fit or stage, but often because the job takes significant emotional toll.
Not everyone complaining about something minor should be let go. Many star players complain about small things; figuring out the right balance is key. Some complained about office temperature or lighting; engineers are particularly passionate about lighting because they spend eight hours in front of screens avoiding glare, which is also a health issue. Dismissing all complaints about "arbitrary" things as ridiculous is a huge mistake.
The ratio of people doing great work versus those complaining matters. Burke cares less about individual "berry" complaints and more about behavior patterns. Many Slack channel complainers were frequent "flyers"—those who complain often. Noticing five people consistently gathered complaining about eight of ten issues is more concerning than general complaints. Most humans have minor complaints; someone with specific dietary restrictions or lighting needs, otherwise talented, warrants accommodation. However, a consistent pattern of being a nuisance is a bigger red flag.
The late 2010s through pandemic period likely lacked sufficiently demanding work. When environments are challenging and demanding, there's no time for 45-minute banana rants. People are at their best when things feel demanding but not completely overwhelming. Achieving that balance company-wide is incredibly difficult. Everyone experiences sprints where engineering works incredibly hard or end-of-year periods when sales and finance push hard. Running a company requires significant energy management: motivating people for sprints while encouraging necessary breaks.
This is particularly challenging during "growth at all costs" periods. While everyone should have demanding work, effectively allocating that work across different teams and geographical locations is extremely difficult. Frequent complainers often indoctrinate others with their ideas, rallying people around what might seem like nonsense. Being hypervigilant about such individuals and working to limit their spread becomes important.
Manager Skills: Subject Matter Expertise, Emotional Intelligence, and the Path to C-Level
Regarding whether managers need to be absolute best in their discipline, the answer is nuanced. They don't need to be the "best," but professional managers with no clue what their team does all day is a huge mistake. No one wants to work for someone who doesn't understand their craft. However, technical superiority over everyone managed isn't necessary. Burke oversees people far better in their specific functions; she needs enough subject matter expertise to be "dangerous" in conversation and for them to learn something from her. That credibility level is essential.
For VP of Engineering roles, there's a strong case for being incredibly sound technically. The threshold isn't being "the best," but being extremely knowledgeable enough for principal or staff engineers to engage in meaningful technical discussions. The difference between VP and C-level often determines where people get stuck. VPs can be crucial at any company stage; the difference preventing VP to C-level advancement typically boils down to self-awareness.
Once reaching VP level, there's a tendency to feel comfortable believing you're "pretty good at this." Readily accepting praise while filtering out constructive feedback on improvement is common. This self-awareness is critical for the leap from VP to C-level.
For director to VP transition, ability to recruit people better than you is essential. More specifically, it involves how directors interact with direct reports. Directors often act like "camp counselors," giving instructions like "Okay friends, here's what we're going to do." No one finds this helpful; it's how they treat their managers. Elevating your operating system to have more mature conversations rather than camp counselor speech is necessary.
For VP to C-level transition, self-awareness combines with recruiting exceptional talent. Managing teams effectively without camp counselor behavior involves trusting and empowering subordinates. Meetings should focus on accountability to goals rather than micromanaging. Instead of asking how each individual is doing, ask managers about patterns they're observing in their teams and how you can best support them.
The second key involves fundamentally changing your operating system from manager or director mode. When asked how calendars have changed, many say they have more one-on-ones, which is actually the wrong answer. Successful transitions show fewer one-on-ones and more scalable systems. A great director or VP changes their operating system: they might say no to interviewing individual contributors and instead focus on interviewing managers and empowering them to make better team decisions. As VPs with five directors reporting, the operating system must match the urgency of their roles.
Scope, Decision Authority, and Executive Accountability at Scale
At a 2,500-person company, the CPO is singularly responsible for certain decisions and should push others elsewhere. Company goals, team objectives, and organizational shape at the end of a given year fall to the executive. Decisions on IC hiring, campaign building, and similar specifics should fall to the team. Ideally, you're finding a mix so people feel appropriate autonomy.
The best people in the world want some level of autonomy. Nobody has ever been like, "Wow, I can't wait to work for her, she's the best micromanager around." Clearly being clear on where you play allows people to understand "hey, this is yours, this is your decision to make." For the CPO, company goals, team goals, and what the organization should achieve by year-end are the focus; everything else falls to the team.
At scale, building a company reveals hidden landmines as you grow from 500 to 1,000 people and the people organization grows from two to ten people. Common overlooked problems emerge that long-time people leaders eventually encounter. One involves getting so focused on your roadmap—"We should implement this talent program" or "We should roll out ACR"—that you become program-centric versus people-centric.
If rolling out a top talent program while 17 top talent radar people leave during that quarter, you should agile enough to pause and do something different. At that scale, people often cling to plans: "But we said we would do this." Making sure you have flexibility to adapt based on what you're seeing is critical.
The second problem involves over-reliance on numbers. Attrition is a great example of a lagging indicator. Problems in teams often don't become apparent until six people leave. What's predictive requires deeper analysis. At HubSpot, employee happiness (would you recommend us?) wasn't actually predictive. What predicted attrition was "I see myself here in the next 12 months." This single predictive measure required quarterly religious attention by geography, team, and level, with specific actions for how you interact with those groups. Otherwise, you miss it until it's too late.
The third hidden problem involves your own team. Everyone on people teams is people-centric, but the same temptation to become more team versus company-focused exists within people organizations. Territorial approaches between Learning and Development, HR Business Partners, and talent development teams create conflict. Being an active proponent of helping squash that conflict is necessary.
Evolution of Perspective: From HubSpot to Harvey and the AI Inflection Point
HubSpot was absolutely formative. The company did culture and employer branding incredibly well—people at HubSpot knew more about organizational culture and employer brand than about the product. At Harvey, Burke wanted to do something slightly different: have great culture she's proud of, but ultimately, the goal is being the leading AI platform for lawyers. Product and brand should lead; culture should follow.
This isn't necessarily changing her mind, but rather shifting focus toward the work being built. At Harvey, leading with brand and customer value above company culture represents a notable adjustment. The second significant shift involves the degree to which pace matters. At HubSpot, she believed in matching going fast and going slow on certain decisions. At Harvey, you don't have that luxury. Time compression has been a big thing; she doesn't think opinions on running organizations have meaningfully changed except for the need for rapid speed and leading with brand and customer value above company culture.
The AI inflection point since ChatGPT's release, particularly the last six months, represents a step function. For non-technical folks, the ability to use Claude to meaningfully automate or create systems that would take hours is staggering. Missing this as a "holy cow" moment means missing the point entirely.
Secondarily, if models are improving that much, any AI company must improve operations at the same or better pace. If you're getting 20% better at Harvey, you need to get 60% better because that's what model outputs are achieving. It's become a new threshold for quality and pace, driving urgency around what application layer companies are building.
When looking at how CPOs should be running people functions, the contrast from four to six years ago becomes clear. The key question is: what process are you eliminating or fundamentally changing with AI? For example, job description writing—previously sitting down with coffee to draft descriptions—now involves using Harvey's Vault product to automate and make repeatable. If you're not thinking "how could AI solve this problem first and eliminate hours of work," you're not going to be successful in the people function in the next year and a half.
If leaders dabble occasionally in models for personal use but don't use them at work, they're already way behind. The best people leaders are leaning into eliminating or reducing processes using AI. This involves thinking about what you can no longer be wed to—like onboarding processes with 15 steps. Previously, getting down to 12 was good efficiency. Now, can you get it down to three while infusing humanity where it matters?
Regarding headcount planning, you need thinking about work units, skills needed, and whether solutions should be people or agents. This is a critical conversation people leaders should be leading, not following. Some things are now possible that leaders always dreamed of doing. For performance reviews, a team member wrote a script completing her review in five minutes, something that used to be so onerous and took significant self-examination. If you can make performance reviews much less painful, that's huge. Next year, AI will be critical in workforce planning side—something that always felt like pulling teeth. Building decks and internal comms, things Burke used to spend hours or days on, will become much more AI-driven.
The Future of Leadership: EQ, Pace, and Sustained Values
The most important thing that won't change is the importance of emotional intelligence (EQ). If leaders can worry less about things people have always hated—onerous performance reviews, onerous internal comms, onerous ACR processes—they'll have more time for things that make great managers: strong empathy and actually training people for jobs and work. Hopefully, this sees a return to more mentorship. Most people don't have managers who spend time actually getting them ready for their next career stage, and Burke hopes that becomes the case.
People teams need to set the pace on AI adoption as another area where importance won't change. The other constant is the importance of emphasizing what you care about and what you don't. Engineering is changing tremendously—not just in next two years but next two weeks. Organizations need clear conversations about whether they're hiring junior engineers, what they prioritize, how they ensure the best people focus on most technical problems, and what resourcing looks like. Having honest conversations so people are clear on what they're signing up for remains important.
What a great VP of People looks like in a year or two will look relatively different than today. Multiple Chief People Officers—Carmel Galvan at Klaviyo, Jackie at ServiceNow, and others—are playing Chief AI Officer and AI transformation roles. This isn't accidental; AI requires tremendous change management and human behavior work. The best People Officers understand what it takes getting people past fear on the change curve, putting champions in place, and ensuring incentives align to using and adopting AI meaningfully.
Forward-leaning people on AI are getting rewarded with additional titles and responsibility. This happens because rolling out and adopting AI involves understanding what it takes to get through organizations. Selling to lawyers at Harvey revealed that lawyers, not traditionally seen as AI-leaning, are actually eager because they're sick of document review—nobody goes to law school wanting to redline documents forever. Understanding how to get them on the change curve to adopt AI for tasks they hate and dread, appealing to their needs, involves change management. The best people leaders will be the same.
Demanding Excellence While Showing Genuine Care
Being demanding as a manager is huge. You can be liked or you can be respected; you have to pick a lane. The best players, teams, and champions we admire are much better at being admired than liked. You have to be okay sacrificing some congeniality or comfort to get people delivering their best work. Most people who work for Burke would say she's incredibly demanding. They'd also say she's incredibly loyal, caring, and kind. You can be both.
Most people think these things are at odds, particularly when talking about human empathy surviving AI changes. It feels antithetical to being demanding or having insanely high expectations. But part of Burke's management philosophy is bringing those two things together. The best leaders or coaches demand more of you than you think possible while simultaneously being the first person to check in if you're having a tough day.
Great leaders have to hold space for both: being a "queen of awkwardness" willing to sit in really awkward conversations and say "Do you think that was your best work out there?" Sitting in awkwardness while going, "It wasn't, and here's why. I think you can do better, and I have higher expectations. How do we chart that course together?" is genuinely awkward. It's so much easier to say someone did amazing work.
Being willing to sit in awkwardness, remembering that the best coaches ever had demanded that, making people better for it. The best compliments come five years later from people saying, "Remember when you gave me that feedback? That made me better, and I think about it often." You have to remind yourself of that versus desire to be liked.
Working for Burke hopefully feels like being part of the best team ever, feeling equal parts challenging, really hard, rewarding and worth it. On any given week across five days, hopefully three feel really challenging and hard, and two feel like you're completely winning and crushing it. That balance matters. Harvey's value of "job's not finished" is intentional—wanting people super clear on how they could be better and knowing the difference between good and great.
Burke shares her performance reviews with her team, showing what she said she's good at and what she could do better. Part is them knowing she's not just asking it of them; she expects it of herself. If CEO and COO are sharing long lists of things they could do better and someone can't think of one thing they're doing wrong, that's a self-awareness opportunity. Part of what she does is lead by example, sharing her performance review with her team (with elements redacted) for the last eight years.
Personal Leadership Growth and Evolution
The most important thing Burke has improved on in the last eight years began with overtalking. When first promoted to CPO, she thought her job was saying something important at every meeting. That's not your job. Your job is knowing when you add value and when you don't. Feedback that she was trying to grab the mic versus adding conversation, with quality of value add versus words per minute going down, was tough but incredibly important. It taught her to sit back and only speak up when having something valuable to add.
The second big failure involved getting really behind on recruiting at HubSpot many years ago. She started pointing fingers everywhere—this team's fault, that team's fault. Brian had a really hard conversation: she'd either be there in a year because she owned it and dug out, or she'd go down pointing fingers. She learned a hard lesson on owning your own mistakes and understanding that it doesn't matter whose fault it is—it matters that it's within your team. That level of ownership as an exec, being willing to say to the board "that was me," is a big one.
The third thing involved letting go of perfection. She was very much an achiever, doing great work, getting great grades. As an executive, your goal is batting 400 at best—that's what best-in-class people are doing. Getting more comfortable saying "yeah, you're right, that meeting was a miss, could have been better," and not always knocking it out of the park represents important growth.
Disagreeing well with the CEO starts with a foundation of respect. Even in most heated debates with Winston, there's deep respect. It feels like you're lining up on the same side—you're still on the same team even when you vehemently disagree. Understanding you have the same long-term goal is essential. Things about which they disagreed most never involved where they're going, only how they get there.
Having a mechanism for disagreement is important. Winston is comfortable with conflict; so is Burke. However, she needs more time to process her own role in it. If she's at fault, she needs a night to sleep on it to understand why the conversation bothered her and process before discussing. He'd rather yell and figure it out immediately. The CEO doesn't have to make all decisions; agreeing on who gets to make the call when is essential. Winston is clear: "You're the decision-maker on these five things. I'm the decision-maker on these." When clarity exists on both what the decision should be and who decides, those are the most important conversations.
Often, nuance exists about the pace at which something happens and pace at which change can be expected. Whether hiring, opening new markets, or turning over teams, Burke often says patience and time are needed while Winston says there's no time. They've agreed: fundraising is his call; board meeting preparation is his responsibility managing relationships. Big culture decisions are made together, but he defers to her recommendations unless he wants to "lay on the tracks." Agreeing on parameters is essential—they agree on both decision-maker and how they'll get there 90% of the time.
Advice for New Chief People Officers Navigating Board Relationships
For someone stepping into CPO roles for the first time, board experience is often brand new. Maybe occasionally a VP of People presented something; the CPO dynamic with the board is very different. The most important advice: ask for help. Burke hit the lottery here. At HubSpot, she'd presented to the board once before becoming CPO, so she would have fallen on her face badly. Board member Laurie Norington saw she was in a stretching role and set up shadowing HubSpot's CHRO at eBay and meeting their people team.
Rather than going in confident and pretending you know what you're doing, ask for help. Your board is usually very willing, especially given CPO and compensation committee relationships. They have incentive for you to succeed and to develop personal relationships. Ask for help, ask for exposure, ask them to meet the best CPOs. That's often how you get the best context on what resonates versus falling on your face.
Ask to observe before you present. One of the best things people do in board work is saying "it's my first time around, I'm just taking in the cadence here, and then next time I'll come in prepared." The meeting is just a meeting; the real work is building relationships before and after. For the most important HubSpot decisions, board presentations never showed the board something for the first time that Burke was presenting. She'd pre-seeded conversations and big ideas, solicited opinion early on recommendations, asked what other portfolio companies had done as best practice. It's not actually about the meeting; it's about your ongoing relationship with the board. Your job is managing that dynamic and interacting regularly, so the meeting is just another touch point.
The CPO role and working relationships with the board relative to CRO, CTO, or other executive functions is quite different. At public companies, a few critical roles exist. The compensation committee and nominations and governance both have deep CPO relationships. You have pretty deep responsibilities to both, especially regarding recommendations. For instance, the compensation committee recommends compensation for your entire executive team, including your CEO. As CPO, you're in the middle of that discussion, which can be awkward to manage.
Your role involves cultivating very deep and trusted relationships with them and with your compensation consultant, who serves as independent advisor to the board. You manage succession planning, usually under nominations and governance, meaning uncomfortable conversations with them about leadership team readiness for future growth, global expansion, or multi-product development.
If you're a CTO or CRO, you naturally have obligation to the board; relationships matter. As CPO, you have a somewhat awkward dual relationship. You have duty to investors, particularly in public companies, to be incredibly thoughtful about striking the right balance. Navigating and understanding that nuance is critically important.
Conclusion
Katie Burke's approach to people leadership fundamentally rejects the notion that the people function is purely operational or support-focused. Instead, it positions people leadership as a strategic capability that directly drives business outcomes. The framework emphasizes several interconnected principles: radical transparency builds trust and competitive advantage; demanding excellence and showing genuine care are complementary, not contradictory; and the most important work involves developing future leaders and creating environments where people can do their best work.
As organizations navigate rapid growth, AI integration, and increasingly competitive talent markets, Burke's insights prove prescient. The people function must evolve from executing predefined programs to actively shaping organizational capability and pace. This requires leaders willing to have difficult conversations, make hard decisions with integrity, and continuously examine their own assumptions and behaviors.
The transition from making employees happy to creating conditions for their best work represents a fundamental mindset shift that separates thriving organizations from struggling ones. By embracing this perspective, companies can build cultures that aren't just nice places to work but genuinely competitive advantages in attracting and retaining exceptional talent—talent that drives the business outcomes that ultimately matter.
Original source: A people leader’s job isn’t to make you happy | Katie Burke (COO, Harvey)
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