A VC in Vacationland

Perhaps the most frequent question I am asked by CEO’s in my investment portfolio is how do I become a good, or better yet, a great leader? Leadership is an adaptive process, one that changes frequently during the life of a start up.  This post will be on the basics of great leadership. Whether it be a start up or multi-billion dollar corporation, the fundamentals are the same. In future posts, I will look at how leadership must evolve as the start ups goes through various stages of growth, Finally, I will examine how to hire people with the right leadership skills.

Leadership is both an art and a science.  The science part is knowing what you have to do to be successful–having detailed, quantitative information on customer/marketplace needs, for example.  The art is getting your people to do it–having them buy into the vision and understand the value both to them and your customers.  And I always remind myself that getting the vision right is often much harder than making it happen.  If you are wrong, then a lot of people are going to work very hard and get no rewards–not a good model for success.

The three core characteristics of a great leader are: having right vision, being able to effectively communicate the vision , and sticking to the plan to implement the vision.

Having the right vision is more difficult than it sounds: you need to have both a short term and long term views of where markets are going, for example.  You need to keep the long view in mind while being able to execute against short term goals, such as completing an initial product launch which may not have all the features in the long term vision.

A great leader communicates the vision early and often to all their constituents–investors, customers and their team if you are a start up.  Don’t assume people understand all the nuances of the vision.  You may think about them a lot and refine them constantly, but they may not. Constantly ask if people understand where you want to go and how you plan to get there.

The hardest part of leadership is sticking to the vision and the plan.  You face many challenges, are torn in many different directions and question the path you are on at times, but you hang in there to get it done. The best entrepreneurial leaders are those that have a fanatical focus on what they want to accomplish and politely exclude interesting, but distracting tangents.

A final attribute, and one often overlooked, is sharing the rewards.  Never let anyone feel that you are only in this for yourself.  Make sure that you make your investors, customers and people successful first. Unselfishness around rewards will bring you success, and happy team members.