There is no set formula to great leadership. There are as many styles of management as there are businesses to manage. That being said, there are some ingredients that go into all of the best management mixes.
With that in mind, find your pan, get out your measuring cups and lets take a look at the base ingredients of a management souffle.
A Cup Full Of Understanding
If you can’t listen, you can’t run a startup. Listening doesn’t mean agreeing or even accepting everyone else’s opinion, it does mean that you take them into consideration. If you are going to lead a team and make good decisions, you need to have broad perspective and listening to the opinions of others is one of the best ways to gain some.
Before you cast yourself as the strong, decisive leader who doesn’t need anyone else coloring his vision, remember there isn’t a visionary alive who didn’t make his or her bones doing a lot of listening.
A Pinch Of Humility
Don’t build empires. You should want nothing else but success for you and your team, but there is a fine line between wanting great things for your company and trying to turn your startup into your own, personal fiefdom.
Empire builders love the trappings of a startup — the VC, flat organizational structure, flexible hours, and chance at riches, but they aren’t willing to go through the pain. Empire builders make very good middle managers, but they are bad choices for leaders.
A Dash Of Persistence
You need to be willing to make the unpopular decisions, but more importantly you need to be willing to follow through. Persistence sometimes does mean beating your head against a wall until the wall crumbles, but more often it’s about finding the keys to the bulldozer.
Don’t confuse stubbornness for for persistence. Persistence is seeing a goal and finding a way to get to it. Stubbornness is what happens when you’re unwilling to see that your goal is either unreasonable or unreachable. Great leaders can recognize the difference.
A Dollop Of Trust
There is nothing wrong with not knowing everything, no one does. There is something fundamentally wrong with not knowing everything and believing that no one else on your team knows anything.
Learn the strengths and weaknesses of those who you work with and be willing to trust their judgment even above your own. You can’t be everywhere at once, you can’t do every task; if you are hiring well, your team should be people who make up for your weaknesses. One of the major tests of strong leadership is the willingness to let your team do the jobs you bought them in to do.
Bake On High
Merely having these traits won’t make you a great leader, there are far too many things that go onto that; however, when you find yourself running into leadership problems, chances are good that one or more of these components is missing.
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