Here are some leadership lessons I picked up working in pre-IPO startups and FAANG in Silicon Valley.
- Being able to work with and manage difficult people puts you at a huge advantage
- Fear, pride, anger, excitement cloud your ability to make sound logical decisions. Making non-emotional decisions with impartial information is a super power.
- Crisp and clear communication is a super power. You cannot be crisp if you are not precise. Do not hide uncertainty and do not bury nuance.
- Rigor and quality are essential to building and decision making. You cant build well and make good decisions without structured thinking and mental models.
- Likeability is key people like to do business with people they like. Leading by fear doesn't work.
- Develop structured thinking, operate from clear first principles, create frameworks that make it easy for those principles to come to life across teams, products and people and communicate them effectively.
- Every leader's main job is sales : selling your idea, vision including hiring, managing, leading.
- Being able to change your mind based on data, facts, new opinions. Surround yourself with people who will challenge your opinions. Build a culture around youself that is inclusive and invites that feedback. The biggest challenge as you go up the ladder is that the real feedback dries up.
- Saying NO. You sometimes have to step over the pennies to pick up the dollars.
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