Engr'slog#4.0 // How To Lead

What Makes Great Leaders Tick?

Leadership in today's corporate world especially when external factors like Covid pandemic has pushed everyone to the edge of the cliff; has become more highlighted and necessary skill for CEOs, business leaders and influential people. In this book, similar to the 7 Habits of highly effective people¹,author* interviewed world's high performing leaders about who they are and how they became successful.

This book, an outcome of interviews, provides reader with perspectives of different kind of leaders, with the hope that readers might be inspired to develop and enhance their own leadership skills. Leadership comes in many forms and is exercised in many ways but few traits and attributes always remain common.

• Luck
• Desire to succeed
• Pursuit of something new and unique
• Hard work
• Focus
• Failure
• Persistence
• Persuasiveness
• Humble demeanor
• Credit sharing
• Ability to keep learning
• Integrity
• Responding to Crises 

Author has divided leaders in categories based on their leadership experience. In this blog, first category, Visionaries is presented. Remaining categories will be presented in upcoming blog posts.

Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos (JB) is the Founder and CEO of Amazon and also Owner of Washington Post.

JB did not invented the idea of selling the books on internet, others were already doing it when he established Amazon, but he had a vision of how he could use better software to make sales process work more efficiently. Today Amazon is roughly $1 Trillion. 

JB began his educational career as theoretical physicist, but later changed his major to electrical and computer engineering, and after graduation joined finance firm. At that time, JB foresaw the potential of World Wide Web aka the internet, so he said goodbye to his job to began his own business of selling products online, starting with books. Later JB and his team saw that customers are also looking for other items as well aside from books and music, so they started adding more categories, growing from toys to home products and so on.

According to JB, important decisions are always made with instinct, intuition, heart and taste. A huge advantage to any company is if it only remains focused on customers, instead of competitors. According to JB, stock is not the company and company is not the stock. Team building and trusting that team, is key item in JB's leadership basket.

Bill Gates

Everybody knows the name of the richest man on earth, who remained at #1 on the list for more than a decade, the one and only, Bill Gates (BG), the founder of Microsoft. BG founded Microsoft when he was in high school, along with his friend Paul Allen. BG began his educational career with Harvard but later decided to pursue his obsession with computers, in building and coding software - which will soon be inside every chip, in every computer around the world.

His leadership basket includes workaholic dedication to the mission and business acumen. Nowadays Bill Gates does philanthropic work and has created a foundation known as Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation which works principally on health in Africa and K-12 education in United States. He is also a member of Giving Pledge foundation.

 

Sir Richard Branson 

Sir Richard Branson (RB) has lead a life most entrepreneurs, indeed most people probably dream about; successful of many diverse businesses  (all under the Virgin brand), legendary daredevil stunt survivor in the business, global philanthropist, 40 plus year marriage, close relationship with his parents and children, resident of an idyllic Caribbean Island, friend of the rich and famous from throughout the world, knighted by Queen Elizabeth-II , face and image recognized and admired throughout the world and not inconsequently, a very happy person.

RB dropped out of school at 15, had severe dyslexia and had little money at the outset. Today, every company is inspired by his vision - be daring, offer something new and exciting, appeal to people's willingness to take a chance, and sell an enjoyable experience as well as a product or service. The key to RB's success as an entrepreneur and leader is his view of surrounding oneself with talented, innovative and rich people, unlike other who also want to be surrounded by these types of people, RB is actually willing to listen to the smart individuals and to make the mid coast changes that might suggest to his initial brilliant idea and is secure enough to recognize that not all his many ideas will work; a real strength in his success. RB is recently famous in the news due to his latest space adventure known as the Virgin Galactic space program which gives its customers a 5-minute ride into the outer space, which costs around $250,000, and around 800 people have already signed up and paid up for this adventure.

The key ingredient to become business leader like RB, is to surround oneself with great people, learning to delegate early - not trying to do everything yourself, make sure one got the kind of people who praise the team around them and not criticize them, and also the people who are willing to really innovate, be bold and create something for everybody who works for the company can be really proud of. According to RB what makes great leadership is the ability to be a good listener and the other thing is loving people - a genuine love for everybody and looking for the best in people.

Oprah Winfrey

Few American success and leadership stories rival that of Oprah Winfrey's (OW); raised in absolute poverty by her grandmother, lived in Nashville for first job in television at 19 years old, demoted from anchor to field reporter while working in Baltimore at the local broadcasting station, she then moved to Chicago where she became the most admired most watched television personality in USA for nearly three decades. Her show is available in 150 countries around the world and had reached in almost all American homes, and is most watched US television performer ever. She is the wealthiest African-American woman in the US, and a leading philanthropist raising more than $51 million through her Angel Network. Her story is that of unbelievable rags-to-riches story of the Hollywood. 

OW considers her critical skill as interviewer was, listening to what the interviewee was actually saying and trying to understand the impact of what was being shared. Her unique way of showing empathy for her interviewees in audience and it's that ability to connect so viscerally with those watching, has made her so appealing, so unique and so influential. According to OW, the essence of her 25 year experience is that; at the end of the day whether you are interviewing her or she get to interview you, whatever your profession is, wherever you are in your life, in your relationships, every person that you encounter after every experience, wants to know "Was that ok?" which really means that people want to know "Did you hear me and what I say means anything to you". So according to OW, she started to listen with that in mind; with the intention of evaluating that your being here, your speaking to her, your taking the time to do this with her is important - because you matter.

Warren Buffet

Warren Buffet (WB) is recognized as the world's greatest investor, he has made more for investors than any other financial manager in history. He is now the founder and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, enjoying a market value in excess of half a trillion dollars.

WB since youth is obsessively interested in business and has built world's greatest most admired investment track record in a very unique way - with the small stuff, no office computer, no use of investment banking advisors, making quick decisions on transactions with no competitive bidding or price negotiation and no friendly transactions, and the focus on core industries at value (low) investment prices. WB has stayed true to his initial passion - buying stocks or companies that offer lower price than their intrinsic and likely future value, and then with few exceptions never selling, thereby adding transaction cost in capital gain taxes. On the other hand, he also loves teaching his life experiences with today's youth. 

According to WB, money is not a necessity to him but time is of precious importance. As WB says; you must always look for the job that you would want to hold if you didn't need a job. You are probably only going to live once, you don't want to go sleep walking through life, look for the job that turns you on, find a passion. 

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*Author: David M. Rubenstein

David M. Rubenstein is the host of The David Rubenstein Show on Bloomberg TV and PBS. He is the chairman of the boards of trustees of the JFK Center for Performing Arts and the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also an original signer of the Giving Pledge and a recipient of the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy.

1. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen Covey