I was failing my team. I was failing as a leader.
This realisation hit me hard. It had me stumped.
The price of failure would be massive. Salaries wouldn’t get paid, and the team couldn’t take care of their families. The company would lose staff, and we wouldn’t be able to deliver for our customers. Business loan repayments would fall behind. My house was the collateral!
It was my worst nightmare. I lay awake, staring at the ceiling.
It’s every entrepreneur’s worst nightmare.
But, failure isn’t an option. There has to be a way to win. Even when the odds are against you. Here’s how:
Lessons From The Trenches – Newsletter #1:
Become A Better Leader.
This will be the toughest of all the lessons I share with you in the series.
The examples are embarrassing to share, and the skillset sometimes feels impossible to learn. However, failing to lead will lead to failure.
“But Paul! Leaders are born, not made!”
I’m not a born leader. At no point in my education was I categorised as a “leader of tomorrow” and ordained as a sports captain or a class prefect. I believed that God-given leadership abilities were a prerequisite to becoming a true leader.
That is a lie.
Sure some people seem to have natural leadership abilities, but they still have to work on it. They still need to understand what makes a leader great and develop those skills regardless of their natural talent for the job. And then, they need time in the role—actual practice in real-world scenarios to get better at it. They need REPS.
So, in theory, if we could understand the makeup of a good leader, we could seek to emulate those attributes and develop our skills through repetitions and self-evaluation.
The truth is: Everyone can become a better leader if they’re willing to put in the effort.
A Leaders Mindset.
Think about the best leaders you’ve ever met. What was their mindset? What was their general attitude and style?
Here is the best summary I’ve been able to compile:
- Humility
- Ownership
- Teamwork
- Drive
1_ Humility
You must understand that I don’t mean ‘humble’ in a meek-and-mild kind of way; I mean the kind of humility that comes with quiet confidence. The best leaders are humble and don’t need to take all the accolades or be grandstanded to showcase their importance. They tend to deflect accolades to their team members.
2_ Ownership
The best leaders know that the burden of responsibility rests squarely on their shoulders. They never pass blame and understand that excuses don’t matter or help achieve the objectives. They know that every problem has a solution. It just requires perspective to find it and effort to implement it.
3_ Teamwork
The best leaders understand the force-multiplying power of teamwork. They take care of their people, which might mean taking the pressure off or adding some pressure to stretch the individual out of their comfort zone. Most importantly, they act as a unifying force. They create a place for team members to share thoughts, ideas and opinions openly. They lead through relationships and not by proxy given to them by title.
4_ Drive
Just because they’re humble doesn’t mean they’re passive. The best leaders want to win and have a clear definition of what winning means. They also know that there are only two measures that matter “Effective or Ineffective.” Success seems to follow them around, even in the face of adversity.
If these sounds familiar, there are two possible explanations:
First, you’ve read “Extreme Ownership” by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. Or second, you’ve met people who exhibit the traits that the best leaders in history have all shared—the same traits captured in the book and mentioned above.
No matter where the information comes from, this is the mindset of a good leader.
Lessons
I Failed— Lessons From The Trenches.
I knew the lessons. I understood the mindset. I’d become a student of Extreme Ownership and was actively practising becoming a better leader.
And then, I failed.
Lesson 1
After immersing myself in becoming a better leader, I became convinced that my entire team would benefit from reading and practicing Extreme Ownership.
My team condescendingly called me the “High Priest of EO”. I preached its virtues and potential. I even bought the book for everyone in the company.
“If only they would get on board. If only everyone in the team would read Extreme Ownership. Imagine how good we’d be!”
But that was a fail! It was the exact opposite of what a good leader would do. I was actually passing the blame onto my team, and I barely realised it.
Think about it for a moment. My actions were saying:
“I don’t think you take enough ownership, and if you could just get with the program, everything would be a lot better.”
Thanks to my approach, there was mass rejection of the principles. It made everything worse!
I had to reverse out of my position without letting ego get in the way. And, most importantly I had to get myself back in line and lead by example.
It took a long time, but in the end, it was worth it. The team built a brand new mission for the company. They put it on the wall. But more importantly, they wore it in their hearts.
Remember that if your team aren’t performing the way you’d like them to, interrogate your actions first. That’s what a good leader would do.
Lesson 2
I used the “get out of jail free card”.
The Microsoft data centre had experienced a short outage. A large customer relied on the system we’d built for them. When the outage happened, they didn’t seem to have access to the failover environment the same way everyone else did.
They were about to lose a fortune in revenue.
We were proactive and immediately set to work resolving the issue. We also set up a meeting with the executives right away. We were so proud of ourselves for “being on top of things”.
When we walked into the executive office, we were in control. The system was running, and we had a plan to mitigate the issue from ever happening again.
It seems about perfect, doesn’t it?
The executive thanked us for our efforts but felt that Microsoft was responsible.
So, how did I fail?
Well, I just sat there and let him go on complaining about Microsoft. When we left the meeting, it felt as though we’d received a “Get out of jail card”. I felt relieved.
But, by the time I reached the parking lot I realised what I had done! If a customer lost any trust in Microsoft, they effectively lost trust in us! We bet our entire business on the Microsoft platform. And through my silence, I’d passed the blame along.
That’s not something a good leader would do.
After beating myself up for a few minutes, I called Microsoft executives and took full accountability for my actions. They weren’t happy.
After a deep breath and went back up to the customer’s office. I then proceeded to tell the executive how I should’ve done a better job at mitigating the risk for them and that Microsoft wasn’t to blame. I set out some actions we would take to make sure it never happened again.
My customer was not happy. We could lose them forever.
I felt sick to my stomach.
Three days later, Microsoft executives from the UK had flown in to meet the customer in person. I opened the meeting and once again accepted the blame for the issue. I apologised to both parties in person.
The result?
An incredible meeting. Everyone took ownership of part of the issue and made commitments to work together better in the future.
When we closed, the customer executive walked me to my car. He shook my hand and said:
“In 35 years, I’ve never had a supplier do what you just did. Thank you for stepping up and making this happen”
Wrapping Up.
Learn from my mistakes, and avoid making them yourself.
Understand what it takes to become a better leader, evaluate yourself honestly, and then work on improving a tiny bit each day. Get the reps in; they will pay off.
Let me know how it goes. Seriously, I’m looking forward to hearing from you.
Psst: If you have questions or just need to check-in before that, contact us.
