When
emotional intelligence (EQ) first appeared to the masses, it served as
the missing link in a peculiar finding: people with average IQs
outperform those with the highest IQs 70% of the time. This anomaly
threw a massive wrench into the broadly held assumption that IQ was the
sole source of success.
Decades of research now point to emotional
intelligence as being the critical factor that sets star performers
apart from the rest of the pack. The connection is so strong that 90% of
top performers have high emotional intelligence.
Emotional
intelligence is the “something” in each of us that is a bit intangible.
It affects how we manage behavior, navigate social complexities, and
make personal decisions to achieve positive results.
Despite the
significance of EQ, its intangible nature makes it very difficult to
know how much you have and what you can do to improve if you’re lacking.
You can always take a scientifically validated test, such as the one
that comes with the Emotional Intelligence 2.0 book.
Unfortunately,
quality (scientifically valid) EQ tests aren’t free. So, I’ve analyzed
the data from the million-plus people TalentSmart has tested in order to
identify the behaviors that are the hallmarks of a high EQ. What
follows are sure signs that you have a high EQ.
You Have a Robust Emotional Vocabulary
All
people experience emotions, but it is a select few who can accurately
identify them as they occur. Our research shows that only 36% of people
can do this, which is problematic because unlabeled emotions often go
misunderstood, which leads to irrational choices and counterproductive
actions.
People with high EQs master their emotions because they
understand them, and they use an extensive vocabulary of feelings to do
so. While many people might describe themselves as simply feeling “bad,”
emotionally intelligent people can pinpoint whether they feel
“irritable,” “frustrated,” “downtrodden,” or “anxious.” The more
specific your word choice, the better insight you have into exactly how
you are feeling, what caused it, and what you should do about it.
You’re Curious about People
It
doesn’t matter if they’re introverted or extroverted, emotionally
intelligent people are curious about everyone around them. This
curiosity is the product of empathy, one of the most significant
gateways to a high EQ. The more you care about other people and what
they’re going through, the more curiosity you’re going to have about
them.
You Embrace Change
Emotionally
intelligent people are flexible and are constantly adapting. They know
that fear of change is paralyzing and a major threat to their success
and happiness. They look for change that is lurking just around the
corner, and they form a plan of action should these changes occur.
You Know Your Strengths and Weaknesses
Emotionally
intelligent people don’t just understand emotions; they know what
they’re good at and what they’re terrible at. They also know who pushes
their buttons and the environments (both situations and people) that
enable them to succeed. Having a high EQ means you know your strengths
and you know how to lean into them and use them to your full advantage
while keeping your weaknesses from holding you back.
You’re a Good Judge of Character
Much
of emotional intelligence comes down to social awareness¾the
ability to read other people, know what they’re about, and understand
what they are going through. Over time, this skill makes you an
exceptional judge of character. People are no mystery to you. You know
what they’re all about and understand their motivations, even those that
lie hidden beneath the surface.
You Are Difficult to Offend
If
you have a firm grasp of whom you are, it’s difficult for someone to
say or do something that gets your goat. Emotionally intelligent people
are self-confident and open-minded, which creates a pretty thick skin.
You may even poke fun at yourself or let other people make jokes about
you because you are able to mentally draw the line between humor and
degradation.
You Know How to Say No (to Yourself and Others)
Emotional
intelligence means knowing how to exert self-control. You delay
gratification, and you avoid impulsive action. Research conducted at the
University of California, San Francisco, shows that the more difficulty
that you have saying no, the more likely you are to experience stress,
burnout, and even depression. Saying no is indeed a major self-control
challenge for many people. “No” is a powerful word that you should not
be afraid to wield. When it’s time to say no, emotionally intelligent
people avoid phrases such as “I don’t think I can” or “I’m not certain.”
Saying no to a new commitment honors your existing commitments and
gives you the opportunity to successfully fulfill them.
You Let Go of Mistakes
Emotionally
intelligent people distance themselves from their mistakes, but do so
without forgetting them. By keeping their mistakes at a safe distance,
yet still handy enough to refer to, they are able to adapt and adjust
for future success. It takes refined self-awareness to walk this
tightrope between dwelling and remembering. Dwelling too long on your
mistakes makes you anxious and gun shy, while forgetting about them
completely makes you bound to repeat them. The key to balance lies in
your ability to transform failures into nuggets of improvement. This
creates the tendency to get right back up every time you fall down.
You Give and Expect Nothing in Return
When
someone gives you something spontaneously, without expecting anything
in return, this leaves a powerful impression. For example, you might
have an interesting conversation with someone about a book, and when you
see them again a month later, you show up with the book in hand.
Emotionally intelligent people build strong relationships because they
are constantly thinking about others.
You Don’t Hold Grudges
The
negative emotions that come with holding onto a grudge are actually a
stress response. Just thinking about the event sends your body into
fight-or-flight mode, a survival mechanism that forces you to stand up
and fight or run for the hills when faced with a threat. When the threat
is imminent, this reaction is essential to your survival, but when the
threat is ancient history, holding onto that stress wreaks havoc on your
body and can have devastating health consequences over time. In fact,
researchers at Emory University have shown that holding onto stress
contributes to high blood pressure and heart disease.
Holding onto a
grudge means you’re holding onto stress, and emotionally intelligent
people know to avoid this at all costs. Letting go of a grudge not only
makes you feel better now but can also improve your health.
You Neutralize Toxic People
Dealing
with difficult people is frustrating and exhausting for most. High EQ
individuals control their interactions with toxic people by keeping
their feelings in check. When they need to confront a toxic person, they
approach the situation rationally. They identify their own emotions and
don’t allow anger or frustration to fuel the chaos. They also consider
the difficult person’s standpoint and are able to find solutions and
common ground. Even when things completely derail, emotionally
intelligent people are able to take the toxic person with a grain of
salt to avoid letting him or her bring them down.
You Don’t Seek Perfection
Emotionally
intelligent people won’t set perfection as their target because they
know that it doesn’t exist. Human beings, by our very nature, are
fallible. When perfection is your goal, you’re always left with a
nagging sense of failure that makes you want to give up or reduce your
effort. You end up spending your time lamenting what you failed to
accomplish and what you should have done differently instead of moving
forward, excited about what you've achieved and what you will accomplish
in the future.
You Appreciate What You Have
Taking
time to contemplate what you’re grateful for isn’t merely the right
thing to do; it also improves your mood because it reduces the stress
hormone cortisol by 23%. Research conducted at the University of
California, Davis, found that people who worked daily to cultivate an
attitude of gratitude experienced improved mood, energy, and physical
well-being. It’s likely that lower levels of cortisol played a major
role in this.
You Disconnect
Taking regular
time off the grid is a sign of a high EQ because it helps you to keep
your stress under control and to live in the moment. When you make
yourself available to your work 24/7, you expose yourself to a constant
barrage of stressors. Forcing yourself offline and even—gulp!—turning
off your phone gives your body and mind a break. Studies have shown that
something as simple as an e-mail break can lower stress levels.
Technology enables constant communication and the expectation that you
should be available 24/7. It is extremely difficult to enjoy a
stress-free moment outside of work when an e-mail that will change your
train of thought and get you thinking (read: stressing) about work can
drop onto your phone at any moment.
You Limit Your Caffeine Intake
Drinking
caffeine triggers the release of adrenaline, and adrenaline is the
source of the fight-or-flight response. The fight-or-flight mechanism
sidesteps rational thinking in favor of a faster response to ensure
survival. This is great when a bear is chasing you, but not so great
when you’re responding to a curt e-mail. When caffeine puts your brain
and body into this hyper-aroused state of stress, your emotions overrun
your behavior. Caffeine’s long half-life ensures you stay this way as it
takes its sweet time working its way out of your body. High-EQ
individuals know that caffeine is trouble, and they don’t let it get the
better of them.
You Get Enough Sleep
It’s
difficult to overstate the importance of sleep to increasing your
emotional intelligence and managing your stress levels. When you sleep,
your brain literally recharges, shuffling through the day’s memories and
storing or discarding them (which causes dreams) so that you wake up
alert and clearheaded. High-EQ individuals know that their self-control,
attention, and memory are all reduced when they don’t get enough—or the
right kind—of sleep. So, they make sleep a top priority.
You Stop Negative Self-Talk in Its Tracks
The
more you ruminate on negative thoughts, the more power you give them.
Most of our negative thoughts are just that—thoughts, not facts. When it
feels like something always or never happens, this is just your brain’s
natural tendency to perceive threats (inflating the frequency or
severity of an event). Emotionally intelligent people separate their
thoughts from the facts in order to escape the cycle of negativity and
move toward a positive, new outlook.
You Won’t Let Anyone Limit Your Joy
When
your sense of pleasure and satisfaction are derived from the opinions
of other people, you are no longer the master of your own happiness.
When emotionally intelligent people feel good about something that
they’ve done, they won’t let anyone’s opinions or snide remarks take
that away from them. While it’s impossible to turn off your reactions to
what others think of you, you don’t have to compare yourself to others,
and you can always take people’s opinions with a grain of salt. That
way, no matter what other people are thinking or doing, your self-worth
comes from within.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
is the award-winning co-author of the #1 bestselling book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, and the cofounder of TalentSmart, the world's leading provider of emotional intelligence tests and training,
serving more than 75% of Fortune 500 companies. His bestselling books
have been translated into 25 languages and are available in more than
150 countries. Dr. Bradberry has written for, or been covered by, Newsweek, BusinessWeek, Fortune, Forbes, Fast Company, Inc., USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The Harvard Business Review.
As a business leader, I found that one of the scariest things
to do was to give your people the freedom to make mistakes. While
mistakes allow individuals to learn and grow, they can also be very
costly to any company. Scared as I was, I knew that truly great leaders
found ways to allow their people to take these risks, and I genuinely
wanted to be a great leader. I wanted to help my employees to grow. So I
set out to discover how to accomplish this without placing my company
in jeopardy.
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” - Meg Cabot
I quickly discovered that the first step was to determine the areas
of the business where a mistake could take place without causing too
much damage. I took careful attention to make sure that any areas where
we would damage our clients and the trust they had placed in us were off
limits for significant risk without serious executive involvement and
oversight. I identified other areas where I could feel more comfortable
allowing people the freedom to experiment on new and better ways of
doing things.
The second step was to communicate to the employees that we were
setting an official company policy: Making any mistake once was OK, so
long as it was an honest mistake made while attempting to do what they
felt was the right thing. Making any mistake once was OK, but repeating
that same mistake a second time was NOT OK. The hard, fast rule was that
if you made any mistake for the first time the entire team would have
your back in fixing that mistake if anything went wrong. However, if you
ever repeated the mistake a second time, then you were 100 percent on
your own to face the consequences. This rule applied for every
first-time occurrence of each new mistake you made.
We all make mistakes. Every one of us. If we aren’t making mistakes, then we likely aren’t trying enough new things outside our comfort zone, and that itself is a mistake. That process is the best way to learn and grow as a person. As John Wooden once said, “If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything.” Mistakes
are the pathway to great ideas and innovation. Mistakes are the
stepping stones to moving outside the comfort zone to the growing zone
where new discoveries are made and great lessons are learned.
Mistakes
are not failures, they are simply the process of eliminating ways that
won’t work in order to come closer to the ways that will.
Great leaders allow their people the freedom to make mistakes. But
good employees are those who when mistakes are made 1. Learn from them,
2. Own them, 3. Fix them, and 4. Put safeguards in place to ensure the
same mistake will never be repeated again.
1. Learn from them: Good employees recognize that they have,
in fact, made an honest mistake. They do not get defensive about it,
rather they are willing to look objectively at their mistake, recognize
what they did wrong, and understand why their choice or actions were the
wrong thing to do.
2. Own them: Good employees take accountability for their
mistakes. They admit them readily. They don’t make excuses for their
mistake, rather they acknowledge that yes, they made a mistake and they
express openly what lesson they have learned from that mistake. They go
on to express steps 3 and 4 below.
3. Fix them: Good employees do what it takes to rectify their
wrongs. They are willing to do whatever they can to fix the problem and
make it right. Certainly there are times when the damage is done and
recompense cannot be made, but good employees do their very best to
repair whatever damage has been done to the best of their ability. They
always establish a timeline with follow up for when the problem will be
fixed and make sure that progress is communicated throughout the process
so everyone feels the urgency and care with which they are correcting
the problem.
4. Put safeguards in place to ensure the same mistake will never be repeated again: This is the most critical step in the learning process.
When a mistake has clearly been made, the most important thing anyone
can do is figure out what safety nets and roadblocks can be carefully
established to ensure that this same mistake will never take place
again. Document this step so the lessons learned and the safeguards
setup can always go beyond you. Do everything in your power to help
others learn from your mistake so they don’t have to experience them on
their own to gain the lesson you’ve learned.
The steps to correcting mistakes apply to any area of life. Whether
it’s business life or home life or personal life, the principles of
apologizing remain the same. Good employees make a lot of mistakes, and
truly great employees are those have mastered the art of apologizing for
those mistakes:
Great People Practice The Six A’s of a Proper Apology:
- Admit - I made a mistake.
- Apologize - I am sorry for making the mistake.
- Acknowledge - I recognize where I went wrong that caused my mistake to occur.
- Attest - I plan to do the following to fix the mistake on this specific timeline.
- Assure - I will put the following protections in place to ensure that I do not make the same mistake again.
- Abstain – Never repeat that same mistake twice.
People who implement the Six A’s will find that the level of trust
and respect others have for them will grow tenfold. People who implement
the Six A’s will find that others will be quicker to forgive them and
more likely to extend a second chance. It’s not the making of a mistake
that is generally the problem; it’s what you do with it afterward that
really counts.
By Jack and Suzy Welch
New
Year resolutions -- who keeps them? Practically no one. But if you're a
leader, be it of three people or 3,000, it's your flat-out
responsibility to not just go into work every day and improvise around
the latest crisis or email flurry or employee meltdown, but to go into
work every day with a cohesive plan of action about how you're going to
lead. Otherwise, why would anyone follow you, except that they simply
have to?
That's no good.
So here's to 2014, and 10 resolutions to make it a very good year -- for you, and for the team you lead.
1) Get In Their Skin
From the day you become a leader, your biggest role is to build trust,
respect and support from your team. A mutual respect. As long as they
deliver, you will support them and stand up for them in every way -- and
they know it. It's a never-ending job and you can never slip up.
2) Over-Communicate
It's your job to communicate your message, your values, what's right
about what's happening, and what's wrong -- over and over and over
again. There can be no lack of transparency. Everybody has to be on the
same page. Even when you're ready to gag over the message, you have to
keep communicating it.
3) Follow-Up Relentlessly
Just because you say something once, it doesn't mean it's going to
happen. Too often, managers think, "Hey, I told my team what to do."
Then they come back a week later and nothing has happened. Yes, your job
is to set the direction. But you also have to make it your mission to
follow up -- relentlessly -- to see that things are moving in the right
direction.
4) Create a Rallying Cry
I've always found that defining an enemy is very helpful. Define a
competitor that's coming after you. Rally the team around every win you
have against them, every new product you introduce that's better than
theirs. Make that competitor come alive as your true enemy and you'll
see your team galvanize around beating them and winning in the
marketplace.
5) Realize Personnel Actions Speak Louder Than Words
When you pick someone for a new job, you are defining what's important.
Managers love to give speeches about how their new initiative is the
most important thing in the world. But then they put whatever warm body
happens to be available in charge of it. Nothing could be worse. When
you make an personnel appointment, you're doing much more than any
speech you could ever give. The people in the organization already know
who the star performers are. And matching those stars with the projects
you claim are important is absolutely critical for your credibility and
the trust you want to build.
6) Embrace the Generosity Gene
I happen to believe that every good leader loves to give raises to
people. They are thrilled to see their employees grow and be promoted.
They are turned on by their success. Good leaders understand that they
are only as good as the reflected glory of their people -- and so they
give until it hurts.
7) Fight Bureaucracy
Remember how much you hated bureaucracy from the bosses above you when
they wanted this "i" dotted and this "t" crossed? Guess what? You're now
the leader. Don't let bureaucracy creep into your place. Just because
it's yours doesn't make it any prettier than when it was someone else's.
Get rid of clutter. Bureaucracy slows things down and speed is one of
the best competitive advantages you can have.
8) Find a Better Way
Recognize that in business, somebody out there is always doing
something better than you are. Your team can get insular and come to
believe they're already doing everything right. Your job is to ask, "How
can we do it better? Where can we find someone doing it better?"
Finding a better way of doing things every single day can become so much
more than a slogan. It can become a way of life and make your group
stand out above the rest.
9) Own Hiring Mistakes
Look, you're not the only person in the history of the universe who has
ever made a hiring mistake. Once you understand that hiring is hard
work and you'll surely have missteps along the way, realize that you've
got to deal with mistakes fast and compassionately. Recognize that it
was your fault that the fit didn't work and get on with it. The team
will respect you more. The hire you dealt with fairly will respect you
more. And your superiors will reward you for your candor and willingness
to own up to your error.
10) Dig into Crises
Without doubt, crises are going to erupt in your career. You'll have
someone do something wrong or have to face into a violation somewhere in
your organization. To make matters worse, when you first hear about it,
you're not going to get the whole story -- after all, you're the boss.
You're only going to get the tip of the iceberg. Underneath the surface
is a very big piece of ice. Your team will come to you and feed you,
piece by piece, a slow-drip expose of the crisis. Your job is to dig
deep, early and fast, to get it all to the surface. Be candid. Recognize
there are no secrets anywhere. Get the right people involved
immediately. And you will see a swifter resolution to problems that
people all too often try to brush under the table.
Jack Welch is Executive Chairmacrisesn of the Jack Welch Management Institute at Strayer University. Through its Executive MBA
program, the Jack Welch Management Institute provides students and
organizations with the proven methodologies, immediately actionable
practices, and respected credentials needed to win in business.
Suzy
Welch is a best-selling author, popular television commentator, and
noted business journalist. Her New York Times bestselling book, 10-10-10: A Life Transforming Idea,
presents a powerful decision-making strategy for success at work and in
parenting, love and friendship. Together with her husband Jack Welch,
Suzy is also co-author of the #1 international bestseller Winning, and its companion volume, Winning: The Answers. Since 2005, they have written business columns for several publications, including Business Week magazine, Thomson Reuters digital platforms, Fortune magazine, and the New York Times syndicate.
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As
the world mourns the loss of Nelson Mandela and commemorates his
greatness as a leader, we would do well to remember that one of the
many hallmarks of his leadership was trust. The greatest
leaders in the world gravitated toward Mr. Mandela because he was
genuinely trustworthy and his purpose was to support peace, prosperity
and unity not only in South Africa – but throughout the world. Mandela
was able to lead people in ways that many find impossible to do. As he
famously said, “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
Unfortunately, trust is in rare supply these days. People are having trouble trusting each other, according to an AP-GfK poll
conducted in November 2013, which found that Americans are suspicious
of each other in their everyday encounters. Only one-third of
Americans say most people can be trusted – down from half who felt that
way in 1972, when the General Social Survey first asked the question.
Forty years later, in 2013, a record high of nearly two-thirds says “you
can’t be too careful” in dealing with people.
This same sentiment can be carried over into the workplace, where employees want their leaders to be more trustworthy and transparent. Employees have grown tired of unexpected outcomes resulting from the lack of preparation. They want to be informed of any change management
efforts before – not after the fact. Employees desire to know what is
expected of them and be given the opportunity to reinvent themselves,
rather than be told they are not qualified for new roles and
responsibilities and can no longer execute their functions successfully.
Leaders are challenged between informing their employees
of the entire truth and holding back certain realities so as not to
unnecessarily scare people or lose top-talent. More and more leaders
today are being placed into uncomfortable moral dilemmas because they
are attempting to salvage their own jobs while trying to maintain the
trust and loyalty of their employees.
The growing tensions between leaders and their employees are creating productivity challenges as uncertainty becomes the new normal in the workplace. Furthermore, leaders are beginning to lose control of their own identities and effectiveness
as their employees begin to lose trust in their intentions because of
hidden agendas and political maneuvering – casting clouds of doubt over
their futures.
Employees just want the truth. They have learned that the old ways
of doing things just don’t apply (as much) anymore and more than ever
they need their leaders to have their backs. Unfortunately, many leaders are operating in survival mode and don’t have the sphere of influence they once had; without leaders to sponsor and mentor them, high-potential employees must now figure out the changing terrain on their own.
Here are seven early warning signs to look out for so you can
course-correct when employees are having trouble trusting their leaders:
1. Lack Courage
Leaders that don’t stand up for what they believe in are difficult to
respect and trust. Too many leaders today battle the gulf between
assimilation and authenticity. They waste too much of their valuable
time trying to act like other leaders in the organization – rather than
attempting to establish their own identity and leadership style. This is why less than 15% of leaders have defined and live their personal brand.
Perhaps leaders don’t believe that their employees are paying
attention to this behavior – but they are intently observing.
Employees are always in tune to what their leaders are doing and how
they manage themselves. Employees know that if their leaders are not
savvy enough to move themselves into a position of greater influence, it
will make it that much more difficult for them to get noticed and discovered
as well. The influence of a leader carries a lot of weight when it
comes to how their colleagues judge and evaluate the potential of their
employees.
When leaders lack the courage to enable their full potential and that
of others, it becomes a challenge to trust their judgment,
self-confidence, self-awareness and overall capabilities.
2. Hidden Agendas
Leaders that are too politically savvy can be viewed as devious and
inauthentic. Employees want to follow leaders who are less about the
politics and more about how to accomplish goals and objectives. While
being politically savvy is important, leaders must be careful not to give their employees the impression of orchestrating hidden agendas.
Employees want to believe that their leaders are focused on the
betterment of the team. If this requires well-intentioned political
maneuvering to advance team goals and objectives, then great. However,
if it comes across that a leader is solely intent on protecting
themselves and their own personal agendas – trust from the team will be
lost quickly and difficult to recapture.
3. Self-Centered
Hidden agendas make it difficult to trust that a leader’s intentions
and decision-making are not self-centered. When a leader is only
looking out for themselves and lacks any sense of commitment to the
advancement of their employees – this shuts-off employees quickly.
Great leaders are great coaches and are always looking to help their
employees grow and prosper. When leaders lack any real desire to
mentor, coach and/or guide the career advancement of their employees –
it becomes increasingly difficult for employees to trust them. I’ve
often said that leaders can’t go at it alone. But when leaders are too
disruptive, their employees sense that they are in it for themselves
and/or don’t trust the talent around them.
Also, when leaders are self-centered their ego stands in the way of advancing others – further eroding trust.
4. Reputation Issues
When people begin to speak negatively about their leader,
it makes it more difficult for others to trust their intentions and
vision. For example, look at what has happened to President Barrack
Obama since December 2009 when his approval rating was 69%.
According
to the Rasmussen Reports,
four years later (as of December 7th), Obama’s approval rating is now
at 43%. Nearly a 30% decline has created massive disruption to his
reputation and many who have followed and supported him for years are
now having troubling trusting him.
If you conducted a comparative approval rating survey in your
workplace, how would your employees rate the performance of your
leaders?
Every leader must be aware that they are constantly being evaluated and thus they can never grow complacent. When they do, this begins to negatively impact their reputation and the trust employees have in their leadership.
5. Inconsistent Behavior
People are more inclined to trust those who are consistent with their
behavior. Isn’t it easy to begin questioning one’s motives/judgment
when they are inconsistent? For example, I’ve worked with clients who
appear to be on the same page – only to notice that they begin to
disconnect when they believe that the direction of a project is not
allowing them to mobilize their own agendas. In order words, when
everyone but the leader is on board with a strategy – you begin to
wonder if their intentions are to support the organization’s advancement
or their own.
Leaders who are consistent with their approach and intentions are those who can be trusted. This is why so many leaders need to refresh their leadership style before they lose the trust of their employees.
6. Don’t Get Their Hands Dirty
Leaders must touch the business, just as much as they lead it. When leaders are over-delegating and not getting their hands dirty
– employees begin to question whether or not their leader actually
knows what is required to get the job done. Distrust amongst
employees begins to rise.
Though leaders cannot be expected to have all of the answers – they
should not play at arms-length either. The 21st century leader must be
more high-touch in order to effectively evaluate the business and
coach-up their employees. How else can a leader establish the
standards to maintain and improve workplace performance?
Are your leaders getting their hands dirty or are they merely acting the part?
Leaders must earn the trust of their employees and stop believing
that their titles, roles and responsibilities automatically warrant
trust from others.
7. Lack a Generous Purpose
When a leader doesn’t genuinely have your best interests at heart,
it’s difficult to trust them. When leaders are not grateful for your
performance efforts – and are always attempting to squeeze every bit of
effort they can out of you – it’s difficult to trust that they have
intentions to be more efficient, resourceful and collaborative.
Employees don’t ever want to feel taken advantage of – especially
during a time when everyone is being asked to do more with less.
Leaders must be more appreciative of their employees and more mindful of
their endeavors.
Leaders who lack a generous purpose and are not compassionate towards
their employees are difficult to trust. How can leaders expect their
employees to give them everything they’ve got to increase their performance impact when they are not willing to do the same?
These seven behavioral traits are becoming much more prevalent in the
workplace and if leaders fail to course-correct they will be putting
their employees in positions of increased risk – disrupting their focus
and the momentum of their careers.
This is what today leaders must consider: how to lead in
new ways that focus less on oneself, but more on the betterment of a
healthier whole. Leaders must enable positive social change through
ethical innovation – what I call “innovation humanity.”
Let’s honor Mandela’s courage and compassion by letting his
leadership inspire us now as it did throughout the life he lived with
such generous purpose.
Glenn Llopis
Contributor
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
As a business leader, I found that one of the scariest things
to do was to give your people the freedom to make mistakes. While
mistakes allow individuals to learn and grow, they can also be very
costly to any company. Scared as I was, I knew that truly great leaders
found ways to allow their people to take these risks, and I genuinely
wanted to be a great leader. I wanted to help my employees to grow. So I
set out to discover how to accomplish this without placing my company
in jeopardy.
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” - Meg Cabot
I quickly discovered that the first step was to determine the areas
of the business where a mistake could take place without causing too
much damage. I took careful attention to make sure that any areas where
we would damage our clients and the trust they had placed in us were off
limits for significant risk without serious executive involvement and
oversight. I identified other areas where I could feel more comfortable
allowing people the freedom to experiment on new and better ways of
doing things.
The second step was to communicate to the employees that we were
setting an official company policy: Making any mistake once was OK, so
long as it was an honest mistake made while attempting to do what they
felt was the right thing. Making any mistake once was OK, but repeating
that same mistake a second time was NOT OK. The hard, fast rule was that
if you made any mistake for the first time the entire team would have
your back in fixing that mistake if anything went wrong. However, if you
ever repeated the mistake a second time, then you were 100 percent on
your own to face the consequences. This rule applied for every
first-time occurrence of each new mistake you made.
We all make mistakes. Every one of us. If we aren’t making mistakes, then we likely aren’t trying enough new things outside our comfort zone, and that itself is a mistake. That process is the best way to learn and grow as a person. As John Wooden once said, “If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything.” Mistakes
are the pathway to great ideas and innovation. Mistakes are the
stepping stones to moving outside the comfort zone to the growing zone
where new discoveries are made and great lessons are learned. Mistakes
are not failures, they are simply the process of eliminating ways that
won’t work in order to come closer to the ways that will.
Great leaders allow their people the freedom to make mistakes. But
good employees are those who when mistakes are made 1. Learn from them,
2. Own them, 3. Fix them, and 4. Put safeguards in place to ensure the
same mistake will never be repeated again.
1. Learn from them: Good employees recognize that they have,
in fact, made an honest mistake. They do not get defensive about it,
rather they are willing to look objectively at their mistake, recognize
what they did wrong, and understand why their choice or actions were the
wrong thing to do.
2. Own them: Good employees take accountability for their
mistakes. They admit them readily. They don’t make excuses for their
mistake, rather they acknowledge that yes, they made a mistake and they
express openly what lesson they have learned from that mistake. They go
on to express steps 3 and 4 below.
3. Fix them: Good employees do what it takes to rectify their
wrongs. They are willing to do whatever they can to fix the problem and
make it right. Certainly there are times when the damage is done and
recompense cannot be made, but good employees do their very best to
repair whatever damage has been done to the best of their ability. They
always establish a timeline with follow up for when the problem will be
fixed and make sure that progress is communicated throughout the process
so everyone feels the urgency and care with which they are correcting
the problem.
4. Put safeguards in place to ensure the same mistake will never be repeated again: This is the most critical step in the learning process.
When a mistake has clearly been made, the most important thing anyone
can do is figure out what safety nets and roadblocks can be carefully
established to ensure that this same mistake will never take place
again. Document this step so the lessons learned and the safeguards
setup can always go beyond you. Do everything in your power to help
others learn from your mistake so they don’t have to experience them on
their own to gain the lesson you’ve learned.
The steps to correcting mistakes apply to any area of life. Whether
it’s business life or home life or personal life, the principles of
apologizing remain the same. Good employees make a lot of mistakes, and
truly great employees are those have mastered the art of apologizing for
those mistakes:
Great People Practice The Six A’s of a Proper Apology:
- Admit - I made a mistake.
- Apologize - I am sorry for making the mistake.
- Acknowledge - I recognize where I went wrong that caused my mistake to occur.
- Attest - I plan to do the following to fix the mistake on this specific timeline.
- Assure - I will put the following protections in place to ensure that I do not make the same mistake again.
- Abstain – Never repeat that same mistake twice.
People who implement the Six A’s will find that the level of trust
and respect others have for them will grow tenfold. People who implement
the Six A’s will find that others will be quicker to forgive them and
more likely to extend a second chance. It’s not the making of a mistake
that is generally the problem; it’s what you do with it afterward that
really counts.
