Entrepreneurial Leadership

most of the entrepreneurial leaders I know have this same disposition—to run toward problems

Having the core values included in this second version of integrity means behaving in predictable ways, regardless of the setting. And as others come to trust how you’ll respond, you’ve empowered them.

Having the core values included in this second version of integrity means behaving in predictable ways, regardless of the setting. And as others come to trust how you’ll respond, you’ve empowered them. They’ll have confidence to take actions on their own. They’ll act as they believe you would, confident there’ll be no incriminations or second-guessing.

in assessing entrepreneurial leaders, I’ve learned to focus on the second definition: to be whole and undivided, the way an engineer might speak of the structural integrity of a building.

perseverance—to keep going when you would prefer to quit, to continue to seek success even when it seems unlikely, and to choose a path that is hard instead of one that is easy.

There’s value in having spent time doing this: you learn to do hard and uncomfortable things and develop empathy for people who spend their professional lives in this manner.

An understanding of our limitations, foibles, and weaknesses is a necessary step to becoming a leader who can be trusted and whose legacy will be one of durable change.

entrepreneurial leaders are generally humble, proactive, predictable, and perseverant, recognizing these as core values to cultivate will be the first step in finding one’s North Star for developing a deep-seated, reliable trust. Since trust is the most powerful currency of the entrepreneurial leader, and since creating durable change is almost impossible in a low-trust environment, entrepreneurial leaders must be able to convince others that they can rely on a leader’s ability to learn (humility), willingness to take measured risks (proactivity), and integrity and commitment to overcome (perseverance).

since successful entrepreneurial leaders are generally humble, proactive, predictable, and perseverant, recognizing these as core values to cultivate will be the first step in finding one’s North Star for developing a deep-seated, reliable trust.

entrepreneurial leaders must be able to convince others that they can rely on a leader’s ability to learn (humility), willingness to take measured risks (proactivity), and integrity and commitment to overcome (perseverance).

Identify your core values by making a clear-eyed assessment of where you spend your time, money, and mind share. Then decide if your values are getting in the way of your effectiveness.

Evaluate how you might increase your tendency to (1) run toward the fire, (2) display a version of integrity that aligns actions with utterance, and (3) demonstrate dogged persistence.

“Great managers are not philosophers, entertainers, doers, or artists. They are engineers.

“Great managers are not philosophers, entertainers, doers, or artists. They are engineers. They see their organizations as machines and work assiduously to maintain and improve them. They create process-flow diagrams to show how the machine works and evaluate its design.

Next to knowing one’s core values, the most important attribute an entrepreneurial leader can possess is a predictable, reliable, and intentional personal operating system.

And like a programmer, you can rewrite and repair your own operating system so that it represents your best self and makes you the predictable, reliable leader that people will want to follow.

“Deliberate actions, ordinary in themselves, performed consistently and carefully, made into habits; [and] compounded together, added up over time yield excellence.”

“I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday”

“I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday”—and that in recognizing this, they realize that if they make different choices today, they will be different people tomorrow.

As a young leader, when I undertook an effort to rewrite my operating system, I began with three mantras—sometimes repeating them several times a day in an effort consciously to override my natural instincts: It’s not about me. I am not my emotions. I have all I need.