Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.

—Amelia Earhart, aviator

Leaders Show the Way

When I think of brilliant leaders, the names John F. Kennedy, Nelson Mandela, Margaret Thatcher, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and Golda Meir immediately come to my mind. But I also personally think about my dad in this context. It happens that he had the privilege of meeting Golda Meir in person, and I have a picture of them shaking hands.

I realize I’m probably biased because he was my dad but, objectively speaking, it was plain to everyone that he had some remarkable gifts as a leader. He was especially adept at making people feel comfortable – employees, customers, famous people (like Meir), and even people he didn’t know. He led thousands of employees, but treated everyone exactly the same – from the janitors all the way up to his senior staff. Everywhere he went he started up friendly conversations with complete strangers, including taxi drivers. It astounded me how many people would recognize him out of the blue. “How the heck does he know all these people?” I always wondered.

There are some famous stories about celebrities like Tom Hanks (as well as the late Robin Williams), who are reportedly friendly and chatty with pretty much everyone they meet. Hanks, in particular, never seems to have any qualms interacting with fans and has been known to treat them as equals. When not acting, he comes across as just a regular guy. My dad was just like that.

I vividly remember my moment of self-realization. I was so busy dealing with my projects, my top to-do’s, and all the other minutiae I had going on. I looked through my office window at my team. They were busy talking among themselves. I had absolutely no idea what they were doing. Likewise, I’m sure they had no idea what I was doing. We were all over the place. Yes, we all had goals and projects, but nothing was integrated. As a result, they seemed lost and confused. I felt frustrated because they weren’t getting things done the way I wanted them to. One of my employees even said, “You are like a red Ferrari and we are running so fast trying to keep up with you.”

Wow, I thought, I am truly sucking at being a leader right now.

I had to admit that the discombobulated culture was my fault. I wasn’t leading the team; I was managing and directing them, which is quite different. The team needed more communication, guidance, support, independence, and, most important, inspiration.

At that moment, I made a conscious decision that I was going to shift from being a boss to becoming a leader. Once I believed I had achieved this over time, I strived to become a great leader – which really is a never-ending goal.

Decisions Followed by Perseverance Shape Destinies

When you own your own business, you are the top dog, the head honcho, the big cheese. Everyone looks to you for direction for everything – the big things, the small things, and everything in the middle. It’s easy in the beginning to enjoy this sense of ultimate command and authority and get accustomed to it. It feels good to be the omnipotent know-it-all who makes every decision with everyone acting subservient to you.

The problem with this is that it just doesn’t work – especially when you are scaling. No one succeeds on the trapeze alone, no matter how talented and brilliant you might be. The “dictator leader” is a dinosaur of the distant past.

As I’ve stated in earlier chapters, you don’t know everything and shouldn’t have to. If you create a team with a bunch of people who are incapable of making decisions without you, your business will sink fast; or you will have created a ball and chain that you may end up resenting and that will hold you back from scaling.

What will happen when you shift over to a massive scaling initiative, such as acquiring another company, and can’t be available to make decisions? Your existing team members will feel paralyzed, helpless, alone, afraid, abandoned, and lost. They need to be trained to become self-sufficient and empowered to make appropriate decisions. You need to draw the line in the sand where your senior employees or team leaders have approval authority – and then you must stand by it, despite temptation.

Listen Up!

In Chapter 4, I advised listening to your team in specific circumstances. The truth of the matter is that a great leader always listens. There is an effective technique known as active listening in which your role is to make it clear that you are listening by demonstrating good body language and eye contact; allowing the other person to speak without interruption; and, when the individual is done, repeating back what she has said to ensure you heard it right and understood the meaning. If you didn’t understand what she said, she will correct you right away; in addition to setting the record straight, you are demonstrating that you were paying attention and care enough to verify her statements.

It’s not easy for the head of a company to sit down and shut up in order to let others speak. People who run companies can be commanding and garrulous, and have strong opinions on everything – especially anything regarding their own businesses. To their credit, many sincerely want to help their employees and provide input and offer wisdom; they just go way too far to “help.”

Unless advice is specifically requested, keep totally silent. Do not offer opinions or tell you own stories to show you “relate” to them. Chances are, they will think you are too high up the totem pole to relate to them and they will be rubbed the wrong way or offended – even if you have the best of intentions. Sometimes an employee just wants to vent and can figure things out just by sharing her problems with you.

When you are certain the employee is done speaking, these are things you can say:

• Assure him or her that you will keep the discussion just between the two of you, unless the person wants it shared.
• Thank him or her for sharing the information or idea with you.
• Repeat back what the employee said (active listening). Preface it by stating, “I hear what you are saying.”
• Emphasize that you “will look into the matter.”
• Show interest by asking questions about what the employee said.
• Provide constructive feedback only when asked for it.
• Let the employee know that you are there in the future if he or she ever wants advice, recommendations, or just a sounding board. State that you have an open door and he or she is always welcome.
• Write down as much as you can about what he or she said at the meeting. You don’t ever want to draw a blank the next time you meet with the person, as it would be a sign that you weren’t really paying attention.
• If an idea is accepted and approved – or she fixes a problem independently – give her credit and recognition for it!

When you show your employees that you are a good listener, you’re making that person feel like she is the only one in the universe at that moment. She will trust you enough to come back to you and open up to you more often. Isn’t this far better than babbling your opinions and thoughts to everyone all the time? Believe me: This is something I have had to work on over the years. It is not easy to keep silent when you truly care, like I know you do. In the end, your employee will feel heard and will become more committed toward creating success within your company than ever before. When you are truly present and listen, everyone wins. This is another example of leading by example and influence and will create a culture of good listeners.

Yes, You Deserve Success

This may be hard to believe, but many business owners – who seem strong, powerful, and domineering on the surface – don’t feel as if they deserve their success or to take their company to the next level. As outrageous as it may seem, they seem to think they were “lucky” to get as far as they have and at some point the luck will run out. In this regard, they feel like they are somehow not worthy; they are “frauds” who will be exposed if they push the envelope too hard.

Essentially, these business owners lack the confidence necessary to carry the weight of scaling. I’ve seen firsthand what happens with business owners when their businesses grow, but they have overwhelming fear that they can’t maintain it, that things will fall apart, and that they will be embarrassed. Sometimes this can create a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the leader loses confidence, the employees also lose confidence, and then things really start to crumble.

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

— Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa

Leaders must work on their confidence all the time. They have to be able to handle the entrepreneurial rollercoaster: Business shoots up, business plummets, business shoots up again. Simply accepting this fact can help you become a more resilient leader. When the rollercoaster is at the bottom or creaking upward, you know that sooner or later you’ll once again be at the top and will come swooping down, doing loop-de-loops, going upside down, swerving on the side, and then doing it all backwards. As Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde once quipped, “To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.”

In my view, what constitutes success is how fast you get back up after being knocked down. After getting KO-ed by a failed business deal, the resilient leader doesn’t curse, assign blame, or sulk. Rather, she jumps right back up on her feet and asks, “Okay, what are we going to do about it?” Her brain goes straight into solution mode.

Lead with Heart and Character

Every interaction with your employees is an opportunity for you to demonstrate by words, actions, and silence (if you are in listening mode) that you are a great leader. As mentioned in earlier chapters, you should always be looking for opportunities to show appreciation to your employees by praising them, implementing and acknowledging their ideas, rewarding them, and providing recognition. At the same time, you need to serve as coach and mentor and be fair and consistent in your approach.

These are a few good rules of thumb to consider with every employee exchange:

• Hold them accountable: If they agree to a deadline, make sure they stick to it. Inspect what you expect. If you delegate and don’t follow up, you are sending the message that you don’t really care.
• Turn mistakes into a lesson. When I was younger, my parents went away for the weekend and gave the babysitter their car to use for transportation. She ended up having a fender bender and was terrified to tell my dad. When my parents came home, I remember the babysitter telling my dad what happened. He stood there silently for a moment and then said, “If you could go into the kitchen and get me a Pepsi, we’ll call it ‘even Steven.’” And that was it! I remember her seeming so relieved. He knew that getting angry would not change the situation.

  If an employee makes a mistake, don’t tear into him – but make sure he fesses up to it and works to repair it. Nobody is perfect and he or she will never perform exactly the same way that you would. Embrace everyone’s style. If a person gets to 80% of how you would handle it, you’ve got a winner on your team. Those who take responsibility learn from their errors and do better next time. They will prove to be some of your best leaders as time goes on.

• Groom other leaders: Earlier in this chapter we discussed empowering employees to make decisions. If you elevate and train your team to take on increased responsibility and move up the ladder, you will be freed up to do even more innovative things and will have someone to cover for you when you need to be involved elsewhere else. To scale, you need to ultimately replicate yourself, so this is how that process begins. You will also be surrounded by other leaders, which will create a powerful organization and a motivated culture.
• Stretch your team outside of their comfort zones: Just as you need to stretch yourself to grow, so does your team. If you want them to help you scale, they must be willing to expand their capabilities and confidence. The only way to do this is to request they do things that are scary or outside of their skill sets. Initially they may say, “No, I don’t want to!” Then, if they accept the challenge and go for it, they will experience that over-the-moon sense of accomplishment. As a leader you also stand in the role of mentor, and that is one of the most rewarding parts of scaling your business.
• Admit your own mistakes: A great leader is honest and takes responsibility for his or her shortcomings. Nobody’s perfect and you need to set a good example.
• Offer education: You are the culmination of the five people you surround yourself with most. This also applies to your team! I believe the expression “a rising tide lifts all boats.” If you support continuing education for your team, you will elevate your employees and your company as a whole. In my business mentoring company, any team member can request to attend conferences, take courses, and buy books – so long as she presents what she has learned at our next meeting. This way, she is paying attention at the event, getting the full value of it, and inspiring the team with what she shares.

  If your team members aren’t growing, they will become bored and stagnant. We are all here on this Earth to grow. You must be the leader who gives them the tools to rise up, even if it means some expense and some days when the person will be away from the office.

• Embrace conflict: One of the biggest lessons I have had to learn is how to deal with conflict. As the middle child of three children in my family, I was always the peacemaker. I wondered, Why can’t we all just get along? However, this does not work in business because sometimes there are upsets or communication breakdowns that need to be dealt with immediately. If you sweep it under the rug and don’t address the issue head on, then it will grow like a ragweed. I have learned to walk toward the elephant in the room and embrace conflict. By listening intently to a complaint or dealing with a problem sooner rather than later, you can turn an upset person into a raving fan in a moment. You can also make the necessary changes to avoid this issue in the future. Pick up the phone or deal with the conflict in person, never handle it by email or via text.
• Don’t make excuses: Imagine you have a team member who spent a month writing up a detailed report. He nervously sends it to you and asks for your input. A week goes by . . . two weeks pass . . . three . . . suddenly it turns into months. The employee sends you friendly email reminders: “I don’t want to bother you, I know you’re super busy . . . but have you had a chance to look at the report I sent you? I could really use your input.” Feeling guilty, you write back: “I’m so sorry, John. I’ve been tied up on the Petersen deal and then you know the shipment came in late . . . now we’re into creating next year’s budget. I promise, I’ll get to it soon.” Instead of making excuses that the employee doesn’t care about, come clean: “I’m sorry about this, John. I should have gotten to this sooner. This report is important. I’ll send you my thoughts by Friday. Thank you for being so patient.” Then, guess what? Make sure you write a thoughtful response by Friday!
• Keep your word no matter what: When you say you are going to do something to a client or employee, keep your promise and follow through. Nothing creates distrust faster than flaky people. If a problem arises and something is out of your control, then come clean and do everything in your power to make it right. This is one of my company’s core values: Keep your word always. If we make a promise and then realize that we made a mistake – even if we will lose money or a great deal of time – we keep that promise, regardless. Integrity builds a strong team, trust, and a referral community. Broken promises create a reputation that you don’t want following you.
• Protect your team: Do not tolerate people being rude or mean-spirited to your employees. If you stand up for them, they will respect your leadership like nobody’s business.

A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus.

— Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leader

Lastly: Be real. Be genuine. Be authentic. Give your employees the opportunity to see you as you really are. It’s your business, so you don’t need to posture or pretend you are someone that you’re not. If you are honest and transparent with your team, they will work hard and pay you back in dividends.

In Figure 5.1, answer the 12 questions on your Leadership Assessment Score to see where you stand up as a leader and areas you need to work on most. Remember: being a leader is like life. It is an ever-evolving journey.