“The ability to charm dogs off a meat truck”…   “When people want to follow you even if just out of curiosity” …  “The ability to make the other guys feel in charge”.  To “empower”, to “motivate”, to “inspire”…  The list of attributes to what makes a great leader is countless.  They all make a good read, but none of them fully capture the true essence of what makes a great Leader in a complete way, I believe

Great leaders may posses a myriad of attributes, no least of which are smarts, intelligence, charisma and natural charm. All of these things matter. However you can be a great leader and not be naturally charming or very intelligent, or many of the other attributes named. continue reading »

I was recently at a gathering of entrepreneurs and we talked about our challenges, what we like and what we don’t like about what we do. And one thing struck me: no-one in the group actually enjoyed being the boss (me included). And by that I don’t mean that they don’t value the independence. We all do. But we all see managing people as a necessary evil, a means to an end not the end itself.

And when i thought about it it actually makes sense. Entrepreneurs (or at least the true breed of entrepreneurs) are not people who rise up the ranks and become CEOs. They are mavericks, the round  pegs in the square holes, people who don’t abide by social norms or fit in  large groups be it social groups or corporations. What drives them is an itch to innovate, to create products that serve customers in ways that are either totally novel or just better than what’s out there already.

I’ve not heard one entrepreneur tell me that they started a business because their dream was to be a manager. In fact most exceptional entrepreneurs are terrible managers. They are visionaries who see what others don’t, they are go-getters who take risks and go out to build what they see. But they are not managers. They are too impatient, temperamental, too firey and passionate, and have high standards. Too high for most people to meet, at least consistently. Managing is something that comes with the ride and has to be thrown into the mix.continue reading »

Hiring is one of the most important skills in being an entrepreneur. And no one ever gets its all right. I’ve now been an entrepreneur for 8 years and I can tell you if you manage to attract and retain a handful of truly world class people you are lucky and onto a winner.

A key lesson I’ve learn is that people’s qualities can broadly be split into two categories. Process and Content.

Content is the thing you produce in whatever vertical function you are in. If you’re a marketer it’s the stuff that will attract and retain new customers. If you’re in finance it’s the quality of your numbers and analysis. If you’re in product it’s the stuff you build and how it impacts your users.

Content is the real deal. It’s defines the quality of what you actually ship. But here’s the thing. For content to be great it needs process. Especially as you grow. And very few people I’ve met are actually world class at both.continue reading »

Ask ten managers what their company culture is and they’ll probably send you to the HR department. Frankly, I used to be one of them. Recently, I went through a turning point following which I now consider culture building my No1 priority as a leader. Here’s why.

To set the setting: my company has grown almost three-fold in headcount in the last six months. We went from just over 15 people to now about 50. Naturally what happens at this pace of growth is the controls and processes you had in place are no longer able to give you the same level of grasp on the business as before. There’s just too much going on.

The natural inclination of most managers in this situation is to inject more process, more rules and manuals, more middle layers of management to delegate to so as to ensure that things run as efficiently as they used to. Whilst some of this is necessary, if this is the only thing you do you will – at best – have an efficient machine that simply ticks on. If you’re lucky you’ll stay in business. You wont game-change.continue reading »