Welcome to IGW Insights Issue 11!
The dream of every entrepreneur is to evolve his or her leadership.
“But wait, Dan!” you might say. “Isn’t the dream of every entrepreneur to post ridiculous videos of themselves on Instagram standing in front of a Gulfstream jet holding flutes of champagne, dividing the world into winners and losers?”
No. That is not the dream.
It is a facade.
Every entrepreneur’s dream is to create a culture of performance so strong that great teams work in the business, enabling the entrepreneur to work on the business.
Leadership bridges the state in which an entrepreneur runs their business and the one in which a crack team of true believers does so. Leadership unlocks the will inside of others to actualize a worthy outcome.
The higher the level of leadership, the greater your team’s investment to own more and execute better, enabling the leader to focus on strategic elements of the business.
The simplest way to put this is that someone has to be thinking about the business. When the leader is consumed with the tasks of execution, he or she lacks the bandwidth to think about the business, brewing both burnout and stagnation. Imagine, if you will, the pilot of a commercial jetliner working through the checklist of a flight attendant. If you saw the pilot serving coffee, you would not be out of line to emphatically admonish him to get his @&#$?&! butt back to the @&#$?&! cockpit. Continue reading here.
Recommended Reading and Listening
I listened to the audiobook of The 12 Week Year last week and am starting my second time through it this week. On the surface it is about creating a stronger culture of accountability via more consistent communication, but it is so much more than that. There is a ton of value in this book. Whether you already have an efficient communication cadence with your team or not, you’ll gain from the principles in this book.
Journaling Exercise
This newsletter’s journaling prompt is simple. Put pen to paper and answer the following questions, even if it makes you a wee bit nervous:
- What regular tasks do I do that drain me of the energy needed to think about the business?
- What is the next step required to find an excellent “who” to take on those tasks?
- By what date will I have this task/process off my plate?
Remember, I smoke my own dope over here, so if you’re feeling wacky and want to share your journaling with me, email me, and we’ll exchange thoughts.
Your Leadership Journey Starts Here:
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Onward and upward,
Dan Weiss, CEO