Expand Your Mind: Leaders to Copy
by Miki Saxon
Leadership is one of those things that everybody talks about, lots of people write about and some do it. My preference is to focus on those who have performed as leaders.
Although leadership doesn’t always equate to being in the top position, the links today refer to positional leaders who do a superb job leading.
Let’s start with an interview with Kip Tindell, chief executive of the Container Store, who talks about the principles underlying the culture, communications, hiring execs and a very interesting concept called the size of your wake.
Most people’s wake is much, much, much larger than they can ever imagine. We all can’t imagine that we have as much impact on the people and the world around us as we really do.
Next is David Hauser, co-founder and CTO of Grasshopper, a virtual phone system specifically for entrepreneurs. Started when he was still in school it reached profitability quickly; like most entrepreneurs Hauser wears many hats, including the company’s culture.
When we started we did not clearly articulate the values at all and that was a big mistake and today we talk about it all the time.
Now meet Jay Goltzm who owns five small businesses in Chicago and writes about the two things he does to keep his happy employees happy. He
- treats them well, and
- fires the unhappy ones.
If you read books on great companies, they usually leave out a dirty little secret. It doesn’t make for good public relations — like talking about how you “empower people” or how your “greatest assets” are your people. Both of these well-worn clichés are true. What is also true is that it’s hard to build a great company with the wrong people.
And in response to a few of the comments he clarifies what he meant.
Instead of unhappy, I probably should have said disrespectful (to others, not me), incompetent, unreasonable, undependable, irresponsible, unproductive, dysfunctional (I did say that one), angry, whiny or mean — and beyond a manager’s ability to repair.
Last, but certainly not least is Guy Kawasaki, co-founder of Alltop and managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, who is known for, among other things, his irreverent approach to himself. It’s on full display in this interview about learning to manage and lead.
When I finally got a management position, I found out how hard it is to lead and manage people. The warm, fuzzy stuff is hard. The quantitative stuff is easy…
Image credit: pedroCarvalho on flickr
