How A Leader’s Personality Impacts the Ability to Win

built for growth

Built for Growth

Many business books are written on how to innovate, achieve faster growth, or beat the competition. I’ve not read many that focus on the personality of the leader. But the founder’s personality has a dramatic impact on all aspects of the company culture and its potential.

That’s the core focus of Chris Kuenne and John Danner’s new book, BUILT FOR GROWTH: How Builder Personality Shapes Your Business, Your Team, and Your Ability to Win.

If entrepreneurs understand their personalities, it will help them choose the right team to enhance their strengths and manage around their weaknesses.

I recently spoke with the authors about their fascinating research into personality in this context. John Danner is a senior fellow at the University of California Berkley’s Institute for Business Innovation. A faculty member, a business adviser, and an entrepreneur, he speaks widely on topics from innovation to strategy. Chris Kuenne is a member of Princeton University’s entrepreneurship faculty, a growth capital investor, an entrepreneur, and a speaker.

 

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“To win in the twenty-first century, you must empower others.” -Jack Ma

 

3 Reasons Personality is Misunderstood

Personality is one of the least understood elements of entrepreneurial and business success. Why is that still the case after decades of study and research?

We think there might be three converging reasons. First, the business world often tends to overlook introspection and reflection in its bias for action and results, so the issue of who you are can get lost in the impatient focus on what you’ve done. The “do” trumps the “who.” But as any manager or leader knows, personality does matter . . . a lot; so that action-bias has left a void in our understanding.

Second, we love icons. Movies and the media naturally latch onto a compelling storyline, a fascinating individual, and retell that one person’s experience, character and personality. But icons can quickly become stereotypes, and those stereotypes reinforce the notion that you have to be an extraordinarily exceptional person to find success as an entrepreneur. That shorthand can substitute for a deeper understanding of what’s really at play here. In other words, every entrepreneur doesn’t have to be a Steve Jobs or Elon Musk to be successful; our research discovered there are four distinct personalities of successful entrepreneurs. And there are likely millions of individuals the world over who share those same personality patterns.

Third, although most people are intensely curious about who they are and how they’re wired, most personality assessments are ill-suited to the task of cracking the code of successful business building. Many address very broad issues, e.g., am I an extrovert or introvert, a Type A or Type B, etc. Or they’re designed to answer other questions in personal domains, like who might be a good match for me, what music might I like, etc.

Some broad-gauge tools can help people decide whether they might be cut out for entrepreneurship generally, e.g., are they comfortable with taking risks or working for themselves? But those resources don’t address the fundamental question: what are the key personality characteristics of the women and men who actually succeed in building lasting businesses of impressive scale? What makes those individuals tick, and am I like any of them?

And context is key here; people want to know about personalities in action in particular settings. That’s why we concentrated on examining personalities in the context of successful business ventures and used a patented Personality-ClusteringTM methodology that has proven its effectiveness in decoding specific customer behavior in hundreds of markets around the world.

But our research is just a first step in understanding the central mystery of the who of successful entrepreneurship. We invite others to build upon our findings as we refine our own work. After all, entrepreneurship is vital to economic growth and opportunity globally. We welcome others’ insights into this complicated and essential domain of human endeavor.

 

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“Teams need captains, and vice versa-if you want to get things done.” -Mark Coopersmith

 

4 Types of Builder Personalities

Briefly walk through the four types of Builder personalities.

The Driver: Relentless, Commercially Focused, and Highly Confident – Drivers can’t help themselves. They have to become builders of business or social ventures of their own as a means of self-validation. Entrepreneurship is almost hardwired into their very identity. They are supremely confident individuals, fixated on their products, relentless in pursuing commercial success based on their uncanny anticipation of what markets and customers are looking for. Drivers – like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk – often don’t last long as employees in other people’s organizations. They eschew rules and bureaucracy, seeing them as tools to focus the average person, yet often confine the truly gifted, independent-thinking actor. These builders are willing to do whatever it takes to realize the commercial success inherent in what they believe is their unbounded potential, in fact their destiny.

picasso quote

How to Be a Good Leader Without Giving up All Your Time

This is a guest post by Kayla Matthews that offers some excellent foundational steps to balancing your time. Kayla writes about work productivity. Her work has been featured in Fast Company and other publications. You can join her newsletter here.

 

Don’t Give Up All Your Time

Being a leader is an important role. When your team is relying on you to help them through their problems, tasks and questions, it can feel like you’re getting pulled in a million different directions. While you may be trying to be a great leader, you can feel like you’ve been stretched too thin.

You must find a balance between being a great leader and having time of your own. Because you have your own tasks and jobs that you need to complete, you can’t spend all your time helping others. However, as a leader, you also need to be there for your team.

Luckily, there are a few things you can do to save some time while still giving your team the attention that they need. From time management hacks to automation processes, let’s take a look at a few of the things you should consider if you’re struggling to balance being a leader and maintaining your own schedule.

 

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“Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else.” -Peter Drucker

 

1. Schedule Your Time

If you struggle to get anything done because your team comes to you for help at all hours of the work day, that may be causing major problems. While you want your team to feel comfortable asking you for questions or help, being available throughout the entire day can encourage them to come into your office when they don’t really need help.

Take some time to schedule your day and share it with your team. If you have certain blocks of time that you’d like to focus on your own projects, let them know you’re only to be disturbed for emergencies or if there isn’t anyone else that can help with that issue. That time is to be used for your own work and duties.

While you should schedule time for your work, you should also schedule some open availability with your team. Let them know when you’re free to chat, discuss minor details of a project or when your office door is open to them. If that time doesn’t work for them or they need to discuss something important, put time in your schedule to help them.

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“Either you run the day or the day runs you.” -Jim Rohn

2. Use Automation Tools

How the Best Leaders Energize People Every Day

leaders unlock potential

How the Best Leaders Energize People

If you want to be a great leader, you must be a great communicator. The Inspiration Code: How the Best Leaders Energize People Every Day  explores the link between leadership and communication.

Kristi Hedges is a leadership coach specializing in executive communication. You may have read one of her articles in “Forbes” or encountered her other book, The Power of Presence . Her extensive research and survey into what inspires people was fascinating. I recently asked Kristi about her latest work on inspiration in the workplace.

 

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“When we highlight potential, we boost confidence.” -Kristi Hedges

 

4 Factors to Enhance Your Inspirational Effect

Tell me more about the four factors that enhance our inspirational effect, what you call the Inspire Path.

The Inspire Path puts a structure to the research I found that uncovers what communication behaviors inspire others. It’s a guide to increase inspirational impact. While we can’t force someone to be inspired—and if we try to push, it backfires—we can create the conditions that foster inspiration. People are most often inspired through certain types of conversation with others. If we want be more inspiring, we should focus on being:

 

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“What we concentrate on gets stronger.” -Kristi Hedges

 

PRESENT: investing our full attention and letting conversations flow

 

PERSONAL: speaking genuinely, listening generously, and acknowledging the potential of those around us

 

PASSIONATE: exhibiting sincere emotion and exuding energy attuned to the situation

 

PURPOSEFUL: helping others find meaning and see their place in the bigger picture

 

Copyright Kristi Hedges, All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.

 

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“Our choices bring our purpose in sharp relief.” -Kristi Hedges

 

How do you train Type-A, driven, device-obsessed executives to be more present?

7 Reasons Why You Should Improve Your Public Speaking

Improve Your Public Speaking

 

Over ten years ago, I found myself in a class for leaders and managers. After building rapport and working to create a safe environment of trust, the class facilitator decided to have us go around the room and share our insecurities and fears. The coach was specifically homing in on our weaknesses and asking for us to be transparent with others in the room.

As we worked around a small circle, one woman was visibly nervous. When it was her turn, it was as if someone flipped a switch and turned her red. She stumbled over her words as she explained how fearful she was to speak in public. Even in a safe situation with supportive friends, she still was nervous to share. We learned that she even had nightmares where she was in front of a room, perched behind a podium, and she misplaced her notes and looked out at a sea of unforgiving faces. Another attendee encouraged her and told her that she was better off avoiding these events so she didn’t trigger her fears.

The fear of public speaking grips many people who avoid it at all costs.

I want to share why this “avoidance thinking” is toxic to aspiring leaders.

 

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“Fear the fear of public speaking and do it anyway.” –Arvee Robinson

 

Recently, I spoke to my local chapter of Toastmasters and shared 7 reasons why learning to speak in public is vitally important.

 

1. Overcome your fear.

There’s enormous power in mastering and overcoming a fear, whatever it is. I can recall the smile on a new rock climber’s face when he conquered his fear. “I have never felt so alive and free,” he said to me soon after completing his climb. That same feeling happens if you overcome a fear of public speaking, and – at least to me – it’s a whole lot easier than climbing a mountain.

 

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“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, and to sit down and listen.” –Winston Churchill

 

2. Boost your self-confidence.

When you not only are able to overcome your fear but also become proficient at it, then your confidence soars. Confidence is often more compelling than competence. I don’t know what happened to the nervous woman after the class ended, but during the few days of our classes, she saw remarkable improvement. You could feel her confidence building.

 

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“Competence without confidence just doesn’t cut it.” –Derek Lewis

 

3. Attract opportunities.

Great public speakers attract opportunities. Why? Speaking makes you visible. You’re in front of the room, so that’s rather obvious. But the fact is that your credibility is enhanced. You become an expert.

 

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“It’s all right to have butterflies in your stomach, just get them to fly in formation.” –Rob Gilbert

 

4. Influence others.

Leadership is all about influence, about persuasion, about taking people from one point and moving them to another. Speaking is part of that process of persuasion and often the most powerful part. Anything that helps increase your influence is generally a good move.

 

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“All the great speakers were bad speakers at first.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson