Your people make you a leader 🧲
↩️UNFOLLOW University — June 9, 2023
Happy Friday!
Working in the tech industry 10 years ago, I witnessed a never-ending TED talk of disposable advice. Every Silicon Valley superstar had discovered the one way to transform business and then wrote the one book to show us how.
So many of these best-selling “insights” are now expired because we turned individual experiences into universal principles. It was too easy to overlook the one thing all great leaders have in common: luck.
I think 90% of business books would have been better as blog posts. But Trillion Dollar Coach is not one of those books.
Trillion Dollar Coach captures the genesis of the most successful tech companies and the genius of the one guy they all have in common: Bill Campbell.
After getting fired as a college football coach, Bill went on to help build Apple, Amazon, Google, Intuit and other high-flying tech behemoths. The traits that limited his success as a football coach - empathy, candor and compassion - became his greatest strength as a business leader.
He was the marketing leader that said "F--- it! Let's run it" when the Apple board vetoed the TV commercial, 1984. He moved forward anyway to make one of the most iconic ads in history.
As the former CEO of Intuit, Bill sat on the board during my time there. I remember being in a state of awe at how the culture was the exact opposite of so much I had learned before.
Very senior leaders posted their own performance reviews outside their offices.
Billionaire founders listened intently to consumers and took notes on product feedback.
Employees openly pursued other jobs that were a better fit for their skills.
Learning from failure was celebrated.
Unstructured time to think, create and learn was encouraged.
I earned the nickname “Velvet Hammer” from my Intuit team for the way I was simultaneously a supportive cheerleader and a demanding coach. I’m not sure it was always meant as a compliment but it became a superpower. 😬
Sadly, Bill left us in 2016 so his playbook for courageous leadership was compiled by the people he mentored and the lessons they learned.
But one of my favorite lessons was the simplest…
🤯 Radical Truth
Your title makes you a manager. Your people make you a leader.
Bill embraced the words he received from his own business coach: “If you’re a successful manager, your people will make you a leader.”
Management matters. But successful teams need more than competent managers, they require courageous leaders.
What do courageous leaders do?
Courageous leaders run toward problems and pick the biggest fights. It’s the only way to protect a winning culture or reverse a losing one.
Courageous leaders don’t hide from hard conversations. In fact, they pursue creative solutions by harvesting healthy confrontations to push people out of their comfort zones.
Courageous leaders give critical feedback when no one wants to hear it because that’s when they need to hear it.
Courageous leaders earn trust with their integrity. People who say what they mean and mean what they say are more sought after than leaders who are nice but insincere.
Courageous leaders know the difference between task conflict (decision disagreement) and relationship conflict (emotional friction). They nurture the former and neutralize the latter.
Courageous leaders focus on the team’s dynamics before trying to solve their problems for them.
Smart people call this stuff “relational transparency” or “authenticity.” Bill called it a requirement.
Be warned. In a healthy organization, being courageous will mark you as a helpful mentor and future leader. In an unhealthy one, courage will make you a hazardous menace and a threat. I’ve experienced both sides of that token.
Instead of demanding respect, let it accrue to you. The very credibility required to be an effective leader is the byproduct of delivering results as a manager first. Consistent competence with integrity is a winning formula no matter the industry.
Everything you do either builds your team up or tears them down. Be the magnet that attracts courage, not the barrier that blocks it.
⚡️Courageous Question
What’s stopping you from being the leader you know your team needs right now?
🗣 Wonderful Words
“A coach is someone who tells you what you don't want to hear, who has you see what you don't want to see, so you can be who you have always known you could be”
🙏🏽 Prayer Package
God, you are the source of all lasting success. Fill me with the wisdom to make decisions that honor your will for my business and company. Being courageous on my own is exhausting and sometimes feels thankless. Encourage my soul so I can be aware of your presence and know that I have never walked or worked alone. We are not your employees, we are your sons and daughters. May the tasks I do, the teams I lead and the results I achieve all point to my Father. Amen.
🎵 A Great Work - Brian Courtney Wilson 🪴
🛠 Practical Tool
We all talk about trust but how do you define it? I love Bill’s definition:
“Trust means freeing people to do their jobs and make decisions. It means knowing people want to do well and believing that they will.”
Here are a few powerful ideas I come back to often from Trillion Dollar Coach:
Getting to the right answer is important, but having the whole team get there is just as important. The way to get the best idea is to get all opinions and ideas out in the open.
Leaders facilitate decisions, not democracy. Calculating and taking risks should feel less like taking votes and more like improv comedians creating a conversation.
A manager's job is to break ties and make their people better. Only coach the coachable.
Why is marketing losing its clout? Because it forgot its first name: product.
Trust doesn't mean you always agree; in fact, it makes it easier to disagree with someone.
Having a well-run process to get to a decision is just as important as the decision itself.
We often feel torn between supporting and challenging others. It's a false dichotomy. You want to be supportive and demanding, holding high standards but giving the encouragement necessary to reach them.
Bill Campbell sharing a quick 3-minute summary of how he leads leaders so they become multipliers of talent vs. diminishers of it.
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Every Friday I’ll send you 5 courageous ideas to help you redesign your work life by making better career decisions:
🤯 Radical Truth - A story from me
⚡️ Courageous Question - A challenge for you
🗣 Wonderful Words - A quote worth remembering
🙏🏽 Prayer Package - A moment of meditation
🛠 Practical Tool - An actionable resource
