It’s one of those sentences that need courage, confidence and care. It’s not only about telling it. It’s about meaning it and displaying humility. A leader needs to communicate their vulnerability and ask for help, especially from their team. You don’t become a leader to be right. You become one to take forward the cause.
You bring the team together towards achieving a single goal. You don’t need to have all the answers. You need to make sure that everyone is working with their highest possible potential. You are responsible for all the mistakes and you cannot take any credit. That’s what you have signed up for. If you are not comfortable step down.
Here are the few paras from the conversation I had that may help you see my point of view about being a leader.
The big difference is to have a vision. The idea of team, system, cost innovation, process and people you serve. It’s not all about money.
One cannot become a successful business person and good leader just with tactical ideas. They need to take that calculated risk. Accept that they don’t know what they are doing. Take that judgement call and know that they will fail.
If you operate the business as if you are not there the business will shut down is the exact reason you have become the bottleneck.
You have to learn to be uncomfortable with the idea in the ideation stage and be happy that you have an interesting problem without a solution. Let the solution come to you.
I still say it’s not about you being right and I being wrong, it’s about running a successful business and business does not run by pleasing it. The business of pleasing someone doesn’t scale.
Vikram Shetty 