The Four Cornerstones of Effective Leadership

What is a leader? Throughout my career, I have had the opportunity to see many styles of leadership. I have known people who were great leaders, and I have known great people who were not leaders. I have watched and studied those who are successful leading people and have taken note of those who are not.

In your career, you will have opportunities to lead. This is obvious if you are in a supervisory or management position, but everyone has opportunities to lead. Everyone. Maybe you will lead a small team on a project. Maybe you will lead your peers with your skill and professionalism. Maybe you will lead your boss by taking action, solving a problem, and enabling him or her to make decisions.

Leadership is a philosophy. It is the study and discipline of influencing others. My personal leadership philosophy can be broken down into four elements. I believe that these four elements are the foundation, or cornerstones, of effective leadership. If these four cornerstones can be fully realized, then the framework of a good leader can be constructed.

Looking

"Where there is no vision the people perish."

— Proverbs 29:18

Leadership begins with looking. To be a successful leader, one must first be a successful follower. Much can be learned from watching others who are effective or ineffective leaders. Looking also encompasses watching our peers and subordinates. Leaders must watch for shortcomings in order to correct and prevent; leaders must watch for signs of stress in order to support and assist; leaders must watch for success in order to praise and encourage. Finally, Looking refers to vision. Leaders must be visionary. They must be goal-oriented and be acutely aware of the proverbial “big picture”.

Listening

"The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people."
— Woodrow Wilson

Listening can be an attitude as much as an action. It entails more than just hearing words that are spoken. Leaders listen for unspoken things, read between the lines when necessary, and carefully examine what they hear before jumping to conclusions. A good leader listens to supervisors and subordinates, to others’ ideas and opinions. They seek both sides of any situation and hear with their hearts as well as their heads.

Learning

"Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other."
- John F. Kennedy

The framework of a leader is never truly complete. It is constantly under construction. A strong leader is forever on a quest to learn more; about their job, about the people around them, about leadership itself. A good leader learns from their mistakes and learns from their successes. They learn to adapt, to manage their time, to manage stress. They seek wisdom rather than knowledge. True leadership utilizes experience but is not limited by it.

Living

“Never separate the life you live from the words you speak.”
- Paul Wellstone

Finally, a leader must live what they believe. They must lead by example and inspire through their own contagious convictions. A leader avoids hypocrisy and double standards at all costs. They invite challenge and rebut mediocrity. They are satisfied only with excellence, in themselves and in others.

What is a leader? It is someone who leads, and others cannot help but follow.

 Posted by:Jamin Casselman

Making the Leap From Star Teammate to Great Leader

What do you do if you’re suddenly put in charge of a team, a project, a division – or even a company?

Having been an exceptional team member in the past doesn’t mean you’ll automatically be a great captain – in fact, what made you a star performer could actually get in your way. If your individual success hinged on doing superior work, for instance, you may need to overcome a pitfall familiar to straight-A students who end up doing all the work themselves when participating in group projects.

Suddenly accountable for people you can’t control, for work you can’t do on your own and maybe even for the output of people you’ve never met, you might panic. Many new leaders do. But realizing that not even the world’s most spectacular track star can beat the time of a just-average relay team may help you realize that the power of a team can outstrip your own performance, even if it’s world class. That’s a good starting point for getting out of your own way. Consider some of the following advice, as well.

1. Visualize “winning.” To do this, you’ll need to project all the way to the finish line. Create powerful images in your mind, and then express these objectives in ways everyone will remember – from the boardroom to the shop. It’s important to turn rudimentary wishes into specific goals; to go from earning a profit to earning $1 per share, to go from having happy customers to having a net promoter score of over 75, to go from being socially responsible to setting up 20 scholarships for employees’ kids.

Establishing quantifiable measures and time-frames turns wishes into goals. Goals then transform capable individuals into powerful teams. Unified teams lead to world-class performance. And articulating, measuring and celebrating meaningful goals means attracting highly qualified employees. 

2. Build a great team. If you hire talented people and put their interests ahead of your own, good things will happen. Your own commitment to serving your team will spur them to become stewards for clients, vendors, shareholders, other employees – and anyone else who has a stake in achieving shared goals. Once the right team is on the field, your own tasks are simply to make sure they have the resources they need and to clear any obstacles out of their way.

3. Don’t play the popularity game. You may be tempted to be popular, and to that end, you might use the proverbial carrot or another type of enticement to garner support. But don’t give outsized bonuses or spackle over real issues with any sort of “free lunch.” If you build fake esprit de corps by giving stuff away, it means you’re failing as a leader, because in actuality, there are no free lunches. Everything comes at a cost. And as leader, you’re accountable for the yet-to-be-reckoned expense of keeping people in line with bribes. You’ll find that not only do their appetites return, but you’ll eventually need to pay for the “food.”

4. Do play the long game. On a related note, only yield to pressures to fix things in the short run if you’re sure your solutions won’t have negative ramifications in the long run. If you keep an eye on the full array of short-, medium- and long-term consequences, not only will your team come to trust you – even though they won’t always agree with you – but so will the market.

5. Be ready to pivot. New problems will flow from every decision you make, so pick solutions that generate a next set of problems suited to your management abilities. You’re not solving a puzzle where finding the perfect piece will complete the picture; you’re dealing in ever-changing probabilities. So adapt, adjust, iterate until you find a good-enough course of action. Then, carry out your plan as if your life depended on it – it’s more reasonable to strive for perfection in execution than in decision-making.

6. Don’t pass the buck. In private enterprise, power can shift from manufacturer to distributor to retailer to customer, and back again. It all depends on an ever-changing balance between supply and demand. In government, politicians calculate how taking from one generation to give to another may keep them in office – until the wheels of society fall off. As a business leader, you’re a steward, not a politician, so resist the temptation to simply shift burdens. Success rooted in inequity spawns instability and strife, whereas applying fairness, durability and equity will pay dividends over time.

7. Listen to your team. Listening is an important part of your job, so be sure to ask for input. But also remember that the most popular ideas are often the least feasible, so don’t base your decisions on popular opinion or politics alone. Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best: “A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.” Build the personal capital that allows you to make tough, unpopular calls – then make them. Explain your reasoning to your team, and if you’ve listened well to them, they’ll listen to you when you make the tough calls.

8. Pass the baton. If you insist on making every single decision, you’ll have a less-innovative, less-energized and less-committed team. So decentralize decision-making where possible; empower those closest to the facts and then make them accountable.

9. Know that sometimes, there actually is an “I” in team. People are naturally self-interested. Don’t be surprised by this, and don’t punish them for it. Instead, reward those who have enlightened self-interest – who take into account the long view, who consider the concerns of the community in which they’ve chosen to live and who work for the many non-financial interests other people have. Expecting others simply to deny self-interest altogether for an objective you’ve set will merely unleash instability – and can even destroy your organization.

10.Acknowledge your bloopers. Embracing feedback, particularly the negative kind, is one key to recognizing mistakes. Be humble, vulnerable and willing to learn. If you are, your whole team will learn from its mistakes, too.

Leadership is not about being the best producer, or about being liked, or about making speeches – it is, at its very core, about getting the best all-things-considered results. Incorporating the above tweaks into your already well-established pattern of great individual performance will put you on your way to transforming yourself from manager to leader.

As management-consulting pioneer Peter Drucker noted, “Management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things.” In my experience, doing the right things the right way is the mark of a great leader. 

Posted by:Joel Peterson

The Most Overlooked Leadership Skill

 Even before I released the disc, I knew it was a long shot. And, unfortunately, it was a clumsy one too.

 

We were playing Ultimate Frisbee, a game similar to U.S. football, and we were tied 14-14 with a time cap. The next point would win the game.

I watched the disc fly over the heads of both teams. Everyone but me ran down the field. I cringed, helplessly, as the disc wobbled and listed left. Still, I had hope it could go our way.

Sam was on my team.

Sam broke free from the other runners and bolted to the end zone. But the disc was too far ahead of him. He would never make it.

At the very last moment, he leapt. Completely horizontal, Sam moved through the air, his arms outstretched. Time slowed as he closed in on the disc.

The field was silent as he slid across the end zone, shrouded in a cloud of dust. A second later he rose, Frisbee in hand. Our team erupted in cheer.

Sam’s catch won us the tournament.

It also taught me a great lesson: Never underestimate the value of a talented receiver.
I was reminded of Sam’s catch recently after broaching a sensitive topic with Alba*, a client. The conversation was about some concerns I had about an upcoming meeting she was leading as well as my own insecurity about how I could help.

Before I spoke with her, I was hesitant and worried. Was I overstepping my bounds? Was I exposing myself? Would she reject my thoughts? Would she reject me?

I entered the conversation awkwardly, apologizing, and offering too much context. Even once I broached the issue, I felt tentative, unclear. I cringed as I felt my words hang in the air.

Thankfully, though, Alba turned out to be a Sam-level receiver.

Alba listened without a trace of annoyance. She asked questions — not to defend herself or refute my thoughts — but to understand my perspective more clearly. She was gracious, skilled, and accepting.

Her ability to receive me, and my opinions, led to a deep and valuable conversation about her performance, my role, and the needs of her team. A few weeks later, she showed up powerfully and led a remarkable meeting.

Typically, we choose our leaders for their skill at conveying messages clearly and powerfully. But, in my experience, it’s their ability to receive messages that distinguishes the best leaders from the rest.

That’s because the better you are at receiving, the more likely people will talk to you. And that’s precisely what every one of us needs: to be surrounded by people who are willing to speak the unspoken.

So how do you become a great receiver?

1. Be courageous. We often attribute courage to the speaker, but what about the receiver? 
I may have been scared broaching topics with Alba, but I had the advantage of time and preparation. I could control what I said and how I said it. I was able to think about it beforehand, write down a few notes, and test my thoughts with someone else. 
The receiver has no such advantage. Like Sam, he has to receive my throw, however, whenever, and wherever it lands. He has to be willing to listen to something that might make him feel afraid or insecure or defensive. And if he is a great receiver, he will take in the information or message thoughtfully, even if the delivery is awkward or the message jarring. That takes tremendous courage.


2. Don’t judge. Receiving is as much about what you don’t do as it is about what you do. 

Resist the temptation — blatantly or subtly — to be critical of the speaker or what the speaker is saying. Don’t argue with her, poke fun at her, shame her, act aggressively, turn on her, become defensive, or act cold toward her.


3. Be open. In order to receive a pass in any sport — and at work and in life — you need to be free, open, and unguarded. 
Yet we often guard ourselves. Powerful feelings like fear, anger, sadness, and insecurity do their best to block our ability to receive a pass. If you want to be a talented receiver, your task is to feel your feelings without letting them block or control you or your response. Breathe. Acknowledge what you’re feeling to yourself — maybe even to the other person — without dwelling on it. 

Reiterate what you’re hearing, ask questions, be curious. Not curious in an “I-will-find-out-enough-information-so-I-can-prove-you-wrong” way. Curious to understand what the person is saying and to understand what’s underneath what they’re saying.

If you can be courageous, avoid judging, and stay open — even if the toss is awkward and the message unsettling — then, like Sam, like Alba, you’ll be able to catch pretty much anything.

And when you’re skilled at that, you’ll be a most valuable player of any team you’re on.

Peter Bregman

Peter Bregman helps CEOs and their leadership teams tackle their most important priorities together. His next Leadership Week is in October, 2014. His latest book is 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done.

The biggest communication problem

Best Advice: Shut Up and Listen

When I first started out my career as a salesperson for Radio Disney at the age of 22, I was young and foolish (well, even younger and more foolish than I am today). I thought I had a great product to sell and that people would love to listen to me talk about it. I thought I could be charming and persuasive and convince decision-makers why it made sense to use my product to solve their marketing problems. I thought I could talk my way into anything. 

 ,

I thought wrong.

Several weeks into my job, I was failing miserably, despite what I considered to be loads of charm and ability to persuade. My mentor, the Regional Sales Manager for Radio Disney at the time, Peggy Iafrate, said to me, “How well are you listening to what your prospects have to say? How many questions are you asking them to better understand them? How are you showing them that you care about them more than you care about selling them?”

"Dave," she said, "Remember this one thing: Shut up and listen." 

I hadn’t been doing a very good job of listening. In fact, by my very nature, I’m a type-A personality, full of thoughts, running a mile a minute, an impatient New Yorker who always has something to say and rarely slows down. So, it took some real dedication and practice to listen to what Peggy told me about listening and heed her advice. 

I began asking my prospects more questions. Listening to their problems, listening to their

 

interests, listening to their every word became my obsession. I thought very little about how to sell them on advertising with Radio Disney and instead focused on listening attentively to everything they had to say so that I could better understand them as people and better understand their organizational needs and challenges. Once I understood them, I could do a much better job of delivering what they wanted and needed, both in the product I was selling and in the way I sold it. 

Things quickly started to fall into place once I started listening. Within six months, I was the number-one local salesperson in the country, and a year later, Peggy awarded me the “Mickey Award” for sales success. All for shutting up and listening.

Salespeople, leaders, entrepreneurs and business people are full of ideas. Many of you have ideas all day long every day about how to make the world a better place, make money, solve problems and lots more. But the very nature of active listening requires us to put aside our ideas completely, if only for a moment, in order to focus on what someone else has to say.

As difficult as that can be, it’s through listening to customers, prospective customers, colleagues, employees and others that we can better understand what their needs and motivations are, and ultimately make our ideas better and more executable. It’s leaders like you who need to learn to listen better, even more so than the world’s followers.

J.P. McEvoy said, "When you talk, you are repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new." 

So, as Peggy said to me years ago, please, for your own good and the good of the world, shut up and listen. 

Dave KerpenInfluencer

CEO, Likeable Local, NY Times Best-Selling Author & Keynote Speaker

Make yourself a “to become” list

By Mary Jo Asmus

inShare

 

Leaders need to constantly develop themselves as human beings. There is so much external change for them to adapt to that the need to be intentional about personal development is essential. The best leaders I know are staying current and agile through change by developing themselves. 

 

A checklist of “to dos” is fine, but it isn’t enough anymore. Your ability to respond to change and sustain your leadership over time requires you to persistently “become” a better leader through improving the behaviors that allow you to lead at your best.
So what you really need is a list of “to becomes.” Consider the aspects of your leadership you need to ramp up to become the best you can be. For the record, I’m not advocating that you change who you are. I’m suggesting that you keep yourself whole and genuine while changing your behavior to become more effective.

Your behavior affects those around you. How you conduct yourself is essential to influencing, managing change, fostering teamwork, and developing others.

So as you conceive your leadership development plan, think in terms of the behaviors you need to take on or change.

For starters: some examples of things you might need to become:

Become a better listener: Most leaders have room to get better at listening. It’s a powerful skill that, when exercised, is capable of being the foundation for influencing others, delegating effectively, increasing empathy and leading change to name a few. As you consider that big global project that you need to start (the “to do”), think about the impact that listening better (the “to become”) can have on the project’s success. How might better listening help you to assure that success?

Become more inclusive: When you think about your stakeholders in wider terms and begin to include them in the work you do (through participation or simply by getting their opinions or feedback) you’ll find that their input makes your job easier. You might be feeling like you’re pushing a boulder uphill right now, but assuring the inclusion of important stakeholders can make the boulder smaller and the terrain flatter. Who can help you?

Become curious: If you’ve been doing your work awhile with a history of success, you are in danger of getting stuck in “your way” of doing things. Yet the external environment is changing, and there is a demand for your organization to become more efficient, more creative or to work faster. Being genuinely curious can open you to new ideas. Before you reject that new idea, ask yourself: What is it about this that is intriguing? How might it work for us?

Become more approachable: Leadership is about influencing others. If you’re not making an effort to create the relationships necessary to influence others in order to achieve organizational goals, you’re not leading. Who do you need to connect with? What relationships, when fostered, will be beneficial to your mission (while being gratifying by themselves)?

Become more caring: Effective leaders truly care about others. They are kind, respectful, compassionate and empathetic. They see others not as a means to an end but as human beings who want to be valued for who they are first and what they can do for the organization second. What’s the first step you can take to become a more caring leader?

Every leader has something they need to work on to “up their game,” and when they achieve that developmental goal, the next one is waiting close behind it. What do you need to become?

Mary Jo Asmus is an executive coach and a recovering corporate executive who has spent the past 10 years as president of Aspire Collaborative Services, an executive-coaching firm that manages large-scale corporate-coaching initiatives and coaches leaders to prepare them for bigger and better things.

Employee Engagement: Improving a Damaged Process

One company I worked for made flexible pouches for the medical device, food and military markets.

 

I'd just recently joined and was following my first order through the plant, so I was still getting to know the people in the production department as well as the processes they used to make our products.

 

When I came around to the line where my customer's product was being made, I noticed nearly all the operators had bandaids on their thumbs.  So I asked one of them why so many people were wearing bandaids.

 

This particular customer's product was formed and then diecut to shape in a second operation. To ensure the printing on the pouch was in register to the seals and the overall shape of the pouch, we used what is called a pin registration system. This means that, when the pouch is formed, a series of holes are simultaneously punched around the perimeter of the pouch. When the pouch is diecut, it is placed on a board with a steel ruled die and the holes punched in the pouch fit onto pins mounted in the die board to ensure the pouch is cut consistently and with print in register with the seals and the overall shape.

 

In this case, the operator explained they were puncturing their thumbs as they struggled to stretch the pouch over the die board to align pins with holes in the pouch. The pins being used were actually nails which, of course, had sharp points.  Moreover, the nails were aluminum roofing nails and were so soft the operators were constantly trying to straighten them out - the tension of the stretched pouch was causing the roofing nails to bend.

 

This particular product was new to me, but had been run before in our plant and the operator told me this was how the company had been doing this operation "for years."

 

I liked the ingenuity of using nails for registration pins, however, the type of nail being used was so soft they would only be truly in register the first time they were used.  As more pouches were cut, the nails became more and more distorted.

 

I went to the production manager and suggested they modify the design of the die to use steel nails, which were much stiffer and more resilient.  I explained the operators were getting injured from using the original die design and the aluminum nails were not helping us produce a consistent product.

 

The next day, I found the diecutting operation going a bit quicker, and the die boards now had steel nails instead of aluminum.  I asked the operators what they thought.  They told me the new "pins" lasted much longer and they didn't have to keep trying to bend the pins straight.  However, the pins were still nails and they still had sharp points.  People weren't getting hurt so easily, but they were still getting hurt.

 

Now I spoke with our plant engineer about the issue in our diecutting department.  Like me, he thought using nails as pins was resourceful, but still a long way from being a best-in-class die design.  He modified the pin system to incorporate spring-loaded steel pins with rounded tops.

 

When we introduced these to the diecutting department, the feedback from the operators was very positive and productivity improved.

 

I think the operators in this plant appreciated having someone come out to see how they were struggling with a poorly designed process.  Even though our first modification - from aluminum to steel nails - wasn't a complete success, it showed the operators someone was listening to them.  We reinforced that by getting more input from the operators, which led to our plant engineer's solution.

 

Another thing I found was that, when I went out into the production floor, the operators seemed much more helpful and friendly.  People opened up.  We talked about families, pets, hobbies - and about the processes we used to make our products.  One operator gave me a complete tour of her department - just because I asked "why do you do things this.....?"

 

Let there be no doubt about it, the people in the diecutting department knew they had a faulty process.  But management either wasn't listening or was just too cheap to do things the right way.  The employees were afraid to ask for improvements.  It just took someone from the front office going out to ask how things were going to get the feedback and drive some action to remedy the issue. 

 

Posted by Ronald Jamieson 

16 Common Mistakes Young Startups Make

Are you working on a startup? If so, I hate to break it to you, but there's a good chance it will fail. In fact, recent research shows that 75% of startups fail (based on a study of 2,000 startups that received VC funding from 2004 to 2010). Odds are, you won't be a Brin, a Zuckerberg, a Systrom, a Karp or a Fake.

But hard as it may be, don't let that statistic discourage you. Some startups are destined for failure. Perhaps the team is working on a product that really isn't that great or useful. Maybe they're trying to tackle too many problems at once. Or maybe the co-founders have a poisonous relationship that will hinder the company's growth. Maybe they never thought about product-market fit. Whatever your company's "fatal flaw" may be, you can likely avoid it in your own venture if you take some advice from people who've gone through the early startup phase before. Lucky for you, time-strapped entrepreneur, we've gathered some tips from the pros to help you avoid some of the most common, game-ending mistakes committed by young startups. Check out the tips below from founders, CEOs and investors alike.

1. Forgoing Simplicity
"Building a product is like packing a suitcase: Plan out what you think you need. Then remove half." — Jonathan Wegener, Founder, Timehop and ExitStrategy

"Young founders tend to complicate things too much, from structuring partnership agreements, financing, leases, etc. This is not a place to be creative; keep it simple, follow the norms and be transparent so everyone is on the same page." — Jay Levy, Co-Founder, Zelkova Ventures and Uproot Wines 

2. Waiting Too Long to Launch

"The biggest mistake I see is companies waiting too long to release the product. It's easy to let the scope of what you're building get out of hand. But equally importantly most startups build much more than they truly need to, but this is often only realized in hindsight. Whether your product is working or not, looking back it's easy to see that you only really needed to build a small fraction of the stuff you built. Most features/options/buttons/settings/etc. simply aren't crucial to success or failure, and for an early stage startup that means they were wastes of time — you could have done 10x more with that same amount of time and resources." — Jonathan Wegener, Founder, Timehop and ExitStrategy

"Don't underestimate the importance of Minimum Viable Design. Your first product will likely be just a little bit ugly, and that's okay — it's part of getting to market quickly and testing your idea in front of live customers. But don't underestimate the importance of achieving a basic threshold of "this looks good (and reputable)." In my first company, people liked our product but were embarrassed to share it because the design and presentation was so poor. When we launched The Muse, the result was the opposite — nearly 25% of the people who visited our site shared it with someone else via social media!" — Kathryn Minshew, Founder/CEO, The Muse 

3. Hiring Poorly
"Make sure that new hires understand your rate of innovation. You are small and agile, which means you have a high rate of innovation and growth, and with that comes work! Often times, that work eventually goes beyond your job description. At a small company, employees need to wear many hats, and they need to be prepared to wear many hats. If you don't manage this expectation upon hiring, you will be managing employee issues six months down the line. Those issues will eat into your time, and time is money for a new CEO." — Kellee Khalil, Founder/CEO, Lover.ly

"Someone told me recently, 'Any time I'm talking to someone who doesn't work for me already, I'm evaluating if I should try and hire them.' Whether that's someone you want to hire tomorrow or someone you'd like to work with in five years depends on your company, but every entrepreneur should always be recruiting." — Ally Downey, Co-Founder, WeeSpring

"Some entrepreneurs think it’s a luxury to have accounting, finance, or other support functions, but it’s important not to be afraid of spending resources early on for administrative efficiency. If you don't have someone to do that for you, you'll end up spending all your time on things that aren't critical to growing your company." — Matt Salzberg, Founder and CEO, Blue Apron 

4. Not Embracing Agility
"If you sat down and wrote out a pros and cons list comparing your startup to your corporate competitors, you'd probably find the big gorilla's list of advantages more than daunting. But on your side of that chart should be words like 'nimble,' 'flexible,' 'speedy,' and 'free flowing.' Many entrepreneurs seem to approach their startup like they would a quest to win the Super Bowl, with very defined steps leading to a pre-conceived single, solitary end goal. This doesn't really work for a startup. While it's vital to have goals and a clear vision, to survive and thrive you'll have to keep an open mind and stay agile enough to follow the path where it leads." — Jeff Jackel, CEO, BuzzMob 

5. Guarding The "Big Idea"

 

 

"How many entrepreneurs' opening words are about how 'stealth' their project is, followed by a 10-page NDA to hear word one? I was totally guilty of this back in the day. For young entrepreneurs, especially non-technical founders like myself, it feels like our 'big idea' is all we have, and we want to guard it like a defenseless baby. We also want to believe that no one else out there in the world has thought of our little gem, and if they were to catch wind, everyone will pounce! Ha! First, whatever your idea is, rest assured it's been thought of before. Secondly, an idea is by no means a business ... it's everything that comes next that makes a business happen.

Execution. And no one else will execute the way you do. Third, you're going to need help and guidance from people who know more and have been there before, so you better get comfortable sharing your 'big idea.'" — Jeff Jackel, CEO, BuzzMob 

6. Losing Focus
“I think many startups have difficulty finding a focus. As an entrepreneur, there's a lot going on. You have countless decisions to make, and you have to keep moving quickly. Settling on a clear focus — your product, your audience, your strategy — is critical from day one. Of course, as you move forward, you must be willing to adapt. But remember to hold tight to that big idea as you go.” — Alexa von Tobel, Founder & CEO, LearnVest

"One thing I have learned building Grand St. is the value of intense focus. Trying to complete only a few things each week means doing an excellent job on all of them, whereas trying to do the 27 things I want to do usually results in mediocre or incomplete work. The same goes for the product itself — there's a laundry list of features we want to add, but keeping the experience simple and uncluttered makes us really focus on what our users really want." — Amanda Peyton, Co-Founder, Grand St.

"Founders of a young company will come up with hundreds of new ideas every day (I know my co-founders and I do). While most of these ideas are sure to be good ones, we’ve learned that we need to be thoughtful and selective about which to move forward with in order not to overwhelm ourselves and our employees. We all have limited time and resources, which is why we need to focus and prioritize." — Matt Salzberg, Founder and CEO, Blue Apron

"At times we have sat on ideas for months, before testing them and finding out that they are runaway successes. At other times, we have exhausted ourselves trying out 100 different things, when none of them work. I watched a great video with Barbara Corcoran, called "How to get more customers, step 1." What she describes is that many businesses, when they are looking for more customers, will try 100 different things, when they already have one thing that is working. As she puts it, this strategy leads to very few new customers and lots of exhaustion. She recommends that instead, founders look at what has been working and double or triple their efforts there." — Adda Birnir, Co-Founder, Skillcrush 

7. Assuming Virality
"A lot of new founders think, 'If I build it, they will come.' I have news for you: They're not coming and you're not going to 'go viral.' Services don't spontaneously go viral. High virality is almost always the product of early and deliberate product design decisions. Spend some serious time thinking about how and why people are going to discover and share what you're building." — Jeremy Fisher, CEO, Days and Wander 

8. Obsessing Over Funding

 

 

"I think a lot of young startups assume that fundraising is not only a necessary component of running a business but an important marker of success. We spent six months fundraising only to walk away once we had a term sheet in hand because we realized we were making enough money to sustain and grow the business on our own terms. Ultimately that felt like a much bigger marker of success than closing a round. If your business makes money, you may well be better off not fundraising, and in doing so, retain control and ownership of your business. And if your business doesn't make money (or have a solid plan as to how it will), then perhaps there are some bigger issues to tackle before you start pitching investors." — Claire Mazur, Co-Founder, Of a Kind

"Many young entrepreneurs think that raising VC money is a measure of success. There is a lot of money chasing bad ideas. The only thing that matters is building a viable, growing and profitable business." — Brian Garrett, Co-Founder, StyleSaint and Venture Capitalist 

9. Chasing Investors Instead of Befriending Investees
"A common mistake startups make in trying to meet investors is, counterintuitively, focusing too much on networking with actual investors. The best way to get a meeting with a VC is not by incessantly pursuing him or her, but rather by getting an intro from a founder that the VC has already invested in. Befriend funded entrepreneurs. Every VC will tell you that they will take meetings with 100% of the companies that their existing portfolio founders recommend. Don't spend all your energy emailing and LinkedIn-ing VCs; instead, get to know founders who have been funded and win them over because their stamp of approval is one of the most valuable data points for an investor." — Sam Teller, Managing Director, Launchpad LA 

10. Dwelling on Things
"A lot of new founders tend to over-optimize every single decision, which makes it difficult to actually move forward with anything. One of the most important lessons my co-founders and I have learned is that sometimes the best course of action is to make a call and just move forward. As a young company, nothing is ever perfect, but if you believe in an idea or strategy, you just need to move forward and manage the logistics and risks as you go." — Matt Salzberg, Founder and CEO, Blue Apron 

11. Getting Distracted By Feedback
"A startup is not a newly democratic nation state: Not every decision needs to be made by the collective. While we love getting ideas from our team and have seen some stellar product development and user experience decisions generate from brainstorming and having an open office environment, we try not to let everything come to a vote. We hire smart and capable people to come up with an idea and execute it: Not to have to balance the opinions and feedback of everyone, all the time." — Elizabeth Scherle, President & Co-Founder, Influenster

 "You will have a ton of people constantly sharing their feedback and opinions of your business with you. It's easy to get wrapped up in it and want to tweak things immediately. Keep in mind that people will give you feedback based off of their market knowledge and domain experience — it is your job to apply that knowledge to your company without losing sight of your vision." — Allison Beal, Co-Founder & CEO, StyleSaint 

12. Not Having the Right Co-Founder
"Starting a business is a lot like falling in love. At first, we tend to see the business and our partners at their best, full of promise, and can't conceive that they will ever be anything but their best. But as in any relationship, eventually their flaws and their failings are clearly exposed. What I have learned is that we need to do a thorough SWOT analysis not only on the market opportunity, but also on our partners. Some faults we can accommodate, but sometimes our partners' weaknesses in combination with our own constitute a deadly cocktail. A key aspect of our personal due diligence is then is assessing our partners, particularly learning how they react under stress." — Whitney Johnson, Co-Founder, Rose Park Advisors

"Your early partners, co-founders, investors and hires are crucial to get right. While the ideal partner balances you or brings skills to the table you don't have, the most important thing to look for is alignment of values. Do you fundamentally want similar things out of this endeavor? Are you willing to take more or less the same amount of risk? Are you comfortable with your prospective partner's ethics and moral decision-making? I've seen the last one in particular cause a lot of heartbreak in early-stage companies." — Kathryn Minshew, Founder/CEO, The Muse 

13. Trying to Win Over Everyone
"Among the biggest mistakes I made when fundraising early on was trying to turn every nonbeliever into a diehard fan, working to convince everyone who pushed back that they were wrong about Greatist and about the space. What I quickly learned was that it was more productive to find the investors who already believed, who were already my fans, and capitalize on the potential for them to become my biggest champions. I think a lot of new entrepreneurs face situations like this, and the quicker that realization comes, the easier the fundraising process can be." — Derek Flanzraich, Founder & CEO, Greatist 

14. Not Listening to Current (or Future) Customers

 

 

"Every time I sit down with a customer, I learn something. And usually, it's something that has a serious revenue-generating impact on my company. In Running Lean, Ash Maurya says that you know when you have spoken to enough customers when you can start to predict what they will say. I have done dozens of interviews with customers, and it's incredible. There are certain phrases that everyone uses. That stuff is business gold (or platinum). Every time we have been unsure about a product or direction and we have taken the time to talk to users, we have always walked away with the insight we needed to move forward. But keeping up that practice up is hard! Sometimes it feels so much easier just to sit at your desk, banging your head against a wall, trying to figure things out on your own." — Adda Birnir, Co-Founder, Skillcrush

"One of the common mistakes young startups make is developing a product without enough input. As much as you're executing on your vision and keeping things under wraps until launch, engaging potential customers early — even when it's just a twinkle in the eye—- can help put you on the right path. It also helps validate the demand for your product. Others can help provide feedback on your differentiation or competition. The fact of the matter is, as a startup, you're extremely strapped for time and resources. So, it's that much more important to try to get close to the target around product-market fit and iterate from there. At Kiwi Crate, we spent quite a bit of time working with parents and kids to develop our product. Even today, we have kids come into our offices at least once a week to help test what we're doing. It's been invaluable for us." — Sandra Oh Lin, Founder/CEO, Kiwi Crate

"Young startups can fall so deeply in love with their idea, they aren't open to tweeks in the business. If you never get product-market fit, you'll never really have a company (or you'll struggle the whole time)." — Nicole Glaros, Managing Director, Techstars 

15. Jumping to Decisions
"Don't hire someone till you have interviewed at least ten people for that position. Don't fall in love with anything, and stay objective. Get to know potential co-founders quite well before bringing them on to the team. In all the times I've seen companies fall apart due to co-founder issues, it was in young founders who didn't clearly specify roles and expectations and really didn't get to know each other." — Jay Levy, Co-Founder, Zelkova Ventures and Uproot Wines 

16. Not Maintaining Relationships
"Be consistent in your outreach with mentors and other key connectors in your network. Set a schedule for yourself and stick with it, whether it's weekly for your inner circle, quarterly for acquaintances, or somewhere in between. Every time you consider putting off one of those updates, think about the headache of starting off an email with, 'It's been too long since we've caught up!' and the effort it takes to re-build that relationship." — Ally Downey, Co-Founder, WeeSpring

By Lauren Drell

Leadership Principle: People Do What People See

What do your people see in you?

Two men, down on their luck, sit on a park bench in shabby clothes watching businesspeople in crisp suits rushing to their offices. The first man says, “The reason I’m here is because I refused to listen to anybody.”

“That so?” replies the second fella. “I’m here because I listened to everybody.” 

Both practices are recipes for disaster. Successful people don’t take the advice of everyone, nor do they try to do everything on their own. Instead, they find successful models who exemplify the values, skills and qualities they desire to possess. 

If you’re a leader, I hope you have already found models to follow, but that’s not what I want to discuss. I want to ask you this simple question: Are you worthy of followers?

One of the most important leadership principles I’ve discovered is this: People do what people see. When your team looks at you, when they watch what you do day in and day out, what do they see? If they were to emulate you, how would you rate them?

I base my leadership primarily on my values and a pragmatic approach. I do what I know works. But I’m also very conscious of the fact that others are watching me and following my lead.

What I do, they will do. How I work, they will work. What I value, they will value. So I ask myself: What kinds of traits do I want to model? 

1. A Passion for Personal Growth 
I know too many people who suffer from what I call “Destination Disease.” They’ve identified a certain career position or financial goal they want to reach, and then they work very hard to achieve that goal. But once they get there, they stop working hard and growing.

This mindset creates two problems for leaders. First, it causes them to stall. You’ll stop improving the moment you lose the tension between where you are and where you have the potential to be. Second, it sets a bad example for their followers. Think about it: How many people in your current circle didn’t see your former self, the one who fought hard to achieve? If you’re resting on your laurels, they’ll assume you are doing what you’ve always done and follow suit.

If you feel yourself slowing down, it’s time for a self-assessment. If you’re done working, retire and get out of the way of your business. But if you stay, you must keep striving. If you slacken, your people will do the same—Destination Disease is highly contagious. To keep it from taking hold, set new, higher goals for yourself and make sure your people see you pursuing them. It’s a surefire way to keep your organization humming. 

2. A Heart for People
If you’ve ever seen me in person, you know I don’t blitz through a crowd. Instead, I stroll across a room, shaking hands, saying hello, offering smiles. It’s my way of showing that I care.

I’m a busy guy, but these moments are worth the pause. People want to know that the leaders they follow can be trusted. They want to know that the leader cares about them as people, not just as tools to help realize a vision.

Taking this extra time also forces me to stop and listen. How can you add value to people if you don’t know them and understand what they want? So slow down. Talk. Listen. Connect. This practice will not only help you grow as a leader, it will also establish a caring culture across all levels of your organization. 

3. An Ability to Coach Others to Reach Their Potential
“The only difference between a rich person and a poor person,” says Rich Dad Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki, “is how they use their time.”

Boy—is that statement ever true of successful people! This is one principle I really try to model for my team. You won’t catch me idling. You will see me trying to wring the most out of every day.
Here’s a good place to segue into another way I like to cultivate leaders: by mentoring them. You can model all sorts of valuable traits, but sometimes people need hands-on help, too.

One of the best things I did for a member of my leadership team years ago was to meet with her every few months to talk about her priorities. She was a good leader and got a lot done, but she sometimes lost sight of the big picture. Our regular meetings helped her to stay on track.

If you can learn to coach people, you’ll help them, your organization and yourself. By coaching, I don’t just mean giving people the skills to do a job. That’s training, which does have value. But coaching—that long-term, guiding relationship—is even more impactful. According to the International Personnel Management Association, training increases productivity by 22 percent, while a combination of training and coaching increases it by 88 to 400 percent!

This is a message I practice as much as I preach. Early in my career I offered experienced leaders $100 for 30 minutes of their time, just so I could ask questions of them. That would work out to around $1,000 in today’s dollars. I really couldn’t afford it back then, but it was the best way to learn. Even today, I look for guidance from other leaders I admire.

“You will never maximize your potential in any area without coaching,” my friend Andy Stanley writes in his book Next Generation Leader . “You may be good. You may even be better than everyone else. But without outside input you will never be as good as you could be.

Self-evaluation is helpful, but evaluation from someone else is essential.”

So mentor your people. Show them how you seek guidance on your own endless quest for self-improvement. And remember these words by Andrew Carnegie: “As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.”

Are you doing what you want your team to do?