Elon Musk, most well known as the CEO of Tesla, is one of the most successful business leaders in the world. As such, his advice on leadership can be considered when conducting business. Here are 5 Pieces Of Advice From Elon Musk On Leadership.
Lead With A Purpose
One of the most important qualities in a leader is to have a strong vision, one that can inspire people to believe in and help you work towards. This is to provide direction to your business and as a leader, to provide direction to your team.
People work better when they know what the goal is and why, and it is important that people look forward to working in the morning and enjoy working. These words from Elon Musk encapsulate the essence of importance that having a strong vision gives for your leadership.
When you put yourself in the shoes of those talented at the world level, they must believe that there is potential for a great outcome and believe in the leader of the company. This is true especially when you are trying to attract talent from other companies.
Hire People Smarter Than You
Elon Musk believes in hiring smart and not just for the sake of filling a position and has claimed as such by saying, “Hire great people…this is 90 percent of the solution, as hiring wrong can cost you so much,”. He then went on to say, “We challenge our people leaders to hire people that are better than themselves, therefore making the company better with each hire.”
Effective leaders are those that fill vacancies with those that can help them succeed and not just to fill a position. By not being afraid to hire those that are smarter than you, you allow these smart people to better your business.
Collaborate And Work As A Team
“Talent is extremely important. It’s like a sports team, the team that has the best individual player will often win but then there’s a multiplier from how those players work together and the strategy they employ.”, states Elon Musk.
Collaboration is one of the most important qualities to a leader as, without it, a leader that cannot work with their team is not much of a leader at all. The ability to work as a team is a necessity and is needed for any business to succeed.
It is important to surround yourself with people that are capable of teamwork and can operate in a cohesive fashion with it. However, teamwork starts with the leader and it is important to set an example that inspires your team.
Communicate Effectively
Communication is key in any business, but it is not enough to merely communicate but communicate effectively. Elon Musk has strong views on effective communication as evident by the warning he sent out to his managers.
The warning is, “Communication should travel via the shortest path necessary to get the job done, not through the chain of command. Any manager who attempts to enforce chain of command communication will soon find themself working elsewhere.”.
Information must be allowed to travel in all directions, regardless of position as no one can know everything. When a crisis occurs, information needs to reach all relevant people to be able to handle it, and knowing this is important to be an effective leader.
Seek Honest Feedback
Feedback is important as a leader to identify your shortcomings and work towards bettering them, along with shoring up on your strengths to better your team. Elon Musk uses a feedback loop in his leadership to constantly improve.
Here is what he had to say about it, “I think it's very important to have a feedback loop, where you're constantly thinking about what you've done and how you could be doing it better. I think that's the single best piece of advice, constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.”.
Leadership requires trust and requesting feedback shows your team that you are willing to value and trust their opinion on you. It also shows commitment as you are willing to change based on the feedback.