In order to become a great CEO, you must learn to make other people successful. That is the key to leadership. You make people successful by listening to and supporting them, providing autonomy, challenging them, giving them guidance and direction and occasionally by issuing direct orders. A good leader has a wide toolkit. They treat all employees the same, yet lead each one in a unique and individualized way.
Hiring execs is something which should be done in a thoughtful and articulate way. You need a process and a framework, especially if you’re hiring senior professionals into a function you know very little about yourself.
It is admirable to want to make the world a better place and it is what everyone should do. But if that’s all you do as an entrepreneur, you won’t even do that.
The future of your company is wrapped around the question why. Why does the company exist, what problem do you solve?
A key question in building a b2b startup company is when and how to scale sales. The first rule is “Don’t do it yet”. It is always easier to scale a spreadsheet than a real business.
All-hands meetings increase productivity, motivation and teamwork. Committing to a joint goal is easier when everyone is in the same place. Here are three practical tips on how to arrange an all-hands meeting.
Focus is not what you do, but what you choose not to do. Startup CEO Kristo Ovaska learned the hard way to say “No”. He now declines long meetings, non-vital emails, external press requests, speaking engagements, and investor contacts that are not yet needed. This has brought about an entirely new level of productiveness.
Great companies are both effective and efficient. Being efficient means doing things in the right way but becoming effective takes strong prioritization.
“Be picky when choosing your Board of Directors – and make them work for you. Tell them your biggest concerns, what you need from them, what concrete actions they can take to help you. Expect them to contribute.”
Jussi Räisänen, HeiaHeia.
Whatever form the business plan takes, here are the seven key things you must understand deeply and present in your investor deck. Success comes from understanding the customer and applying the innovation to a real problem.
How does a professional CEO work with a strong founder? Tom Erickson of of the wildly successful open source company Acquia, commercializing the wildly popular Drupal open source platform shares his advice.
“The mistake that young CEOs make is they feel like they need to grow up,” says Jim Whitehurst, president and CEO of Red Hat, the world’s largest open source software company. Read on for his best management advice on the three levels of leadership.
Marten Mickos and Menno Beker discuss the million dollar question, What is a good team? To find the answer, a CEO or founder must first admit their own weaknesses. Only after that can you hire the right people.
Introducing our first Boatside Chat with Zack Urlocker. Here is how you hire, when building a world class company. You need skill diversity, proven success and persistence. Take your time and hire attitude!
The purpose of management is to make individual weaknesses irrelevant. This is the power of an excellent management team.
The two most significant factors affecting the success of a startup are timing and hiring. If you get either of them wrong, you fail. We all have weaknesses and strengths. You should hire for the strengths and then manage the weaknesses.
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