How are your actions as a leader interpreted by those you lead? Are you deliberate with what you do, your mannerisms, your physical instruction? And importantly, how is what you do in concert with those you lead? Without a willing team you will not be able to create the music you and your team are capable of.
Some may think he is irreverent, I think he is fresh and exciting. To design an organisational structure where employees can have the same power as the board members and where leaders are assessed every 6 months by their subordinates to determine if they should remain their leader? In this TED talk, Ricardo Semler outlines how he has done this with great success over the past 30 years. He explains how it has helped create wisdom in people and freed up their agency through the power of Choice.
If you are a leader, and you are leading some form of change either in your team or including or leading change across you organisation, ask yourself how much time is dedicated to putting people first, in the process of understanding and implementing transformative change. If you forgot the people, you can forget the process – it won’t stick long term.
You may not know much about Elon Musk. Or maybe you do. This video, an interview with Elon last week on TED, provides a simple reason as to why he does what he does.
Take 9 minutes to be challenged in your thinking about what makes a great leader, and how you might prepare yourself to be the leader you want to be now, and for the future we have yet to know.