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The Very First Things A New Leader Needs To Know

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Nothing has more impact on your business than leadership skills. Despite that, it’s an underrated discipline that people are often expected to pick up without appropriate training.

Leadership is a tough job; half art, half science. Especially the first time you step up as leader or CEO it's a daunting challenge. Here are five elements for becoming a great first-time leader:

1. It's the mental game that's the hardest.

You can read all the books you want about the hard disciplines of leadership—the goal setting, managing budgets, executive reporting, etc.—but once you start in your first leadership job you'll realize that is the easy part. It's the human side of leadership that's tough. The insecurities will eat at you. Are you doing a good job? Do your employees like you? Do they respect you? Why does no one sit next to you at lunch anymore?

The thing is, a leader gets no feedback and has no one to ask. As an employee, your manager tells you how you are performing and how to improve. But as a leader, you're supposed to just know that. This means you end up in a feedback void. On top of that, you feel like you're always supposed to know what to do and have a clear answer on hand. That feels lonely and is the hardest part. What you need to know is that this is normal and a good thing. It shows that you care. If you don't feel this when you first start out, you don't care enough to become a good boss later on. 

You also need to establish new working relations with your colleagues to replace the old "one of the team." You're not anymore, and this a particularly challenging feeling for almost all new leaders who are promoted into their new role. This distance is natural. Your former colleague now feel they have to watch what they say to you. This is a totally fair reaction on their part—after all, you hold their jobs in your hands and are often privy to more information. At times you will even have to make decisions that are good for the company but not for them personally. While it’s completely fair, it does feel lonely.

2. You’re no longer a player, you’re the coach. 

Sometimes it feels so much faster to run towards to goal line yourself, rather than explain the rules of the game to someone else. But that’s not scalable. You’re not a player anymore, you're the coach. This is especially tough for owners and entrepreneurs who are used to have their hands in everything.

If you want great people to work for you, you need to give them space to do great things. Talented people require autonomy so your most important job is to set the scene, make sure the objectives are clear and then get out of the way. You need to delegate responsibility, not tasks. This means things will not be done exactly as you would have done them, but that is the price of growth and freeing up your time.

3. Focus means saying "no."

Imagine this. CEO Emma is approached by a global player. They are offering her company a partnership where they promise to spearhead the company’s entry into a new market. Emma is excited about the opportunity, and even though the particular market is not part of the current strategy, the opportunity feels too good to decline.

This is where you as a leader need to show what you’re made of. “I can resist everything except temptation,” said Oscar Wilde, who made a valid pointyou've chartered a strategy which is the best direction for the company. If that can be altered by randomly occurring external factors, then it’s not worth the paper it is written on. Discounting for life-changing opportunities, Emma should decline and keep the company on track.

One of the hardest parts of being in charge is declining what seems like good or promising opportunities, because they can cost you your focus. You don't know for sure that this is the right decision, but for your mental peace of mind you need to learn to make quick decisions and stick to them. Sometime you have to say "no thanks" to employees who are good but not great, let opportunities go due to timing and direction, and say no to investors to get a better deal later. It’s one of the hardest things as a leader, and one of the most important skills for a CEO.

Focus means doing a few things brilliantly, rather than a lot of things averagely. It gives the company direction and a sense of order.

4. Candid honesty solves problems before they arise.

A team member comes comes to you excitedly with a suggestion for a new initiative. You can see he’s excited and motivated by it. You want your team to be proactive, yet you don’t think this is an initiative worth prioritizing over the current plans. What to do?

You say no. If this is not the right project for the company right now, you need to say so. It can be said in a supportive way which explains why it is not right, so the employee leaves the conversation with a deeper understanding of which initiatives to consider in the future.

The No. 1 thing your employees need is not for you to agree with them, but for you to provide clarity and direction. People deserve a clear framework where it is obvious what is expected and appreciated. The downside of modern leadership is that many leaders have lost the courage to be candidly honest, and that makes direction unclear, which is stressful for people to work in. So by trying to be nice, you end up creating stressful unclarity, something much worse.

I’ve worked in organizations where leaders have not been communicating "nos" clearly. That leaves the employee in question confused and bewildered. Sometimes the unclarity cause the employee to invest further time in the project, just to have it immediately shut down afterwards, at which point the employee (rightly so) feels his time has been completely wasted. A clear answer would have saved everyone the inconvenience.

5. Be humble.

If you’re good at your job then you don’t have to flaunt it. You don’t have to demonstrate unnecessary power and you can afford to give people space to shine. As a leader, it is your fault when something goes wrong, and your team’s credit when something goes right. That brings with it a sense of humility, which is important for keeping the balance of power.

See your employees as holistic people with complex needs. As a company, we’re always in a race to beat the market; this requires great urgency. But neither you or your team can give it 200% all the time. If you want to be able to rely of your team to deliver exceptionally in times of need, then you need to show them some flexibility at other times. Otherwise your best people will burn out or quit.

A note I always try to keep in mind as a leader is, "People join companies but quit bosses." The best way to be a boss people want to work for is to genuinely appreciate their work and respect them as individuals.

So, your job is to create crystal-clear focus, be emphatic toward your people while doing the best for the company, and pass on credit and pick up blame. You can sum it all up as “Be humble, but have balls.”