Thoughts on leading
I have been thinking about leading recently. What are the qualities that make a leader? What are common to good leaders? While I have a long way to go as a leader, I've learned from my own experience of leading a startup, and reading, listening to and observing other leaders. I've met both good and bad leaders, and I'd like to share with you qualities I consider vital to good leaders.
1. I want to be a leader. I think this is the most critical differentiator! To paraphrase Napoleon, if we don't want to become a general at the first place, we'll always be a soldier. Every leader I know, they want to be leaders in their respective area, because they associate massive pleasure to sitting behind the steering wheel. They associate massive pleasure to leading, coaching and helping others. They associate massive pleasure of making critical decisions.
2. Lead myself first, before I lead others. If I can't lead myself, if I can't master my own emotions, actions and confidence, and if I can't ask the right questions to myself, how can I lead others? How can I help others gain confidence? How can I help others master their emotions and actions? The most precious lesson I learned in the past two years, as a startup founder, is building strong self-awareness. Leading myself requires having strong self-awareness, and that's why I've spent lots of time working on emotion mastery.
3. Ask empowering questions, help others master emotions and actions. I learned that more important than mastering "skills" is mastering mentalities, i.e. one's emotions and actions. To master mentalities, it's key to ask empowering questions, because if we ask disempowering questions, we focus on problems. But if we ask empowering questions, we focus on solutions. It's important because we constantly encounter personal and professional lows in our lives. What questions we ask decides what we focus on next. What we focus on next decides what our actions are. What our actions are decides what outcomes we will produce. When the team is low in morale due to some predicaments, asking empowering questions brings solutions, while asking disempowering questions brings nothing.
4. Be a slower thinker and better listener. I always remind myself that if I want others to listen to me, I must listen to others first. If I want to lead, I must know how to follow first. The way I practiced this is to consciously slow down my thinking, make as few assumptions as possible, and delay any judgement. Many of us are proud to be a fast thinker. And it’s a common belief that in order to to be smart, you need to think fast. But I disagree. I found that the answer I came up fast is usually based on one of the three below
5. Stay foolish, stay young. I've been long pondering over what Steve Jobs meant by "stay foolish". Now I start to see a clear answer. To me it means being flexible. Be adaptable to the environment, and be ready to change. I found adaptability is almost the most critical quality for one to lead a company to keep recreating itself. It's terribly hard to build a successful startup. We all know. Because building a successful product that's massively adopted is hard. But many of us don't realize that what's even harder, is that a company continues to launch new products – after its first success – that are massively adopted over 10, 20 and more years. It takes massive efforts to re-create, and it requires leaders to constantly act as young, foolish but bold beginners. Apple started making computers. Then it continue to recreate itself by making iPods, phones, tablets, watches, and more. Google started making search engine. Then it re-created itself by making email, map, browser, cloud services, phones, self-driving cars, and more.
6. Empower others by removing their limiting beliefs. I learned that empowering others means help others raise their standards, change their beliefs that are limiting them, and commit on high-level execution. Usually people don't do a thing not because they are incapable. Rather, they believe they are not capable because of X, Y and Z. In fact, X, Y and Z are nothing more than our limiting beliefs. I helped designers with no programming background learn coding, and eventually love coding. I did it by uncovering what their limiting beliefs are (e.g. I never learned programming before), and replacing the limiting beliefs with empowering pleasures – pleasures associated with programming: e.g. commanding a tool to do what you'd like it to do, seeing a live product, making friends with engineers, increasing salary, moving up in career, etc. When one associates more pleasure with doing something and more pain with not doing it, she will commit.
7. Be radically supportive. I learned from Ed Catmull, Keith Rabois and AngelList that allowing others to take risks and make mistakes is the best motivator. "Ask for forgiveness, not permission." I found particularly stimulating when I am told by a leader "I think you're wrong, but prove me wrong." I found we can produce the best results when I told others the same thing. Intelligent people are competitive, and all we have to give them is a competition.
8. Be radically transparent and candid. I always ask for candid feedback and I always give candid feedback.
1. I want to be a leader. I think this is the most critical differentiator! To paraphrase Napoleon, if we don't want to become a general at the first place, we'll always be a soldier. Every leader I know, they want to be leaders in their respective area, because they associate massive pleasure to sitting behind the steering wheel. They associate massive pleasure to leading, coaching and helping others. They associate massive pleasure of making critical decisions.
2. Lead myself first, before I lead others. If I can't lead myself, if I can't master my own emotions, actions and confidence, and if I can't ask the right questions to myself, how can I lead others? How can I help others gain confidence? How can I help others master their emotions and actions? The most precious lesson I learned in the past two years, as a startup founder, is building strong self-awareness. Leading myself requires having strong self-awareness, and that's why I've spent lots of time working on emotion mastery.
3. Ask empowering questions, help others master emotions and actions. I learned that more important than mastering "skills" is mastering mentalities, i.e. one's emotions and actions. To master mentalities, it's key to ask empowering questions, because if we ask disempowering questions, we focus on problems. But if we ask empowering questions, we focus on solutions. It's important because we constantly encounter personal and professional lows in our lives. What questions we ask decides what we focus on next. What we focus on next decides what our actions are. What our actions are decides what outcomes we will produce. When the team is low in morale due to some predicaments, asking empowering questions brings solutions, while asking disempowering questions brings nothing.
4. Be a slower thinker and better listener. I always remind myself that if I want others to listen to me, I must listen to others first. If I want to lead, I must know how to follow first. The way I practiced this is to consciously slow down my thinking, make as few assumptions as possible, and delay any judgement. Many of us are proud to be a fast thinker. And it’s a common belief that in order to to be smart, you need to think fast. But I disagree. I found that the answer I came up fast is usually based on one of the three below
- Something I've known long before – which might be outdated today.
- Something I've assumed – which is usually wrong.
- Or, an emotional response – which means I am not mastering my emotions well.
5. Stay foolish, stay young. I've been long pondering over what Steve Jobs meant by "stay foolish". Now I start to see a clear answer. To me it means being flexible. Be adaptable to the environment, and be ready to change. I found adaptability is almost the most critical quality for one to lead a company to keep recreating itself. It's terribly hard to build a successful startup. We all know. Because building a successful product that's massively adopted is hard. But many of us don't realize that what's even harder, is that a company continues to launch new products – after its first success – that are massively adopted over 10, 20 and more years. It takes massive efforts to re-create, and it requires leaders to constantly act as young, foolish but bold beginners. Apple started making computers. Then it continue to recreate itself by making iPods, phones, tablets, watches, and more. Google started making search engine. Then it re-created itself by making email, map, browser, cloud services, phones, self-driving cars, and more.
6. Empower others by removing their limiting beliefs. I learned that empowering others means help others raise their standards, change their beliefs that are limiting them, and commit on high-level execution. Usually people don't do a thing not because they are incapable. Rather, they believe they are not capable because of X, Y and Z. In fact, X, Y and Z are nothing more than our limiting beliefs. I helped designers with no programming background learn coding, and eventually love coding. I did it by uncovering what their limiting beliefs are (e.g. I never learned programming before), and replacing the limiting beliefs with empowering pleasures – pleasures associated with programming: e.g. commanding a tool to do what you'd like it to do, seeing a live product, making friends with engineers, increasing salary, moving up in career, etc. When one associates more pleasure with doing something and more pain with not doing it, she will commit.
7. Be radically supportive. I learned from Ed Catmull, Keith Rabois and AngelList that allowing others to take risks and make mistakes is the best motivator. "Ask for forgiveness, not permission." I found particularly stimulating when I am told by a leader "I think you're wrong, but prove me wrong." I found we can produce the best results when I told others the same thing. Intelligent people are competitive, and all we have to give them is a competition.
8. Be radically transparent and candid. I always ask for candid feedback and I always give candid feedback.
