9 HARD-EARNED LEADERSHIP LESSONS
THESE
LEADERS ONLY LEARNED ESSENTIAL LESSONS AFTER YEARS OF EXPERIENCE, AND THEY
SHARE THEM HERE SO YOU CAN SAVE SOME TIME.
No matter how
talented or intelligent you are, many of the greatest lessons—in business and
in life—don’t come until after years of experience.
Oftentimes,
when looking back, these are the lessons the most successful people wish they
knew when they were in their 20s. Other times, they're glad they didn't know
them, as knowledge sometimes hold us back in the wrong ways.
From
discovering just how much competition kills creativity to the tests that
leadership often brings, below, nine executives share the lessons they learned
in retrospect after years of doing business and leading teams.
Julia Hartz, cofounder
of Eventbrite
"I've
learned in the last year that if you can't see it, you can't be it," says
Hartz. In other words, "there is no finish line to leadership."
You’re tested repeatedly on your ability to lead others and form allies.
Hartz adds:
"It's something that you work on and earn over and over again. For
example, female leaders in tech today are helping shape the greatest generation
of women entrepreneurs through empowerment and modeling. Strong modeling has
the ability to shape the next generation, and I believe we’ve come a long
way."
Philippe von Borries,
cofounder of Refinery29
In the business
world, you’re constantly facing competition. To succeed, you have to
know the ins and outs of the competitive landscape, recognize marketplace dynamics, understand how your competitors do business, yet still stay true to your brand.
know the ins and outs of the competitive landscape, recognize marketplace dynamics, understand how your competitors do business, yet still stay true to your brand.
ONCE YOU FOLLOW THE
COMPETITION, YOU DISCONNECT FROM WHAT YOU’RE ACTUALLY GREAT AT.
"As a
creative business at heart, I’ve seen dozens of times how competition kills
creativity," says Von Borries. "I’ve witnessed myself doing this
before . . . referring to X and Y brand doing something new, and all of a
sudden, the room freezes over. When you go into comparing and contrasting, you
don’t have creativity any more. You’re only creating a different, maybe worse,
version of your competition. It’s a zero sum game.
"Once you
follow the competition, you disconnect from what you’re actually great at.
Being creative means creating something out of nothing. Never tolerate
comparing and contrasting."
Chet Kapoor, CEO
of Apigee
"Over the
years, I've gained a tremendous amount of respect for the power of
patience," Kapoor says.
"When I
was a young professional, I believed the most important characteristics of a
successful leader were talent and discipline—and that was pretty much it. I
thought that if you have talent and you put in the discipline—whatever your
equivalent of 10,000 hours would be—you are equipped for leadership," he
explains.
"But I
understand now that making important decisions, a defining responsibility of
any leader, sometimes requires patience. If I'm not comfortable with a big
decision now, I wait a day or two. I don't use this time to gather more data, a
timeline, or create a list of pros and cons. I just give the decision the gift
of time. Often with a little time and patience, the decision will manifest
itself clearly."
Jill Salzman, founder of The Founding Moms
Looking back,
Salzman says she knew nothing about building a business. Today, she's built
three.
"What I
didn’t know actually helped to pave a way of running a company the way I need
to do it, not the way others have done it before," she says. "That
may have come at some expenses, but the gains have been tremendous."
She adds:
"When I meet twentysomethings now who clearly don’t know what they’re
doing, I applaud them and help steer them in a slightly more helpful direction.
But we entrepreneurs need to figure it out on our own, that’s for sure."
One specific
experience that taught Salzman this lesson was when The Founding Moms
discovered that its meetup, the Founding Moms’ Exchanges, was growing quickly.
Everyone told Salzman to keep it small so that she can "get it
right." Instead, she pushed for expansion and today, Founding Moms’
Exchanges exist in 47 cities in 10 countries.
"If I were
wiser, I would have listened," she says.
Brett Northart,
cofounder of LE
TOTE
When Northart
and his cofounder, Rakesh Tondon, started LE TOTE, they started small and used
feedback from their customers to change and develop the product.
"If we had
over-optimized the product early, we would have built an entirely wrong product
for the wrong customer," says Northart. "A lot of people assume they
know everything when they are first starting out, but you have to remember to
listen to your customers and have a genuine curiosity to keep learning.
Otherwise, your product or company will never grow."
As a leader,
you’ll have to make a lot of decisions. Don’t make choices that fail to make an
impact, advises Cutright.
"The
startup world forces you to prioritize given limited resources and the high
demand to constantly deliver," she says. "You can’t hide behind the
work that doesn’t move the needle."
IT'S MUCH HARDER, BUT
MORE EMPOWERING FOR YOUR TEAM, TO HOLD YOUR TONGUE AND KEEP ASKING QUESTIONS
UNTIL YOUR TEAM COMES UP WITH ANSWERS THEMSELVES.
"Even now,
when I have more resources with a larger company, the same principles apply. I
make my expectations known and communicate them clearly and effectively with my
teams, and those I work with. I only check emails in the morning and at the end
of the day, and spend the bulk of my time actually working on the most
important priorities. But my team knows, if something new is pressing and
important, they have my attention."
Yee Lee, cofounder
of Vouch
"The easy
and short-term effective leadership style is to be the person who always has
answers and ideas," says Lee. "It's much harder, but more empowering
for your team, to hold your tongue on your own ideas and keep asking questions
until your team comes up with answers themselves."
Dan Rosensweig, CEO of
Chegg and former COO of Yahoo
When things go
wrong, it’s easy to protect yourself and blame some other force.
"I was
having one of ‘woe is me/it’s not my fault’ moments, when Bill Campbell
[chairman of Intuit] called and asked me to take a walk with him ‘to the
woodshed,’" says Rosensweig. "He told me, ‘Take responsibility for
your own life, and own your outcome.’"
TAKE RESPONSIBILITY
FOR YOUR OWN LIFE, AND OWN YOUR OUTCOME.
"Ultimately,
it taught me you are what your record says you are," he continues.
"When things aren’t going well, that’s the time to apply everything you’ve
ever known and learn to drive through the problem, not be consumed by the
problem."
René Lacerte, CEO
of Bill.com
"It is
never good to oversell a customer, and it is disastrous to oversell an employee—whether
you are recruiting them or enticing them to stay," says Lacerte.
"When it comes to people, you must make sure folks want to come or stay
for the right reasons, and not just for a polished sales pitch.
"I learned
the hard way a few times that the most important person to do the selling on
working at your company is the employee themselves, not you. When you get that
right, you'll have an easy time focusing on what makes the talent you already
have happy, and that in turn attracts and leads to more great talent."
BY VIVIAN GIANG
http://www.fastcompany.com/3051445/lessons-learned/9-hard-earned-leadership-lessons?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fast-company-daily-newsletter&position=4&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=09292015
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