Views from the Top-Carlos Brito
Take a moment to think about it: What truly drives success in a business? After considering it for a few seconds, I’m sure you’ll agree—leadership is at the core of it all. Surprisingly, many business schools and companies don’t place enough emphasis on this critical element. We’re often trained in technical skills, but without strong leadership, even the most talented teams can struggle to navigate their way. The real difference between a group of people and a high-performing organization is the vision and guidance provided by effective leadership.
The inspiration for writing this piece came a few weeks ago when I reached out to someone who generously shared a valuable resource with me: a video called “Views from the Top,” delivered by Carlos Brito he was the Ceo of a company by the name of AB InBev. While you may not recognize his name or the company, you’ve likely heard of the global brands they own, including Budweiser, Corona, and Stella Artois. Under Brito’s leadership, the company grew from $26 billion to $146 billion.
In his talk, Brito offers a masterclass on leadership, high performance, and building a lasting company. It also serves as a great way to evaluate the kinds of companies worth working for. I only wish I had discovered this earlier, but I want to share it with you now, hoping it will provide valuable insights and guide you in understanding the crucial elements of leadership.
How Leaders and High-Performance Culture Connect
Let’s start with a simple question: What is leadership? The first thing you need to ask yourself is whether leaders are born or formed.
Some argue that leaders are born. They claim that only 2% of the population are born leaders. But let's flip the script. What if leaders are formed? If that’s the case, doesn't that give you a much greater opportunity to spot and cultivate leadership within your company?
So, how do we identify leaders within our company? A leader is anyone who has an objective or target. And to reach that target, they need a team. The moment they need a team to achieve their goals, they become a leader in a leadership position. If tomorrow they’re working alone on a spreadsheet, they’re not in a leadership position.
What is leadership, then? It’s simple to define but hard to live. There are three key components:
- Delivering sustainable results through the team.
- Doing it the right way — focusing on how things are done.
- Doing it consistently, day in and day out.
A leader is someone who isn’t selfish. They don’t focus on their ego; they focus on the company and the bigger mission. They’re building something much larger than themselves.
Leaders also need to be people-oriented. They must genuinely enjoy being surrounded by people and inspire others. They help others believe they can perform better than they think they can. A great leader gets people to realize that together, they can reach places they never thought possible.
But a leader isn't just about the big picture. They need to understand the details of the operation. They must ask the right questions and set relevant, achievable targets.
There’s a misconception that as you grow in a company, you need to become more strategic and distance yourself from operations. But that’s flawed. A great leader is a mix of both: they’re strategic but never too far removed from the details. When a leader disconnects from the operation, they lose the ability to ask the right questions and set meaningful targets.
This is why Carlos values people who come into meetings prepared. His team knows they can dive into any detail without hesitation because they aren’t afraid to get into the weeds. A great leader can connect strategy with the reality on the ground.
All About the Dream
If you’re saying you need to achieve great results, you don’t just want average results—you want great results. Brito doesn’t call it “inspiring people.” He calls it giving people a dream, a sense of purpose. Something that energizes them, something that makes them believe they can get there. When people have that, they put in the effort, they row in the same direction, and that’s what aligns the company.
So, what is a dream?
A dream is stretched but credible—something that requires a lot of work, something that motivates everybody. It’s something that makes people say, “With my bit of the business, I can help us get there.” A dream has to talk to everyone. It’s an art. When you set the bar high and people reach it, that becomes the new standard—anything below that is no longer acceptable.
“Dreaming big takes the same amount of energy as dreaming small.” – Carlos Brito
So why dream small? Dream big. Inspire your people. That’s how amazing things happen—because people start believing.
Think about the high jump. If you always set the bar low, people will only jump as high as they need to. But if you raise it, they’ll push themselves. As they get confident, they’ll go even higher. That’s leadership.
Dream Big, But Stay Humble
A dream is when you set a goal—you want to go from Point A to Point B. But between those points, there’s a gap. To define that gap, you find a benchmark—someone or some company that does it better than you. You say, “That’s the standard.” Then, you work to close that gap. Once you reach Point B, you open up a new gap to Point C. . That’s management.
But to open new gaps, you have to be humble enough to recognize that someone out there is always doing something better than you. Not in everything, but in something.
The Power of Benchmarking
The easiest way to stay sharp? is to Measure. Take key aspects of your business and compare them to the best in the industry. Find the gap. Expose the gap. Then close it.
No matter how good you think you are, someone somewhere is ahead in some dimension.
So go look.
The ''Feel Good" Department
Ever heard of the “Feel Good” department? It wasn’t on any organizational chart, but it is everywhere. Let's say Anytime a KPI(key performance indicator) wasn’t met, you repackage the news to make it sound better. And suddenly, failure didn’t seem so bad. Isn’t that amazing?
But that’s where the problem is.
When things are going well, celebrate. But when things aren’t, it’s a gap. It’s something you need to close.
He always says: Look up. Find the benchmark.
When you look up, you get inspired and challenged. When you look down, you get comfortable and lazy.
Get your team to look up. Find those benchmarks. Open those gaps. Dream big. Go for it.
That’s leadership. That’s how high performance and leadership connect.
What talented people want in a company:
When you think about it, there is no company—what you have is a group of people that = a company.
Now, here’s where it gets really important: to have great company and leadership, you have to first have great people. People are the only sustainable competitive advantage any business can have over competition. That’s the hardest thing to copy— the way you attract, retain, grow, develop, and deploy them. That’s hard to copy.
But People don’t see it. Let's say you launch a new product, it can be copied the next day, the next few months it can even done better. But if you have a people machine that gets people to develop and stay within your company, the company will grow because they are the company It’s hard to see, but when you see it, you’re already 5-10 years ahead.
Build people.
People most of the time are attracted to the same thing: the challenge, they work together, they learn from each other, and they get inspired by each other. But also, mediocre people love to work together. They give each other easy targets, they think everybody’s great, and they celebrate even when they have no reason to celebrate. They tend to use what we call the feel-good department.
The thing about great people is not attracting them—it’s retaining them. We often see many companies attracting great people, but they tend to lose them. They train them for the marketplace. He says he doesn't want his company to be a school. they’re not going to be training people for competitors to use them. We want them to come and stay.
What do talented people love about a company?
Meritocracy
It’s easy to say but hard to do. It’s the concept where people grow according to their talents and what they can deliver, the teams they have, the teams they form, the people they attract, and the culture they spread. But it’s hard to do because it entails fairness.
What is Carlos’s definition of fairness? You have to treat different people in different ways. Meritocracy is treating people fairly. So if someone is willing to put in more work, produce more results, is willing to chew a bigger bone, is willing to go to travel, and have more accountability, that person deserves more opportunity, more exposure, and more learning, and that also builds their wealth according to the value being created.
Treat different people in different ways. A lot of companies are afraid of saying that because it sounds incorrect, but in the end, what’s incorrect is treating everybody the same.
Informality
It’s not the way you dress, not the way you set up your offices in terms of chairs. For example, Carlos has an office with a big table, and his direct reports sit around him in front of everybody.
Information flows. People are welcome to speak. You don’t need to have meetings all the time. No assistant blocking your agenda—you’re available. That’s informality.
But that’s only part of it. True informality is a company that’s able to deal with healthy conflicts. A lot of people don’t like that, and I bet a lot of bosses who have egos don’t like to be contradicted or challenged. As long as it’s respectful and constructive, you can say whatever you want—but only if you’re trying to get the business to a better place, and having no hidden agendas helps with that.
That’s why Carlos doesn’t want to go home with a work-related problem. He goes home with market-related problems let's say for example the market is not going well, and competition is kicking his ass. That’s something that’s 24/7. But if you go to a meeting and someone says something that sounds strange to him, he won’t go home with that. After the meeting, he will pull them aside and just talk it out to see what’s going on.
And since you don’t hold that in your mind, you become free again to create value and not focus on internal politics. That’s key. That’s why many companies tend to suffer from something you hear called office politics.
He also has an open office. People don’t have doors to close or space to talk small talk. It’s all open, so that’s informality.
Candor
They want to know where they stand. For example, Carlos does performance evaluations twice a year—90 minutes one-on-one. It takes 90 minutes to get to what counts. In that conversation, both parties get feedback and explain to each other what's on their mind.
It’s very easy to say, but very hard to do. But with Candor you don't want this to happen, "It’s Friday, and oh my God, you have to tell Tom that things are not working, it’s going to ruin his weekend." Then the next week you travel, and when you come back, he’s not there. A year passes, then ten years pass. His life is only one, and it’s short anyway. All our lives are short for anything we want to do, and you’re just playing God because you know something and don’t want to share it. It’s his life—what’s wrong?
You have to tell what’s good, what’s bad, and how you can help him recover and get back on track. Candor helps people know where they stand, what their future with the company could be, and what they can do better. They don’t want you to manage that like, "I’ll do it my way, I don’t need to share that."
Partnership
In his company, he has partners. Partners are people. They’re getting shares of the wealth that’s being created as a company. As a company, we are not for sharing the wealth that’s being created. Talented people like that. They like to know if they work hard and they do the things and get the results, they’ll also be getting a share. It’s not the most important thing, but it is part of the package. It’s very key. And in some companies, people are very shy, and they don’t like to do that.
It’s important because they feel wealth creation going on with the company creating value.
How You Do It
Culture is often overlooked, but it's essential. When Carlos acquires a company, the first thing he does is focus on the people and culture, not the business itself. He asks, "What do we stand for?"
Culture directly influences performance but that can be compromised when you treat a company as if it operates differently. it's like when you say "This works here, but it won’t work there," you’re missing the point. One company, one culture is key. This is why many mergers and acquisitions fail — even after ten years, people still introduce themselves as "I’m from Company X" and "I’m from Company Y," which keeps the two companies separate, preventing them from creating value together.
The culture he talks about is one of ownership. Owners make better decisions. In his company, Carlos strives for an engaged group of owners, not a selfish group of professionals. Professionals are focused on building their resumes, but owners are building something bigger than themselves, something that will last forever. It's like carving your name in a tree when you were young. You can go back years later and say, "I did that." Owners are committed to the long haul, and because of that, they make better decisions because they live with the consequences. Executives who come and go aren’t as invested in the long-term success. They’re too short-term focused, and he doesn’t like that.
you don’t want to be a rental company. Think about it: when you rent a car, you don't treat it like your own. People do reckless things in rental cars, but if they owned the car, they’d be more careful because they’d have to live with the consequences. The same applies to companies. He says if someone has been working at your company for a while and starts thinking about starting their own company, you’ve failed them. If you can’t create something that people want to stay and build with, you’re missing the mark.
I want to put this example Carlos lays out so that you can distinguish the difference between a professional and an owner Imagine you’ve been running a bakery for three generations, and a Whole Foods opens across the street. The prices are lower, but the quality isn’t the same. Consumers may not care, but you, as the bakery owner, know your customers better. You can offer something Whole Foods can’t. you start thinking of ideas you offer Maybe a more personal experience, or quick service like a convenience store your understanding of what they need is better as your family has been here for 3 generations that's your edge. That’s the mentality of an owner.
But with ownership comes sacrifice. You might have to reduce your salary, skip vacations, and reinvest in the business to stay competitive. You can’t just walk away when things get tough put on your suit and ask for a job at Whole Foods. That’s what a professional does.
Here is some more guidance Carlos gives us:
Healthy Dissatisfaction
To be the best in class, you need to redefine what that means every day. Once you reach a threshold, you celebrate briefly, and then you move on. If you get convinced that you’re the best and that’s it, that’s when it all starts to fall apart. Dream big, but stay humble.
Face the Facts
When consumers open their wallets, they show us who’s winning and who’s losing. They don’t sugarcoat it, so why should we? We need to face reality instead of hiding behind a "feel-good" department.
Focus on Results
In a company, what you reward should be results, not efforts. The effort is important, but it’s not enough. Great results typically come from great efforts, but they are not the same. When companies promote efforts without results, it’s the beginning of the end. Companies don’t buy effort — they buy results. Imagine a product on the shelf that says, “This represents six months of effort, Consumers won’t buy it, and neither should companies.
Leaders celebrate results. But if there is there’s a gap, they acknowledge it, but they don’t reward effort without results.
Stay Lean
Being lean isn’t just about staying healthy in good times; it’s about being prepared for the bad times. Think about the 2008 crisis. Lean companies could survive, adapt, and take advantage of opportunities when others were struggling. Lean companies have the fundamentals in place, even when times are tough.
No Shortcuts when Building a Company
Building a great company takes time, and only owners can do it. Professionals can’t. It’s easy to say you’ll take shortcuts, but in the end, it’s those who stick with it and build from within who will create something valuable.
As a leader, you can’t promise fun — but you can promise development, growth, and learning. People work best under pressure, and they need challenges to perform. If you work in a place that’s "fun" all the time, there’s no pressure, and without pressure, there’s no performance. It’s under pressure that they’ll perform at their best. It’s the same as preparing for an exam. When there’s pressure, you focus, you perform, and you give it 100%.
Final thoughts:
As you think about the future—whether you're evaluating the companies you want to work for or stepping into a leadership role yourself—remember this: Leadership is essential. It’s the force that drives growth, shapes success, and transforms potential into achievement. Strong leadership doesn’t just guide teams—it inspires them, creating opportunities for growth and pushing everyone to reach new heights. So, as you move forward in your career, keep this in mind: leadership is the key to unlocking your potential and the success of the organizations you’re part of.