5 Tips To Become A Better Leader

First up, it’s important to define what a leader is. A leader is someone who has a clear vision and is able to rally her or his community to achieve that goal. The greatest job of a leader, whether that leader is a parent, a CEO, or a counselor–is to find a way to build self-esteem without crossing into delusion. That means, in a business setting, it’s important to remember that you work for your employees, they don’t work for you. Your job is to build your team, provide value, and give them space to grow while holding them accountable.

There are so many leaders and managers who want to be better. As a CEO of a large organization that has grown quickly, I have a lot of POVs on leadership strategies that lead to strong internal culture and business results.

Here are a few concepts that I don’t see too many others talking about:

#1. Be A Mentor

I’m always thinking about how I can provide more value – as a businessman, as an owner, as a leader, as a personality with my audience. My natural default is to be a head coach, a mentor, a big brother, a leader. I think the reason I’m such a fan of mentorship is it equates to actual legacy. Legacy comes in the form of what people say about you when you’re not around, and being a great mentor and advisor leads to those opportunities.

#2. Take Accountability

Anything that happens in your organization is 100% your fault. When you lean into accountability … your life gets happier.

#3. Understand That You Work For Your Employees, They Don’t Work For You

Most new managers think that becoming a manager is the “graduation.” Truth is, it’s the reverse. Leaders work for their employees. That means you have to understand what your employees want at a deep level. You have to be constantly adapting to their needs and what they want from the organization. When you go from being someone who “executes” to someone who’s managing a team, you go from trading on IQ to trading on EQ. You go from doing the actual work to listening to employees, catering to what they want, taking the blame, and being the bigger person.

#4. Make Your Employees Feel Safe

When you can eliminate fear from your organization, very good things happen. It’s a leader’s top job to make sure their team under them isn’t scared of them ... Fear is trash...Love is a better motivator than fear in business. The number one thing I try to do is I try to make people feel safe around me. Safety helps create speed in business for a couple of reasons: First, when people aren’t spending time thinking how to navigate a situation, they’re spending time executing. When they’re executing, the entire machine moves faster and produces a higher output.

Second, people are able to get to the punchline much faster than they otherwise would, which helps me save time.

#5. Use Kind Candor

Remember, how you deliver the medicine matters. Candor is not an excuse not to be nice…and being nice doesn’t prevent you from being an effective leader. Just like you can be patient and ambitious, or have both great humility and great conviction, you can be both honest and kind. The trick is in finding the right balance.