One of Startup School’s Lessons - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HDO1p3VdYg

if any of you are going to succeed in building a big company in the long term, you’ve got to really get good at leading, motivating, retaining great people.

3 observations on leadership

  • There’s no single archetype for a great leader.
    • You have to be yourself. You have to be authentic to who you are. You can’t try to be someone else if you want to be a great leader.
    • Human don’t generally follow or trust those that we find in authentic.
  • 3 fundamental attributes
    1. Great leaders think and communicate clearly.
      • Great communication needs to be simple.
      • Example: President Woodrow Wilson who was once asked how long it would take him, he was asked to give a speech and he was asked how long would he need to prepare. And he said, “Well, it depends how long you guys want me to talk. If it’s a 10 minute speech, then I’m going to need two weeks to prepare for it. If I can talk for half an hour, I only need a week. But, if I can talk as long as I want to, then I don’t need any preparation at all. I can speak right now.”
    2. Great leaders have good judgment about people.
      • If you make consistently bad decisions on the people that you’re bestowing authority and power to, then your authority, your followership, the trust that people have in you will diminish.
      • How to sharp this skill?
        • You should try to even meet people who you have no hope of hiring because it’s important to kind of get a sense for what really great leaders are like, what great engineering managers are like, what great sales leaders are like, et cetera. And just talk to them about their jobs and their backgrounds and how they came to be where they are. Ask them about how they lead people, what they think goes well, doesn’t go well.
    3. Great leaders have strong personal integrity and commitment.
      • That means standing for something meaningful beyond themselves and being motivated by things outside of their narrow personal interests.
  • Trust by other (the best way to measure great leaders is in terms of the amount of trust they’re able to engender in the people who work with them, for them, around them, et cetera.)
    1. The science of trust: you have to be right about the empirical questions in your business
    2. The art of trust: This is about being able to show empathy and good judgment, having timing, good timing when you confront issues. It’s about striving for something bigger than yourself and not being selfish or self centered.