Business Leadership – 18 key learnings
This week I came across the tweet below about business leadership from a guy called Michael Girdley, who is based in San Antonio, USA, and according to his bio is ‘Building my own business empire with seven businesses so far built, bought or incubated.’ , so he knows a bit about business! If you want to find out more about him click here.
As he states, these are 18 business leadership things that he’s learnt over the years. You can click on the image above to see the original 18 tweet thread, or read it all in one go below. The 18 points resonated with me so much I’ve shared them below. Many of the points are topics that I repeatedly talk about, so it was good to hear them from someone else too.
1) Be someone people want to work for
I’ve read about many CEOs. They may have been seen as evil or hard by outsiders. But they all had employees that loved them. And stayed super-loyal. Jerks often get ahead in the short-term, but bosses employees love win in the long-term.
2) CEO is the loneliest job in the world
The CEO is ‘friendly’ with their reports but you’re not peers. And certainly not friends in a classic sense. You’re their boss. So, the job is lonely.
Two things you can do; Join a CEO peer group; Have a life outside of work.
3) If you can’t leave for a month and things go well, you don’t have a business
It’s a job. Too many build businesses that depend entirely on them. Besides being miserable, it’s not way to scale. Create systems and hire people to make it a real business.
4) Reading the news is usually a waste of time for entrepreneurs
It’s noise. What you know that others don’t is what really matters. The WSJ, CNBC or the New York Times don’t have any information that’ll help you make payroll or win another customer.
5) Being in a good market and business matters more than how hard you work
I’ve seen lazy morons kill it in great markets. And great teams murdered by hard businesses. What business you choose is the biggest impact decision you’ll make.
6) Your company is not a ‘family’
Stop calling it that. It’s so fake and employees see through it. Instead, treat your company like an all-star team. Everyone is there because it’s the best possible fit for both the employee and the employer.
7) The CEO is always the last to know
By the time you hear a rumour, you can assume the entire company knows about it already. This is freeing because you can worry less about who knows what. They all know already. The rumour mill is that strong.
8) In building a business, first thing is always ‘go sell’
Before you build the thing/buy the truck/write that code/etc. The best way to prove demand is to find a real, paying customer. Worst feeling in the world is building something nobody wants.
9) People with ‘skin in the game’ outperform
This is psychological – they take ownership of the mission. As a CEO, you must do everything to get people into this mindset. It can be bonus schemes, stock, responsibility, taking a change on them, etc.
10) CEOs are in a never-ending battle against complexity
Your staff are going to make things harder than they need to be. Keep them to first principles thinking. Keep jobs simple; so simple a ham sandwich could do them. Simple is beautiful. Simple wins.
11) Every new entrepreneurial venture should be able to be modelled on an envelope
If it can’t, you don’t have enough margin of safety built in. Be careful of modelling in growth as well. Every investment will underwrite if it has 40% annual growth for 5 years!
12) Most people expect business to be about big moves, but it’s really about grinding out 0.5% improvements every day
This is the opposite of what we’re told. So, it’s easy to be ‘What’s the money move we make today? Turns out that’s getting in there and grinding it out.
13) If you don’t have a thought-out system for any business task, you still have a system
It’s just a bad system. High-performing companies have thought-out systems for everything (hiring, planning, etc).
14) EBITDA is a useful tool but free cash flow matters most
Cash is the life blood of any business. EBITDA doesn’t pay your bank loans after all.
15) Most small business CEOs underinvest in personal development
There is no class for the “CEO” job in college. Reading lots and being curious is table stakes to be a great CEO. Joining a peer group (see loneliness above) will take it to the max. You must be growing 24/7.
16) The best business ideas are found while you’re working on something else
You discover a new problem to solve. The funny thing is they’re often staring you in the face. You and all your CEO buddies have the same problem? Business opportunity right there.
17) The CEO job changes at each stage of the company
Who your company needs from you changes all the time
At the start, you’re everything and doing everything. By the time you have 1,000 people, you’re an exec with 3 layers of managers below you; a totally different role.
18) Nobody ever says I waited too long to split with a bad employee fit
In 25 years, NO ONE has ever said this to me. We all wait too long. The crazy thing? By the time you do something about a poor fit, every one of your other employees will think ‘what took them so long?’
Please let me know what you think about these 18 lessons on business leadership. And any feedback/comments etc about the above would be more than welcome.
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