Executives are expected to be mature enough to not need hand holding.
I think explicit PD makes sense at a big corporation or even a medium sized firm, but not in a startup environment where every second counts.
If you do not do Professional Development, and make this clear to your hires whom you expect to be pretty good at their job functions already, I do not see how it should be treated as cultivating yes-men. 'I don't do Professional Development' is also not the same as 'I can't take feedback or let someone call a spade a spade'.
No, he simply claims the team was already competent enough to execute at the level required and without egos weighting them down.
The culture we needed in that moment was one of high standards, of directness and honesty, of pressure to do the best work. My message fit the necessary culture, and the outcome was exactly the team I had hoped to shape. I still remain friends with these folks to this day.
We were hardly self-congratulatory; quite the opposite, we were completely without ego and laser-focused on doing right by the company and our teams, and I’m proud to this day of how we ran things.
When did that change for you?