The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds........President Kennedy of USA (Rice University 1962)
Very few vocations require as much rapid learning as an innovative startup leader, a role that requires flexible intelligence and constant adaptation. The leader of an early-stage company might split their time between decoding governmental regulations, hiring staff, wooing investors, scanning deal documents, reviewing code, reviewing design, running a marketing campaign, and making sales. It is a learning treadmill that doesn’t stop. Though some functions are absorbed as a business grows, an innovative company will always find a new frontier to conquer.
The most important thing you need to do as a CEO is learn faster than the pace at which your company is growing. you shouldn’t think about learning as simply absorbing information and then copying what others are doing, but understanding the HOW and the WHY in a way that makes sense for your company.
Leadership skills are necessary in order for you to be successful with the company. Thankfully, leadership is a learned skill.
- Being a leader doesn’t mean you have to manage 100+ people.
- Being a leader doesn’t mean you have to be a “smooth talker.”
Being a leader often means “listening more than speaking.”: That means listening to market trends, customer feedback, and ideas from your team.
Being a leader often means Patience: Though there’s value in speed, but most of the best things in life take time to reveal themselves. They take time to unfold and play out. That process often makes the outcome richer, the learnings deeper, and the rewards much better. And sometimes, sitting in discomfort along that path is essential to finding the truth.
Bringing people along professionally requires patience, building a company requires patience, and often finding answers requires patience.
Being a leader often means Reading: The key nugget for a leader is to treat every resource – conversations, books, blog posts, etc. – as one single data point that will feed your own strategy.
Here are a few good books recommended by Mathilde Collin, CEO and Co-founder at Front.
- The Effective Executive.
- High Output Management.
- The Hard Things About Hard Things.
Finally, being a leader means Networking: Find coaches, mentors and create a group of peers (similar-stage companies) you can learn from and then hire people better than yourself.
See You at The Top
