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How My Attitude Towards Leadership Held Me Back For Decades

Lyinx

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I like that idea. Thanks for contributing @Lyinx and for the book recommendation. Can you take it one step further? What are three takeaways you got from the book? What is one surprising fact you learned?
the largest takeaway?
I pride myself in thinking my decisions out (not based on emotions)
He proved to me (time and again) that most of my decisions are either based on emotions, or on very weak logic, and I barely did the numbers.
By the time you are done with the workbook (it cannot really be called a book) you will have learned a lot more than a lot of MBAs will ever teach you. (notice the period, it's making a point)
My signature shows what I think of this book, FLF and Unscripted get you to become entrepreneurs, but this book will actually turn you into the next step up if your end goal is to become a leader and think things out.

do yourself a favor and buy the book :)
 
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Santi M

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This was a fantastic read, thank you @BizyDad
I don't know if it is how well you write or the fact that your stories are actually impressive, or both (probably both), but your lessons are incredibly valuable.
 

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This was a fantastic read, thank you @BizyDad
I don't know if it is how well you write or the fact that your stories are actually impressive, or both (probably both), but your lessons are incredibly valuable.
Thank you for the compliments. I hope the stories help you on your journey.
 

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Great progress! It is so important so really share a vision together. One tool that I've found very important is what is called a "Vivid Vision". Cameron Herold has an interesting book and talk about this.

I've created a Vivid Vision for my company, it's a PDF document which entails all aspects of the business: who our clients are, customer service, marketing, financials, our values, our big why, how our team looks like, what the product/service does, etc...

Before talking with any prospect, or someone I want to hire for the team, I send them that document so they understand what we're trying to build. It's been very good at getting people immediately bought in or immediately out.

Maybe it could be useful to have a Vivid Vision for your company, so that everyone is aligned moving forward.
Just wanted to give a hat tip to @Tiago who made this comment on another thread but also applies here as some quality leadership/communicating a vision advice.

It been almost a year since I wrote anything on this thread and as I reflect on it, I'm not sure if I've grown any further as a leader. I suppose being quarantined for most of that time, I was solo and not working on it.

I've been back in the office for a few months now, and I'm happy to report everything has been pretty smooth sailing. We have plans to grow the team in the next year, and I've started prepping my team that they are the managers of the future.

And future is college interns/recent grads. Life should get really interesting soon...

But I did have an interesting conversation with one of my writers. He's urging me to start announcing this internship now. He says that's how we'll get the best college interns.

My response was that I don't necessarily want the best college intern. I don't necessarily want a type a driven person for the positions I'm looking to fill. It was an honest gut reaction, but now it's the weekend, and I'm playing the conversation back and forth in my head I'm wondering if there isn't some other reason why maybe I blocked at getting the best.

What I explained to him was that in all facets of my business I'm trying to under promise and over deliver.

But a type a go-getter has high expectations. Would we really be able to meet their expectations for the position?

Or would we be better served by getting that procrastinating person who's just thankful that they got an internship. Or maybe the introvert who also procrastinated, but is thankful they found an internship that is just all about writing.

Or maybe I overthink things... What do you think?
 
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Tiago

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Couple of things come to mind here.

Why don't you want the best college intern, is it because you really don't think that that kind of person is suitable for the role you want to fulfill, or is there something behind that?

Also, how would you have to change the company to accommodate top talent? More importantly, is this something you even want?

Also, read this again: "Or would we be better served by getting that procrastinating person who's just thankful that they got an internship.". If you were coaching a business owner wanting to expand his team, and he said that, what would you say to him?

I apologize if I don't have any answers here, but I think these questions might help you with this.

Also, a wonderful tool for hiring is the Kolbe Index. Highly recommend doing that test to see how you best take action. Once you're more familiar with it, you can build the Kolbe profile of the person you want to hire, to ensure the best fit possible for the role you're offering.
 

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Why don't you want the best college intern, is it because you really don't think that that kind of person is suitable for the role you want to fulfill, or is there something behind that?
Also, read this again: "Or would we be better served by getting that procrastinating person who's just thankful that they got an internship.". If you were coaching a business owner wanting to expand his team, and he said that, what would you say to him?
Ok I think I figured it out.

It's that I want my team to lead the interns and I don't have enough faith in my team to do a good job.

Most of that is because they haven't done it. Nothing in their resume speaks to an ability to do so, and this will be the first time I am asking them to do it here.

But in order to do it, I, or we, have to set it up for success ahead of time.

But I'm not 100% sure how I want it to work. I kind of want to figure that out as we go.

If I get a type A planning personality, they'll likely want direction that my guys won't be prepared to give.

And that person is more likely to complain to the internship coordinator, potentially making it harder to get interns later.

Compare that to the laid back person, they are still seeking a writing internship but they are just more laid back about it. For this first internship, I want a go with the flow personality who will be happy with the opportunity before them, even if the parameters switch week to week.

And if I get the procrastinator, the one who waited until the last minute to find an internship, then he or she gets a chance to write 10hr/wk, and see their work actually get published, well that person is more likely to give a positive report to the internship coordinator.

And later, once we know, once we have a structure and I'm sure my guys have really owned their roles as leaders, then we can go after the talent.

Maybe this is fear talking. Or maybe this is my risk mitigation part of my brain.

In every facet of my business I try to under promise and over deliver.

And the best of the best tend to have high expectations. So how do you over deliver on high expectations?

I'm not convinced we are ready to. Yet.
 

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Something I learned from watching the organizers of a group of young kids. They stated the behavior they want the kids to model, not the negative to avoid. I grew up with hearing don't do this, don't do that. Instead of telling the kids don't talk, stop fidgeting, it was feet on the floor, hands on your lap, mouths closed. It was amazing to see.

A few years ago, my mother in law was visiting and wanted to learn to ride a bike. More like brush up on it, she rode bikes as a kid. She lives in downtown Chicago and didn't want to practice on busy streets. We took her to an empty parking lot. Empty of cars, but had a single light pole in the very middle. As she was getting ready to go, we told her "stay away from the light pole". She made a beeline right for it.

I'm convinced even though you hear it's a negative, there's something going on in the subconscious that hears "light pole" and you get fixated on it. Should have told her what to do like "ride near the outside edge of the lot".

I see many of your "house rules" are stated in the negative. Give people the positive to fixate on.
You're right. The subconscious mind does NOT register the word not. I learned that when I studied hypnosis and how to phrase auto suggestions. Someone says "Don't do that!" and you hear "Do that!". Say drive sober rather than saying Don't drink and drive. The results will be totally different.

Edited: I put in the NOT but it didn't stick. So trying it again.
 
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Tiago

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It might be both, fear and risk mitigation at the same time.

But I wonder what would happen if you did give bigger challenges and more responsibilities to your team.

I heard a podcast once, where the owner of a business went on a full year sabbatical, and decided to delegate everything to his team. They really stepped up and took full ownership of it. He said "Why didn't I believe in my team sooner?".

Maybe by you not having faith in them, it undermines their opportunities to grow.
 

Andy Black

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Something I learned from watching the organizers of a group of young kids. They stated the behavior they want the kids to model, not the negative to avoid. I grew up with hearing don't do this, don't do that. Instead of telling the kids don't talk, stop fidgeting, it was feet on the floor, hands on your lap, mouths closed. It was amazing to see.

A few years ago, my mother in law was visiting and wanted to learn to ride a bike. More like brush up on it, she rode bikes as a kid. She lives in downtown Chicago and didn't want to practice on busy streets. We took her to an empty parking lot. Empty of cars, but had a single light pole in the very middle. As she was getting ready to go, we told her "stay away from the light pole". She made a beeline right for it.

I'm convinced even though you hear it's a negative, there's something going on in the subconscious that hears "light pole" and you get fixated on it. Should have told her what to do like "ride near the outside edge of the lot".

I see many of your "house rules" are stated in the negative. Give people the positive to fixate on.
100%.

What’s the first thing you think of when you see a sign that says “Don’t walk on the grass”?

I think of Richard Gere and Julia Roberts kicking off their shoes and walking barefoot on the grass

I reckon that sign would do better as “Walk on the path”.


What about people panicking in a smoke filled corridor?

I hope the sign doesn’t say “In the event of fire, do not use the lift.”

How many would just see “fire” and “lift”?


Kids will help you figure this out fast.

Tell kids not to run and they’ll skip.

Tell them not to skip and they’ll hop.

Tell them not to hop and they’ll dance.

Want them to walk quietly? Tell them to walk quietly.
 

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@BizyDad

1. awesome write up, thank you for sharing. I don’t have any leadership wisdom to share, but learned a lot from you and responses to this thread. Thanks.
2. internship. I think you are classifying it incorrectly. Getting the best intern can be the best for your team. Best don’t need as much direction as you seem to think. Best are people who can figure out a way to work with directions or without. Procrastinating people are a show stopper for me… I just hate those types of employees. No matter what direction you give, then still do nothing. Why? They are just more motivated to play video games or stay on social media than to work. You are overthinking this brother. Go get the best!
 
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Andy Black

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On delegating/hiring, a line I like is:

“The person who’ll run with the ball is the person who catches it.”
 

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But I wonder what would happen if you did give bigger challenges and more responsibilities to your team.

I heard a podcast once, where the owner of a business went on a full year sabbatical, and decided to delegate everything to his team. They really stepped up and took full ownership of it. He said "Why didn't I believe in my team sooner?".

Maybe by you not having faith in them, it undermines their opportunities to grow.

You never hear the podcasts where the person tried to step away and everything went to crap though. Those stories exist too. I suspect on this forum we can find a few where the leader took his eye off the ball and the business suffered.

It's not that I don't have any faith in them. I am asking them to step up and develop their leadership. I regularly challenge my guys to improve, and they regularly step up. I'm sure they'll step up here too.

To make an analogy, in the rodeo, they don't train bullriders to ride bulls by having them ride the best bulls the first time out of the chute, do they?

I don't have enough faith that they could ride the best bull the first time out. They've never ridden a bull before...

internship. I think you are classifying it incorrectly. Getting the best intern can be the best for your team. Best don’t need as much direction as you seem to think. Best are people who can figure out a way to work with directions or without. Procrastinating people are a show stopper for me… I just hate those types of employees. No matter what direction you give, then still do nothing. Why? They are just more motivated to play video games or stay on social media than to work. You are overthinking this brother. Go get the best!

I hear that. Maybe I have a soft spot for underappreciated people. I've been a procrastinating employee. I've been a lazy one too. There are a lot of reasons people get demotivated. Sometimes it's just an issue of structure and expectations.

Both my writers were procrastinating types who wait until right before a deadline to get something done. I think that's true of a lot of writers. One of my writers once said, it's like I need a deadline in order to get writing done.

It took a little time to help them get rid of that habit. I think it was a result of their previous work environments.

I explained the reasons I believed it hurt our chances to get something into print. Then when stories wouldn't get printed, we would discuss what went wrong, and often we'd mentioned how we got the story in right before the deadline.

We tried an experiment for a month to get them to turn their stories in early, and voila their numbers/percentages of stories printed began to improve.

My team takes great pride in a printed story, as they should. Once they saw they could get more stories this way, they no longer procrastinate on writing stories.

Sometimes you kind of find somebody who's under appreciated, or going in the wrong direction, or just stuck in life, and show them a better way to achieve their goals.

And when you do that well, when you help someone grow, they tend to stay loyal.

But I was humble enough through that whole process to say I could have been wrong. If the numbers didn't improve, I would have let them get stories in at the deadline.

And now my guys feel like they have ownership of their own process. Which they do.

I don't hire Pulitzer prize winning writers. But my writers are really good at what they do. They weren't at first. But they keep getting better. They've now exceeded my expectations. And they continue to improve every month. Every month they have a goal to hit, and 80% of the time they exceed their goal.

Maybe someday I'll hire a Pulitzer prize winner, and see if he or she could do the same. But I suspect they would quit "for something better".

Again, I always try to put myself in the shoes of somebody and assess what their expectations are. And then exceed them.

----

Anyways thanks everybody for the feedback. I kept debating it back and forth and couldn't see it clearly, so I appreciate you guys taking "one side" of the debate. You are probably right, but assuming we move forward with the internship project, I'm going to try it my way and see what happens.
 

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Good point. On my own first business, I did the mistake of delegating some of the most important tasks too soon, and the business suffered from it.
 
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SDE

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Bump to one of the useful threads.
 

BizyDad

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Bump to one of the useful threads.

Thanks for compliment.

It's funny that you bumping it gave it the "hot topic" tag. That's my first :fire:. I wonder what makes something a hot topic...
 

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MJ DeMarco

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I remember growing up my school had two or three shelves of biographies. I read them all. Those books deeply impacted who I wanted to be in life at a very young age. I remember many lessons. But this one lesson I had forgotten, until just recently:

All my favorite leaders got shot.

Growing up a child of the '80s, leadership looked like Bill Parcells or Bobby Knight. Coffee's for closers. Anger and cussing in your ear. I didn't want to be that guy.

Growing up, I didn't want to be a leader.

In my teenage years I saw a lot of things that reinforce this attitude. I felt like real great leaders don't have a life. Parcells and Knight were fat. It's like a prison of their own making. Almost like being famous. I didn't want all eyes on me.

When other people would talk about how cool it would be to be President, I would think how cool it is to be Vice President.

When other people would talk about how awesome it would be to be the Godfather, I always wanted to be the consigliere.

I'd rather be Ben Franklin than George Washington. (In my adult life I learned I appreciate just how great a leader Ben Franklin was.)

In early adulthood, I think others saw leadership potential in me. Even if I didn't. I probably frustrated a mentor or two.

When I was 24 I managed a restaurant in Sedona, Arizona. I hated it. 19-year-old servers arguing about tables and tips. I just wanted them to act like grown-ups. The Bobby Knight in me welled up. I didn't last long in that job. I didn't care.

As a kid my dream job was to run a Wall Street type office for a year. I've been blessed enough that I accomplished that dream by the time I was 34. I was the second youngest person in the entire company, and I helped to open up an office here in Arizona. For many reasons, it was a dream come true. For many reasons, it was a nightmare.

Here I was managing people older than my father. Investment bankers. The height of professional, white collar America. I almost lost my mind the day I had to settle a dispute between a 62-year-old man and a 65-year-old man about who's client was who's. I kept my cool in the meeting. I thought I'd come so far since the restaurant days. I was wrong. I tell people that Madoff and Lehman Brothers are what caused me to leave that industry, but the truth is I hated managing. I held out a year to the day, just so I could check the box that the dream had been accomplished.

I think my poor attitude towards leadership also led to my divorce last year. I'm really not ready to discuss that here. But it's a life lesson I'm learning.

After I left the investment banking gig, I landed at the company I now work at. I started in sales, then built up the marketing division, and now I'm a full partner. But almost the entire time I've considered myself the junior partner.

I took on the consigliere role.

My business partner is the kind of blond haired, corn fed Iowa boy that people look up to. Literally. Former college football champion, has great stories, can relate to just about anybody, and he can code. A man of his word. Usually keeps his actual thoughts to himself. Calm under pressure. I've only heard him raise his voice twice. And never to yell.

Me? I'm a fired up Latin man from Jersey. My normal excited tone is considered yelling by some people. I tell it like it is, and I can cut people by being too honest. And I live in the West. My default leadership style doesn't play well out here. At all.

We have a good dynamic between us. He runs the website/software side of out business, I run the marketing agency.

Every January for years I'd walk into his office, wanting to sit down for a strategy session. We'd talk for a few hours. I always looked to him to set the direction for the company. He is the founder after all. At the end of this meeting, he would always wrap up the same way, "I don't know man. I have to think about it." Years passed.

I started hiring people a few years back, for the marketing side of the agency. I made a lot of mistakes. I would get angry whenever things didn't go right. Bobby Knight came back out to play.

The strange thing is these people are still my friends today. They call, they visit, they check in, we hang out. I love these guys. They respect me, they appreciate me.

They just couldn't work for me.

In January of 2019, with my divorce in full swing and my depression kicking in, I went into my partner's office and said, "this year we're not going to do the usual meeting. If my life is falling apart, I need this business to be successful. So this year I'm just going to tell you what we're going to do, and you're going to say okay."

And do you know what he said?

"I've been waiting 4 years for you to say that man."

:rage::rage::rage:

I told you he keeps his thoughts to himself...:rofl:

Anyways, in an effort to not fail my kids and my business, I have dedicated the last 14 months to being the best leader I can be.

Here's what I've learned so far:

A Leader Shares A Vision

Part of why people left was they had no idea where we were going. A lot of the feedback I got from those guys was that we were always spinning our wheels.

This is one of my favorite stories about communicating a vision:

In 1983, Jobs was looking for a new president for Apple. Even though he was a co-founder, he was considered too young and inexperienced for the job of running day-to-day operations, so he was recruiting someone successful who he thought he could work successfully with. He targeted Sculley. It was a crazy idea to try to get the head of one of the country’s most successful companies to come lead a small computer company, but Jobs went after what he wanted. Sculley later remembered how Jobs finished his pitch:

“And then he looked up at me and just stared at me with the stare that only Steve Jobs has and he said, ‘Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or do you want to come with me and change the world?’ And I just gulped, because I knew I would wonder for the rest of my life what I would have missed.”

Source: 'Do you want to sell sugar water ... or do you want to change the world?' - David McElroy


So as the leader, set the course for your company. Communicate your why. Communicate your goals. Communicate the problem you are taking responsibility for.

A Leader Shares A Culture

A leader not only shares where we’re going, but a leader imparts the values we are going to use on the journey.

There are entire books written on this subject that can communicate this better than I can. The best I could do is tell you about my culture, and maybe I'll just write a separate thread about that.

A Leader Empowers His/Her Team

I used to think a leader had to make all the decisions. Then I thought the leader had to make all the tough decisions. But I don't think any of that's actually true.

I can't possibly make every decision every day. In order to get to where we need to get to, I had to find a way to empower my team to make decisions. So I came up with a framework, a manifesto, a set of rules to live by.

First, my team knows that our goal for every client is to implement targeted tactics to profitably acquire customers.

Here are our "house rules":
  1. Never say anything that isn't accurate
  2. Be persuasive
  3. Be better this month than you were last
  4. If you don't know, find out
  5. Don't over promise
  6. Don't use seven words when three will do
  7. Don't let computers do our thinking for us
As long as my people make their decisions with that goal in mind and within this framework, I can live with what they come up with.

A Leader Takes Responsibility

This was my turning point. When things used to go wrong, I used to question the persons whose job it was to make sure it didn't go wrong. Interrogate would probably be a better term. They would take on a lot of blame. I'd probably use some harsh language. I just wanted to get to the bottom of it to make sure it never happened again.

Now, when anything goes wrong, I remember as the leader, it's on me first and foremost. My first question is what did I do wrong? Did I fully communicate what needed to be done? Did I have unreasonable expectations? Did I fully train this person to handle the task?

So I approach the interaction with a lot more humility. Mistakes still happen. But Bobby Knight hasn't shown his face around here in 14 months.

My most recent addition to the team told me in our first week that the reason she took the job was because she wanted to work for somebody like me. She's now been here almost 3 months. I asked her last week how she felt it was going. She told me that that morning she had told her sister she loves going to work. She smiles on her way into work. We're helping people and she's learning so much and we handle our business. We're all just so peaceful. She loves it.

We're all just so peaceful. :rofl:

----------

My friends, I'll leave you with these thoughts.

"You can do anything you put your mind to".

So if you're harboring negative attitudes towards leadership, I'd ask you to explore that. Are your underlying assumptions actually true? Or are you just coming up with more excuses to hold yourself back?

I can't tell you how much time or money I've lost waiting for someone else to lead. But I'm not going to fret about it either. We all have our paths to walk, and it happened to take me this long to learn this lesson life was throwing at me. Over. And over. I'm by no means a leadership expert. But hopefully some of this will help you on your journey.

Practice being a better leader. You'll make mistakes, we all do, but you won't start getting better until you first believe that you can get better.

And I believe you can get better. After all, you're an entrepreneur. Getting better at things is what we do.

Now that you know a little more about me and where I'm coming from, I'd appreciate any leadership advice you have to give. Thank you.

Wow, how the f*ck did I miss this? Upgraded to GOLD.
 

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So, update us. You started this a couple of years ago.

Some of my ideas on leadership:

I do get "decision weary" if I don't give myself a break. Yes, I try to fly under the radar, but in the end, it's all on my shoulders.

The best thing I have done is to give my people the authority to make decisions. When they make good ones, I compliment and reward them for that decision and for taking action on it. They know what I want and how to do it. Some people try to micro-manage everything. I don't have the time or the energy to be everywhere all the time. I like people who use their brains and take action. This is especially true for my rehab jobs. When we run into a problem, many times my crew has it half-solved before I even know about it.

I also use my mom's trick. If someone wants one of my guys to do something stupid or harmful, I have authorized them to make up a rule and I'll stand behind them. If they don't think they should be doing something, then I sure don't want them to do it. "I can't do that! The owner would fire me!" Or, "I have to do ______. It's my job!" "This is just how we do it here." My people and I have some good laughs over some of the situations they get into with the tenant and customers.

I know that I have the power. So, I try to use it very seldom and carefully. I try other approaches first. If the moment comes when I must wield that power, I'm decisive. I don't change my mind very often. If I could have done it another way, usually I have already tried.
 

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Wow, how the f*ck did I miss this? Upgraded to GOLD.

Thank you. That's two of my old threads in the last month. I'll tell ya, getting a GOLD never gets OLD.

My favorite part is seeing how many more new people start reading them and commenting once they are gold.

I do get "decision weary" if I don't give myself a break. Yes, I try to fly under the radar, but in the end, it's all on my shoulders.

Funny you should ask. I noticed it had actually been almost 2 years to the day since I wrote this...

It been almost a year since I wrote anything on this thread and as I reflect on it, I'm not sure if I've grown any further as a leader. I suppose being quarantined for most of that time, I was solo and not working on it.

I've been back in the office for a few months now, and I'm happy to report everything has been pretty smooth sailing. We have plans to grow the team in the next year, and I've started prepping my team that they are the managers of the future.

And future is college interns/recent grads. Life should get really interesting soon...

And the future WAS NOT interns. I had every intention. But at the same time as I began to get serious about this, I also purchased a new business with a partner. Things started to feel overwhelming, and I backed off the agency growth idea.

It honestly took until very recently for me to get back on the horse.

And the future is FILIPINO.

Let's back up.

At the beginning of the year, one writer came to me and told me he was moving across country to be closer to family. It was happening no matter what, but he asked to keep his job.

After four years of training and patience, he had finally become as good as the more senior writer on the team. So I let go of my goal of having an all Tempe marketing agency and allowed it. He actually just moved into his new home yesterday in fact.

My other writer's wife had a baby and they just bought a home. Closed on it this week in fact.

Things are going well for my team. They are also going well with my partners, because regardless of the technical ownership percentages, I pretty much drive the ship in both companies.

More than anything I have come to peace with the idea that I am capable of leading, I don't have to get angry at people, nice guys don't have to finish last, and it is possible to win at this thing called buisness by trusting others...

So with all that in mind, I again wanted to engage growth mode. A friend convinced me my next step shold be to hire a salesperson.

SO I started down that road....only to stop. More sales means more work for me more than anyone else. And I work too much as it is.

Then in a weird butterfly effect, @ZCP introduced one of my writers to a guy who became a client and that guy convinced me to hire Filipinos.

This time I finally was able to take action. I hired my first one 3 weeks ago and she has been AWESOME. I finally have another team member who looks at marketing similar to how I do. My plan is to build her up and have other Filipinos working under her. She will mange my technical marketing side of the biz (as opposed to the team of writers), and I will have my team of techie marketers all be Filipino.

It's only been three weeks, but I think I am doing a bang up job with leadership here so far. We seem to have a nice balance of getting stuff done, giving her autonomy, catching little mistakes, and the right amount of training.

Sometimes she gets on the video call with me early in the morning and sometimes it is late at night (for her), but she is always smiling and engaged. I thought that's how she is. But she told me today she is normally not a happy person at those times... it is just that she really is enjoying the work and the learning.

I have interviews scheduled with 6 people for next week to hire a Wordpress person.

With those 2 in place, I can then hire a salesperson and go back to focusing on sales myself. Training salespeople is one of the few areas of leadership that I actually do feel comfortable and have for a long time.

I don't have many new insights to share, but I do have two.

PATIENCE

I have always been the type to see problems coming a mile away so I have always headed them off before they happen. The problem with this is that others don't see the problem AT ALL (because it hasn't happened yet), so I historically have come off as a super micro manager and even insecure.

I am WAY more patient now. I let problems happen. And when they do, I expect the team to fix it. But they know if they don't have a solution, I often do, so now my rep is that I'm the guy who has the answers. I like that better.

But it would have never happened if I hadn't developed the patience to allow people to make mistakes, and learned the ability to stay calm when the mistakes got made (I used to be a huge I told you so. Ok, ok, I still am, just much less so with employees or partners.)

STAY QUIET

Similar to patience but honestly very different. So many problems are getting fixed without me needing to have input.

More than that, as I stay quiet people around me have an opportunity to say what I was going to say. And I love when I see that happen. It is amazing. By staying quiet I have learned I have to do so much less convincing and I get to spend more of my time being proud of the people around me, employees and friends and kids.

This journey to better leadership has me feelings like I am seeing little miracles happening around me. The biggest miracle is my overall mental health is dramatically improved. All my relationships feel dramatically better.

View: https://youtube.com/shorts/I8KAO_eCouI?feature=share


Saw this video today and it so succinctly shared good points on leadership, I thought I'd add it here.

Are you earning respect or expecting compliance?

I love this video.

I am not saying I am anywhere close to the guy who commands respect through his actions as described therein.

But I am saying I am closer to that than I have ever been at any point in my life. And I am looking forward to doing more and more of that with the rest of my life.

----

That said, I would love to hear more people's ideas about leadership, so I wanted to re-state the request.
 
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WJK

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I have always been the type to see problems coming a mile away so I have always headed them off before they happen. The problem with this is that others don't see the problem AT ALL (because it hasn't happened yet), so I historically have come off as a super micro manager and even insecure.

I am WAY more patient now. I let problems happen. And when they do, I expect the team to fix it. But they know if they don't have a solution, I often do, so now my rep is that I'm the guy who has the answers. I like that better.

But it would have never happened if I hadn't developed the patience to allow people to make mistakes, and learned the ability to stay calm when the mistakes got made (I used to be a huge I told you so. Ok, ok, I still am, just much less so with employees or partners.
That's the kind of leadership I was talking about in my post. You must let your people go through the learning curve so they can make better independent decisions in the future. That's how they become good at their jobs and function well as a team. And it frees you up so you can do your job rather than trying to shadow theirs.

If I must stand over someone, they don't last very long. I must decide if the person doesn't know the job or if it is an ethical problem. When someone is struggling because of a lack of knowledge, I put them into a buddy system with someone who knows how to do the job. I give them a chance to correct their course. No one is born knowing.

I try to watch and see where people have natural talents. Also, ID their work style. When I see some singing as they work, or in the flow, I know what kinds of jobs to give them.

I've also had situations where I've had to separate people that needed a break from each other. It is amazing. Within a short time, they are back working with each other by choice. People are definitely herd animals.
 

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That's the kind of leadership I was talking about in my post. You must let your people go through the learning curve so they can make better independent decisions in the future. That's how they become good at their jobs and function well as a team. And it frees you up so you can do your job rather than trying to shadow theirs.

If I must stand over someone, they don't last very long. I must decide if the person doesn't know the job or if it is an ethical problem. When someone is struggling because of a lack of knowledge, I put them into a buddy system with someone who knows how to do the job. I give them a chance to correct their course. No one is born knowing.

I try to watch and see where people have natural talents. Also, ID their work style. When I see some singing as they work, or in the flow, I know what kinds of jobs to give them.

I've also had situations where I've had to separate people that needed a break from each other. It is amazing. Within a short time, they are back working with each other by choice. People are definitely herd animals.
Great stuff @WJK

These are all lessons I only recently started to learn for myself.
 

Andy Black

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You must let your people go through the learning curve so they can make better independent decisions in the future.
I agree. It takes time to let people learn their own way.

I do the the same with parenting... "What would happen if you keep jumping that wall?" (keeps jumping low wall, then catches foot and trips).

I probably mentioned these parenting and leadership lines in the thread already, but in case I didn't:

"Be the man you want your sons to grow up to be."

"People listen to experts, they follow leaders."

"Praise in public, criticise in private."

"Catch them when they're good."

"Yes, and" not "Yes, but".


Related threads:


 
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Jrjohnny

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Great thread Bizy!

I don’t know how I’m just seeing it now.

I actually have a story to share sort of like this.

My teachers would always make us do group projects, and I always had a thing for being a leader.
At the age of 8 I had figured out the difference between trying to force respect and just being able to respect.

Everyone would want to group up with me as I was good at keeping everyone in control not in a calming manner.

I once was in a group of 4

2 girls, a boy and I.

We were all deciding what to do and the girls told us an idea.

I was in the middle of saying it was a good job and it’ll definitely stand out, just some changes we should make.

And the other boy interrupted me and shot down the idea saying we shouldn’t stand out and she was dumb for that idea.

He was being an a**hole trying to force respect.

After a little he went to the washroom and the girls began to cry.

I told them that it was my fault, I had made the mistake of grouping up with him.

We brainstormed how we would do it, who would do what.

I had a vision, shared it with them and we always had a mentality of “if it’s a good idea, we can make it even better”

The girls had calmed down and the boy came back.

We told him what we’d do and he started yelling at us.

Everyone had heard, including the teacher.

Everyone avoided the boy like he was the plague.

They had all respected me.

When someone had an idea, everyone would turn to me.

Even when my title of being a leader wasn’t on me, everyone still wanted to hear my opinion.

every single report card I have says that I’m a great leader.

I think a lot of people think that leadership doesn’t matter and those who do,

Don’t know how it works.

Great post Bizydad.
 

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Man I am in a season of challenge. In case you don't know, I hired a couple of Filipinos to work for me in my agency.

This has exposed several issues with my current set up. Call it growing pains. Going from 1 to 2 people on a team is hard enough, but creating a whole new team, getting all 3 to work together, and making sure that this team integrates with the other 2 teams has proven to be revelatory.

But the kicker is I am finding issues in my existing "smooth running" teams too. Both my writers are facing personal challenges. I'm being patient because hiring and replacing them and training someone new on the process and the culture would prove time consuming.

But MAN am I having to exhibit patience. I just needed to come on here and vent. Because I am putting in long hours, and not feeling like I am making sufficient progress.

I need to build better systems. I wish my team could build better systems for us, but I didn't hire systems thinkers.

In the end, when I find yet another problem, I have to stuff Bobby Knight back down and remind myself... "This is your fault for not building the right systems sooner".

1694717244957.jpeg
 

machinistguy

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Man I am in a season of challenge. In case you don't know, I hired a couple of Filipinos to work for me in my agency.

This has exposed several issues with my current set up. Call it growing pains. Going from 1 to 2 people on a team is hard enough, but creating a whole new team, getting all 3 to work together, and making sure that this team integrates with the other 2 teams has proven to be revelatory.

But the kicker is I am finding issues in my existing "smooth running" teams too. Both my writers are facing personal challenges. I'm being patient because hiring and replacing them and training someone new on the process and the culture would prove time consuming.

But MAN am I having to exhibit patience. I just needed to come on here and vent. Because I am putting in long hours, and not feeling like I am making sufficient progress.

I need to build better systems. I wish my team could build better systems for us, but I didn't hire systems thinkers.

In the end, when I find yet another problem, I have to stuff Bobby Knight back down and remind myself... "This is your fault for not building the right systems sooner".

View attachment 51332
My high school teacher was in favor of electing bad politicians when things are good because it exposes the flaws in the system during good times, instead of during a recession or a war where those flaws could be fatal, and gives you the opportunity to come back with an even more resilient country. Whenever my business systems start failing I try to reframe it as "This isn't a problem, but an opportunity to identify where my business is weak and come back even better. Be thankful it didn't happen after losing a big customer or a recession".

The long hours do suck. Sometimes it feels like your bed is going to leave you for not spending enough time with it.
 
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piano

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Man I am in a season of challenge. In case you don't know, I hired a couple of Filipinos to work for me in my agency.

This has exposed several issues with my current set up. Call it growing pains. Going from 1 to 2 people on a team is hard enough, but creating a whole new team, getting all 3 to work together, and making sure that this team integrates with the other 2 teams has proven to be revelatory.

But the kicker is I am finding issues in my existing "smooth running" teams too. Both my writers are facing personal challenges. I'm being patient because hiring and replacing them and training someone new on the process and the culture would prove time consuming.

But MAN am I having to exhibit patience. I just needed to come on here and vent. Because I am putting in long hours, and not feeling like I am making sufficient progress.

I need to build better systems. I wish my team could build better systems for us, but I didn't hire systems thinkers.

In the end, when I find yet another problem, I have to stuff Bobby Knight back down and remind myself... "This is your fault for not building the right systems sooner".

View attachment 51332
I'm not working on the kind of stuff you do, but I'm sure that it's very similar to learning a piano piece.

From my experience two things can happen if you put in all you can:

1: You'll succeed after practising for hours every day.

2: Or you'll realise that you're not ready yet and need to tone it down (learn easier pieces first or work on scales, fix bad technique, etc)

The good thing, and that is something that I've observed in business, is that the 2nd point is actually much rarer in business (assuming you're giving your best).

But anyways, I'm not going to go more into detail of this, especially as I am not actually that much experienced yet in business.

Bizy, if you get demotivated, then go grab a piece of paper and write down the pros and cons of not working on it, the people you might dissappoint, etc. It's something that has helped me immensely in a few situations recently. Hopefully it'll work on you if you ever need it!

So go sleep enough, eat alright-y and take a few breaths outside every 2 hours of work.

And if you do get stuck, maybe ask someone on here! I'd bet my life on the fact that people (oh and me) would like to help you.

Anyways, bon voyage!
 

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I remember growing up my school had two or three shelves of biographies. I read them all. Those books deeply impacted who I wanted to be in life at a very young age. I remember many lessons. But this one lesson I had forgotten, until just recently:

All my favorite leaders got shot.

Growing up a child of the '80s, leadership looked like Bill Parcells or Bobby Knight. Coffee's for closers. Anger and cussing in your ear. I didn't want to be that guy.

Growing up, I didn't want to be a leader.

In my teenage years I saw a lot of things that reinforce this attitude. I felt like real great leaders don't have a life. Parcells and Knight were fat. It's like a prison of their own making. Almost like being famous. I didn't want all eyes on me.

When other people would talk about how cool it would be to be President, I would think how cool it is to be Vice President.

When other people would talk about how awesome it would be to be the Godfather, I always wanted to be the consigliere.

I'd rather be Ben Franklin than George Washington. (In my adult life I learned I appreciate just how great a leader Ben Franklin was.)

In early adulthood, I think others saw leadership potential in me. Even if I didn't. I probably frustrated a mentor or two.

When I was 24 I managed a restaurant in Sedona, Arizona. I hated it. 19-year-old servers arguing about tables and tips. I just wanted them to act like grown-ups. The Bobby Knight in me welled up. I didn't last long in that job. I didn't care.

As a kid my dream job was to run a Wall Street type office for a year. I've been blessed enough that I accomplished that dream by the time I was 34. I was the second youngest person in the entire company, and I helped to open up an office here in Arizona. For many reasons, it was a dream come true. For many reasons, it was a nightmare.

Here I was managing people older than my father. Investment bankers. The height of professional, white collar America. I almost lost my mind the day I had to settle a dispute between a 62-year-old man and a 65-year-old man about who's client was who's. I kept my cool in the meeting. I thought I'd come so far since the restaurant days. I was wrong. I tell people that Madoff and Lehman Brothers are what caused me to leave that industry, but the truth is I hated managing. I held out a year to the day, just so I could check the box that the dream had been accomplished.

I think my poor attitude towards leadership also led to my divorce last year. I'm really not ready to discuss that here. But it's a life lesson I'm learning.

After I left the investment banking gig, I landed at the company I now work at. I started in sales, then built up the marketing division, and now I'm a full partner. But almost the entire time I've considered myself the junior partner.

I took on the consigliere role.

My business partner is the kind of blond haired, corn fed Iowa boy that people look up to. Literally. Former college football champion, has great stories, can relate to just about anybody, and he can code. A man of his word. Usually keeps his actual thoughts to himself. Calm under pressure. I've only heard him raise his voice twice. And never to yell.

Me? I'm a fired up Latin man from Jersey. My normal excited tone is considered yelling by some people. I tell it like it is, and I can cut people by being too honest. And I live in the West. My default leadership style doesn't play well out here. At all.

We have a good dynamic between us. He runs the website/software side of out business, I run the marketing agency.

Every January for years I'd walk into his office, wanting to sit down for a strategy session. We'd talk for a few hours. I always looked to him to set the direction for the company. He is the founder after all. At the end of this meeting, he would always wrap up the same way, "I don't know man. I have to think about it." Years passed.

I started hiring people a few years back, for the marketing side of the agency. I made a lot of mistakes. I would get angry whenever things didn't go right. Bobby Knight came back out to play.

The strange thing is these people are still my friends today. They call, they visit, they check in, we hang out. I love these guys. They respect me, they appreciate me.

They just couldn't work for me.

In January of 2019, with my divorce in full swing and my depression kicking in, I went into my partner's office and said, "this year we're not going to do the usual meeting. If my life is falling apart, I need this business to be successful. So this year I'm just going to tell you what we're going to do, and you're going to say okay."

And do you know what he said?

"I've been waiting 4 years for you to say that man."

:rage::rage::rage:

I told you he keeps his thoughts to himself...:rofl:

Anyways, in an effort to not fail my kids and my business, I have dedicated the last 14 months to being the best leader I can be.

Here's what I've learned so far:

A Leader Shares A Vision

Part of why people left was they had no idea where we were going. A lot of the feedback I got from those guys was that we were always spinning our wheels.

This is one of my favorite stories about communicating a vision:

In 1983, Jobs was looking for a new president for Apple. Even though he was a co-founder, he was considered too young and inexperienced for the job of running day-to-day operations, so he was recruiting someone successful who he thought he could work successfully with. He targeted Sculley. It was a crazy idea to try to get the head of one of the country’s most successful companies to come lead a small computer company, but Jobs went after what he wanted. Sculley later remembered how Jobs finished his pitch:

“And then he looked up at me and just stared at me with the stare that only Steve Jobs has and he said, ‘Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or do you want to come with me and change the world?’ And I just gulped, because I knew I would wonder for the rest of my life what I would have missed.”

Source: 'Do you want to sell sugar water ... or do you want to change the world?' - David McElroy


So as the leader, set the course for your company. Communicate your why. Communicate your goals. Communicate the problem you are taking responsibility for.

A Leader Shares A Culture

A leader not only shares where we’re going, but a leader imparts the values we are going to use on the journey.

There are entire books written on this subject that can communicate this better than I can. The best I could do is tell you about my culture, and maybe I'll just write a separate thread about that.

A Leader Empowers His/Her Team

I used to think a leader had to make all the decisions. Then I thought the leader had to make all the tough decisions. But I don't think any of that's actually true.

I can't possibly make every decision every day. In order to get to where we need to get to, I had to find a way to empower my team to make decisions. So I came up with a framework, a manifesto, a set of rules to live by.

First, my team knows that our goal for every client is to implement targeted tactics to profitably acquire customers.

Here are our "house rules":
  1. Never say anything that isn't accurate
  2. Be persuasive
  3. Be better this month than you were last
  4. If you don't know, find out
  5. Don't over promise
  6. Don't use seven words when three will do
  7. Don't let computers do our thinking for us
As long as my people make their decisions with that goal in mind and within this framework, I can live with what they come up with.

A Leader Takes Responsibility

This was my turning point. When things used to go wrong, I used to question the persons whose job it was to make sure it didn't go wrong. Interrogate would probably be a better term. They would take on a lot of blame. I'd probably use some harsh language. I just wanted to get to the bottom of it to make sure it never happened again.

Now, when anything goes wrong, I remember as the leader, it's on me first and foremost. My first question is what did I do wrong? Did I fully communicate what needed to be done? Did I have unreasonable expectations? Did I fully train this person to handle the task?

So I approach the interaction with a lot more humility. Mistakes still happen. But Bobby Knight hasn't shown his face around here in 14 months.

My most recent addition to the team told me in our first week that the reason she took the job was because she wanted to work for somebody like me. She's now been here almost 3 months. I asked her last week how she felt it was going. She told me that that morning she had told her sister she loves going to work. She smiles on her way into work. We're helping people and she's learning so much and we handle our business. We're all just so peaceful. She loves it.

We're all just so peaceful. :rofl:

----------

My friends, I'll leave you with these thoughts.

"You can do anything you put your mind to".

So if you're harboring negative attitudes towards leadership, I'd ask you to explore that. Are your underlying assumptions actually true? Or are you just coming up with more excuses to hold yourself back?

I can't tell you how much time or money I've lost waiting for someone else to lead. But I'm not going to fret about it either. We all have our paths to walk, and it happened to take me this long to learn this lesson life was throwing at me. Over. And over. I'm by no means a leadership expert. But hopefully some of this will help you on your journey.

Practice being a better leader. You'll make mistakes, we all do, but you won't start getting better until you first believe that you can get better.

And I believe you can get better. After all, you're an entrepreneur. Getting better at things is what we do.

Now that you know a little more about me and where I'm coming from, I'd appreciate any leadership advice you have to give. Thank you.
I keep coming back to this post! Thank you for the golden nuggets of wisdom
 

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