If you are a Business Owner, CEO, President, VP, C-Level, Executive Director, or hold any other senior position within a company, you have probably felt insecure at some point about your ability to be a good leader, haven't you?
This is even more common today, where we see an entire generation of professionals seeking greater freedom at work, flexibility, and purposes beyond a simple high salary.
Many leaders simply do not know how to deal with this new pattern of behavior and end up failing to focus on the most important part of their business: the people who work in it.
Having the best resources and technologies will only take you so far. Going beyond that requires much more. There is no technological innovation in the world that can replace having the New Economy mindset.
That is what guides you to make the best decisions, choose the purposes to pursue, and correctly select the professionals you need on your team.
Today, entire industries and markets are transformed in 5 years or less. Stable and secure business models simply no longer exist, and those who fail to accept this soon are doomed to failure.
To keep your company alive over the next 5 years, you need to create at least 5 years' worth of innovative products and experiences for your business's customers, right?
And you still need to create plans A, B, and C, because competitors who do not even exist yet can emerge at any moment with a better idea than yours!
Tomorrow, someone may come up with a better idea than ours and cause us to disappear within a matter of months.
Unfortunately, that is a variable no one can control.
However, what we do — and what many companies and professionals in Brazil still do not do — is make sure that all the variables we can control are being analyzed.
One of those variables is ensuring that our leaders are in continuous learning, bringing us everything new from the world's greatest innovation hubs (such as Silicon Valley and China) and how we can apply these innovations to our Business Model to avoid becoming obsolete.
There are two types of leadership. One that is exercised through power and another that is exercised through authority.
Those who have power force others to do their will. The leader who has authority, on the other hand, influences people to follow them.
Even today, in the vast majority of companies, many people exercise leadership simply because they are placed in that position.
Whether because they have a strong educational background or because they have delivered good results. However, none of that makes them leaders. Leading is more than that!
Margaret Thatcher, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, said that “a leader is someone who knows what they want to achieve and is able to communicate it.”
To be a good leader, you need to convince people that they should do what you say.
When you compel people to follow you without them trusting you, the result will be disastrous.
And it is not by being called CEO, President, or Director that you will be able to exert influence over people.
Their respect for your leadership will come through your ability to motivate the team, by being transparent, inclusive, approachable, and focused on a common goal.
The greatest leaders in history were not holders of power. They exercised their leadership through their ability to influence people:
Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela… none of them held any title of power.
In the business world, the greatest leaders have always influenced people through their beliefs.
Steve Jobs and his pursuit of absolute quality, Bill Gates and his fight to eradicate poverty, Elon Musk and his desire to colonize Mars…
Each one, in their own way, influenced their followers in pursuit of a single goal. And there was no need to impose it.
People were motivated because they saw in these individuals leaders capable of doing something truly meaningful.
The skills required of a leader today are very different from those that were essential a few years ago.
Creativity, continuous learning, respect for diversity, the pursuit of innovation, the ability to build winning teams, boldness, tolerance for mistakes…
New Economy leaders are admired; not feared.
And of all these new skills required of today's leaders, the most important one is captured in a phrase by Abraham Lincoln: “The greatest ability of a leader is to develop extraordinary skills in ordinary people.“
StartSe decided, from the very beginning, to have no job titles. They have an almost horizontal management structure, with freedom for all people to make small decisions.
And this gave rise to numerous leaders, aligned with the various aspirations of the company and the team.