by Charles Plant | Aug 31, 2012 | Emotional Intelligence, Leadership Development
Do you ever wonder why some entrepreneurs manage to stay at the helm of their creations while others are relegated to supporting roles. Why were Bill Gates, Michael Dell, and Mark Zuckerberg able to stay as CEOs while other founders of companies such as Linked and eBay were not? Why were Larry Page and Steve Jobs able to return as CEOs to companies they founded when they had been replaced years before by hired CEOs? It all comes down to what is essentially, an entrepreneur’s journey.
Stage 1 – Technology
When you start a business, you have to be technically astute, able to understand the technical complexities of your product, able to translate product ideas into a product that works. For this reason, most founding entrepreneurs have a strong technology background. They are able to tackle the myriad details necessary for the creation of a product with technical superiority.
Stage 2 – Business Skills
As the technology becomes ready for the market, an entrepreneur must shift to being a business person. S/he must gain knowledge about marketing, sales, finance and legal issues that will determine whether the product can be turned into a business. The entrepreneur must acquire all sorts of business skills in this second part of the journey. Some entrepreneurs can make the leap from being a technologist to being a business person. This leap isn’t that hard as for a bright entrepreneur, this is simply the acquisition of another body of knowledge. Someone with the brains to be a good technologist can acquire the knowledge of business needed to get into the market successfully.
Stage 3 – Leadership
The last stage of the journey is that which turns an entrepreneur into a successful leader. Becoming a leader however isn’t about acquiring skills, it is all about behaviour and this is where many good Stage 2 Entrepreneurs fail. Being a leader means getting things done through other people. To do this, technology and business skills are not enough.
A good leader must be able to set a vision, communicate that vision and motivate people to buy into that vision. This requires emotional intelligence, not technical intelligence and is hard to learn.You can’t learn this from a text book or from a class. It is especially hard to learn if you don’t have anyone to serve as a role model.
Gates, Dell and Zuckerberg were obviously able to make the leap from Stage 1 to Stage 2 to Stage 3 with out skipping a step. Unfortunately, Reid Hoffman and Pierre Omidyar couldn’t make the leap. What was great to see however was that with experience, Larry Page and Steve Jobs were able to return to the job of CEO, having become effective leaders in the interim.
by Charles Plant | Aug 30, 2012 | Leaders, Leadership Development
You have probably heard of or perhaps even volunteered for Habitat for Humanity. Its history is one of a personal vision that became a worldwide reality. The concept began in 1942, when a farmer and scholar by the name of Clarence Jordan, founded a small community outside of Americus, Georgia. He called it Koinonia Farm.
In 1965, Millard and Linda Fuller visited the community having recently left a successful business and an affluent lifestyle in Montgomery, Alabama. Their vision was to begin a new life of service to mankind. At Koinonia, Jordan and Fuller developed the concept of “partnership housing.” The idea was those in need of adequate shelter could work side by side with volunteers to build simple, decent houses.
The Fullers decided to apply the concept in developing countries when they moved to Zaire in 1973. After three years of hard work to launch a successful house building program, they returned to the United States.
The little idea grew and the Fullers founded the Habitat for Humanity movement in 1976. The movement set out to build houses at no profit and charge no interest on loans needed to build them. The fund’s money would come from the new homeowners’ house payments, no-interest loans provided by supporters and money earned by fund-raising activities.
“Since 1976, Habitat for Humanity International has built, rehabilitated, repaired or improved more than 500,000 houses worldwide – providing shelter for more than 2 million people.”
by Charles Plant | Aug 29, 2012 | Exercises, Leadership Development
Well? Do you have one? I ask many people this question and I get very few coherent answers. This vision stuff is hard. It’s easier to go with the flow but as Yogi Berra famously said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.” You weren’t expecting that quote were you. You were probably expecting something like: “If you come to a fork in the road, take it.” I also happen to like: “You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.”
Whatever. The thing is, if you don’t have a personal vision, then your life will be subject to those around you who do have personal visions. You’ll spend your life making their visions into reality instead of making one of your own.
If you don’t have one of your own and want to develop one then you could read “A Lazy Man’s Guide to Success.”
For a short cut to developing your own vision, you could answer the following questions that come from the book:
What is your Work? What happens when you are giving your greatest gift to the world? How are people different as a consequence of having been in your presence? See it as an image. Use present tense. Answer these questions:
- What gives you a sense of aliveness, that feels “just right”?
- What do you dream about; what holds you spellbound?
- What are blessings you could give back to the world?
- Whose work or life inspires you?
- What would you talk about if given an hour of prime time TV to influence the nation or the world?
- What makes you angry enough to correct in the world?
- What contribution of yours will be more profound than others doing something similar?
by Charles Plant | Aug 24, 2012 | Emotional Intelligence, Leadership Development
OK, here we go again with the Friday “5 Signs” post. I tried to channel my inner “Bad Boss” but then I realized, just think of some of the worst people you’ve worked with before. So here it is, 5 signs that your boss lacks intrapersonal intelligence.
- S/he’s a yeller. Now yelling doesn’t even have to be loud, it can be quite quiet but you sure know when you’ve been reamed out by the tone of voice. Yelling goes along with mood swings, grunts, facial twitches and other signs of emotional distress.
- Your boss takes all the credit for your successes but gives you the blame for his or her failures. Oh yeah. This is a wicked one. Problem is that it’s hard for upper management to catch whereas grunts and facial twitches are evident daily.
- Micromanaging. Yes, this does stem from Interpersonal Intelligence. The micro-manager can’t take any risks and you bear the brunt of stupid immaterial revisions and much second guessing.
- Flip- flopping. Yes, this is a management term. Just look it up. Flip-floppers are ones who can’t make up their minds, especially in challenging situations. There they go again, changing their minds as frequently as their underwear.
- Keeping grudges. Remember that time you didn’t complete that report correctly back in February. (You probably got yelled at for that too.) Well for sure that will be a part of this year’s performance appraisal, no matter how immaterial it is.
Fortunately, the weekend is here and if you’ve got one of these bosses then you have a few days to chill out and get ready for another week of job searching.
by Charles Plant | Aug 22, 2012 | Emotional Intelligence, Leadership Development, Video
Chip has written some great stuff in his book Emotional Equations. He really speaks to this issue of Intrapersonal Intelligence, measuring what makes you happy. I found this TED Talk very enjoyable and thought you would too.
I had trouble embedding the video so just follow this link:
