Many of my executive coaching clients are new leaders in startup and high growth technology businesses. They often find themselves thrust into a new leadership role without much previous experience or training to prepare them. The spotlight and responsibility of first-time leadership can be daunting but it is an incredible place to learn. As part of my executive and startup specific founder services, I curate a reading list of the most insightful leadership articles that I have discovered for clients to read and reflect on. From the thought provoking to the practical, here is a continually updated collection of the best articles which will help you grow and succeed in a new leadership role.
1. The First Rule of Leadership
Ben Horowitz is a former CEO and a founding partners at Andreessen Horowitz, one of the world’s leading venture capital firms. He emphasises the importance of individuality and self-determination.
In order to be a great leader, you must be yourself. If you try to be someone else, not only will you not be able to lead, but you’ll be ashamed to have people emulate you.
Complement this article with Ben’s book The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers which has become a classic read on the topic of leadership in a rapidly growing Silicon Valley technology startup.
2. What a CEO does
This short but classic post from Fred Wilson will help you think about your most important responsibilities as you transition to CEO.
A CEO does only three things. Sets the overall vision and strategy of the company and communicates it to all stakeholders. Recruits, hires, and retains the very best talent for the company. Makes sure there is always enough cash in the bank.
3. Notes on Leadership
Another post by Ben Horowitz on the a16z blog. He says that leadership is the single most important attribute required to be a successful founding CEO. Horowitz identifies and explains the three key traits that he looks for in a CEO.
1. The ability to articulate the vision
2. The right kind of ambition
3. The ability to achieve the vision
4. How to Scale: Do Less Lead More
Ed Batista is an executive coach based in San Francisco. Based on his years of experience working with startup and early-stage entrepreneurs, he explains how to transition from a hands-on leader who personally gets things done to someone who leads in a different way in order to be more effective as the organization scales.
The challenge is that throughout our education and in most, if not all, of our early professional roles, we’re rewarded for our effectiveness as doers, and when we achieve a more senior position we often assume that our effectiveness as leaders will rely upon the same skills and characteristics that have fueled our success up to that point.But this can result in the illusion of effectiveness as a leader. We may believe that by working longer, harder, smarter–pick your superlative–than our team on a given set of tasks, we’ll inspire by example. We just need to keep doing what we’ve been doing, albeit at a higher level.
5. How Your Leadership Has to Change as Your Startup Scales
Many startup CEOs adopt [a] “visionary entrepreneur” leadership style. They set out a broad vision, provide lofty goals, and model an ambitious work ethic. And at this stage in a company’s growth, it generally works. Just being close to the founders — working alongside them, being in meetings where there is a personal connection — tends to motivate and inspire young staff. Early employees feel that they belong to a special “club.” Yet keeping enthusiasm up as the company grows is difficult, especially as the direct link between founders and employees becomes less tangible or less possible (when opening remote offices, for example). As a result, many startups that experience zero turnover during the first year or two suddenly find themselves dealing with as much as 40% turnover in year three.
In this article, executive coach and professor of leadership at NYU Jeffrey W. Hull identifiers four things leaders and their organizations can do to move from startup mode to scale-up mode and transition as a leader.
6. What do I do now? The startup lifecycle
Last week I got a call from Patrick an ex-student I hadn’t heard from for 8 years. He was now the CEO of a company and wanted to talk about what he admitted was a “first world” problem. Over breakfast he got me up to date on his life since school (two non-CEO roles in startups,) but he wanted to talk about his third startup – the one he and two co-founders had started.
“We’re at 70 people, and we’ll do $40 million in revenue this year and should get to cash flow breakeven this quarter. ” It sounded like he was living the dream. I was trying to figure out why we were meeting. But then he told me all about the tough decisions, pivots and firing his best friend he had to do to get to where he was. He had been through heck and back.
“I made it this far,” he said, ”and my board agreed they’d bet on me to take it to scale. I’m going to double my headcount in the next 3 quarters. The problem is where’s the playbook? There were plenty of books for what to do as a startup, and lots of advice of what to do if I was running a large public company, but there’s nothing that describes how to deal with the issues of growing a company. I feel like I’ve just driving without a roadmap. What should I be reading/doing?”
Steve Blank is the grandfather of modern entrepreneurship. In this post he explains that, whilst there is no leadership playbook or roadmap, there is a framework that you can think about growth within. Steve also advises getting a coach.
7. In Praise of the Incomplete Leader
A seminal leadership article from the Harvard Business Review for new and emerging leaders on a transition to mastery.
Have you ever feigned confidence to superiors or reports? Hidden the fact you were confused by the latest business results or blindsided by a competitor’s move? If so, you’ve bought into the myth of the complete leader: the flawless being at the top who’s got it all figured out. It’s an alluring myth. But in today’s world of increasingly complex problems, no human being can meet this standard. Leaders who try only exhaust themselves, endangering their organizations. [The authors] suggest a better way to lead: Accept that you’re human, with strengths and weaknesses.
8. What Makes a Leader?
Emotional intelligence (EQ) needs no introduction by now. In this article, Daniel Goleman, explains the five skills that enable the best leaders to maximize their own and their followers’ performance.
1. Self-awareness – knowing one’s strengths, weaknesses, drives, values, and impact on others
2. Self-regulation – controlling or redirecting disruptive impulses and moods.
3. Motivation – relishing achievement for its own sake.
4. Empathy – understanding other people’s emotional makeup.
5. Social skill—building rapport with others to move them in desired directions.
Goleman is one of the world’s leading thinkers on emotional intelligence. His book Working with Emotional Intelligence (Amazon UK, US) deep dives into the topic as it relates to our working lives and leadership:
The secret of success is not what they taught you in school. What matters most is not IQ, not a business school degree, not even technical know-how or years of expertise. The single most important factor in job performance and advancement is emotional intelligence.
9. How Humble Leadership Really Works
Servant leadership has gained traction in recent years as styles have switched from that of command and control to something that accepts that the world is inherently uncertain and unknowable. Businesses are also increasingly staffed by individuals who may have higher IQs and technical skills than the leadership team but they still need to be led.
Servant-leaders have the humility, courage, and insight to admit that they can benefit from the expertise of others who have less power than them. They actively seek the ideas and unique contributions of the employees that they serve. This is how servant leaders create a culture of learning, and an atmosphere that encourages followers to become the very best they can.
10. How Vertical Development helps new leaders truly transform
The internet is awash with advice from investors and other gurus about how to build and lead technology businesses. CEOs and other new leaders need good advice – “guidance or recommendations offered with regard to prudent future action” – if they are to stand any chance of building a successful business. There are many core skills that must be acquired, and there is much to be learned from those who have done it before. But to develop truly effective leaders we need to move beyond providing them with more information – telling them what to do and how to do it – to helping them improve how they think, make decisions, and make sense of the world. This is the distinction between horizontal development, which focuses on what you know,and Vertical Development, which concerns how you think.
11. Carol Dweck: A Summary of The Two Mindsets And The Power of Believing That You Can Improve
Carol Dweck is a psychology professor at Stanford. She studies human motivation. She is most famous for her work on fixed and growth mindsets. People with a fixed mindset believe talent is everything. If they’re not gifted with the ability to do something, they think they’re doomed to be a failure. Their skills seem to be written down in their genes, just like their looks, which is why they never try to improve in something they’re not good at. People with a growth mindset, however, believe that whatever they want to achieve is theirs for the taking, as long as they work hard for it, dedicate themselves to their goal and practice as much as they can.
A growth mindset is a critical leadership trait. Check out Dweck’s book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (Amazon UK, US) if you want to train your growth mindset muscle.
12. The Psychological Price of Entrepreneurship
Like a growth mindset, optimism is a virtue. But founding and building a business is one of the toughest things anyone can do. It’s important to remember and embrace that as you undergo your transition, as this article explains.
Successful entrepreneurs achieve hero status in our culture. We idolize the Mark Zuckerbergs and the Elon Musks. And we celebrate blazingly fast growth. But many of those entrepreneurs harbor secret demons: Before they made it big, they struggled through moments of near-debilitating anxiety and despair–times when it seemed everything might crumble.
13. Imposter Syndrome – The dark side of leadership
I am afraid I will be found out for being a fraud.
Google ‘imposter syndrome’ and you will find lots of helpful articles on the subject. It is one of the most common conversations that I have as a coach. I chose this article because it highlights the affliction in the context of leadership, shows that people suffer from it at all levels of leadership and explains the science behind it.
14. Getting Beyond the BS of Leadership Literature
“All models are wrong but some are useful” said the British statistician George Box. Many leadership models exist. I encourage my clients to explore them and think about what they mean for their own style rather than become attached to any particular one. In this Mckinsey article Stanford Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer explains:
This consuming interest in leadership and how to make it better has spawned a plethora of books, blogs, TED talks, and commentary. Unfortunately, these materials are often wonderfully disconnected from organizational reality and, as a consequence, useless for sparking improvement.
The thought provoking article sets the tone for thinking about you frame your own leadership style. It also has some excellent suggestions for alternative books on the subject of leadership beyond the usual literature and commentary.
15. Solitude & Leadership
An inspirational final read on how to avoid being an “excellent sheep”, being “able to think independently, creatively, flexibly” so that you can “deploy a whole range of skills in a fluid and complex situation” and “have the confidence, the courage, to argue for ideas even when they aren’t popular.”
Solitude is the very essence of leadership. The position of the leader is ultimately an intensely solitary, even intensely lonely one. However many people you may consult, you are the one who has to make the hard decisions. And at such moments, all you really have is yourself.
If you enjoyed this, you might like:
Leading on the job: advice for new leaders contains five pieces of advice based on my experience of coaching leaders in venture capital and private equity-backed businesses.
In How to build a leadership culture in your startup I explore what leadership culture is and how you can build it in your business.
8 books that all new leaders should read is my recommended reading list for new leaders.