Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank says micromanagement is ‘underestimated.’ Steve Jobs and Elon Musk would agree |
Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank says micromanagement is ‘underestimated.’ Steve Jobs and Elon Musk would agree
Micromanaging gets a bad rap, but it’s a method some CEOs still embrace.
Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank told Graham Bensinger in a YouTube interview published in September 2025 he believes in micromanagement “at certain levels.”
“I think it’s totally underestimated,” said Plank, who founded Under Armour in 1996. “I think there’s too much loss on pretense or structure or process. Like, that’s great, but the right answer will save us a lot of time.” Plank’s stance cuts against a Gen Z workforce that has loudly rejected micromanagement.
Plank, a boomerang CEO who took a brief hiatus from the athletic-wear company from 2020 to 2024, said he believes in an 80-20 rule for management. His priority is to “get it right” by focusing on the correct solutions to problems while allowing creativity and flexibility to remain.
“We do need structure in place, but we also need to build in the fact that the market is not........