How I lead a $100,000,000 company…give away the credit, accept all the blame..
Summary
- I've often rejected management roles because I believed I could do things better myself, without relying on others. But leading is not about doing tasks alone; it's about guiding others to success.
- Many new leaders fear they aren't cut out for the role because they're used to finding satisfaction in their own work, not in managing others. This mindset needs to be shifted to find fulfillment in the team's achievements.
- The hesitation to step into a leadership role often comes from a deep-rooted belief in our personal capability and a bias towards our own work, leading to devaluing others' contributions.
- One key lesson I learned is to retrain yourself to gain satisfaction from the results your team produces rather than from personal accomplishments. This shift is essential to effective leadership.
- As a leader, it's important to recognize your role involves empowering your team and ensuring their success rather than seeking personal credit for achievements.
- The feeling of wanting to do tasks yourself doesn't vanish when you become a leader. Instead, you must learn to resist this urge and focus on coaching and supporting your team.
- It's natural to experience discomfort and a sense of dissatisfaction when transitioning to a leadership role, as it's different from being a high-level individual contributor. Acknowledging and overcoming this emotional hurdle is a part of growth in leadership.
- The ultimate sense of satisfaction as a leader comes not from personal tasks but from knowing you've contributed to the greater good of your company and team, delaying immediate gratification for long-term success.
Video
How To Take Action
I would suggest taking a step back from solo tasks to guide others. If you like doing things on your own, that's okay, but leaders help their teams do great work. To start, you can take small steps:
Learn to appreciate others' work: When your team does something good, tell them! This will help you find joy in what they achieve, just like you do with your own work.
Coach, don't do: Resist doing tasks yourself. Instead, show your team how to do them. You can start by picking one thing you usually do and teaching someone else to do it instead.
Give credit to your team: When something goes well, say it's because of your team's hard work. This can be as simple as saying "Great job" in a meeting or sending a thank you note to someone who did well.
Understand it's normal to feel unsure: If you're not used to leading, it might feel strange. Know that it's part of growing as a leader to feel this way.
Focus on the big goal: Remember, your work as a leader is important for your business or personal growth. Even if you don't do the tasks yourself, you're helping your team and business succeed.
Following these tips can help you become a great leader without needing a lot of time or money. You'll be able to help your small business or personal growth by shifting your focus from doing everything yourself to helping your team be the best they can be.
Quotes by Leila Hormozi
"I will do anything to ensure this business doesn't fail and so that means I'll become whoever I need to become"
– Leila Hormozi
"Most people like being a high level individual contributor and not managing or leading because they get all of the credit"
– Leila Hormozi
"Your measurement of success is not on the credit that you are receiving but on the credit your team gets"
– Leila Hormozi
"A leader should give credit to their team and to all those around them and that they should take blame"
– Leila Hormozi
"Over time you will feel a much greater sense of satisfaction for knowing that you have delayed your own sense of gratification for the greater good of your company and your life"
– Leila Hormozi
Full Transcript
all right in this video what i want to talk about is going from a high high level individual contributor to a leader um and a lot of the lies that i feel a lot of people believe that prevent them from actually being a leader and doing what it takes to become one and so the reason i felt like it was really important to show this video and i feel passionate about sharing it right now specifically is because this is a conversation i had with a lot of my team at our recent quarterly meetup and so we fly in all the leaders on the team a lot of them happen to be newer leaders or in leadership positions that are higher than they'd ever been before and a lot of them shared with me these different feelings and stuff that have arisen with them and i think that what they thought that that meant by feeling this resistance was that they shouldn't be a leader and so i'll kind of dissect this for you and just first tell you my story which is before gym launched i had literally been offered to be a manager at every job i had and i said no every time and the reason i said no is because i was like well i can just do it better myself like what i have to rely on these numchucks over here to do it like i remember thinking like these idiots can't do what i wouldn't do like i had that belief i was like i'm better than everybody i can do a better job i don't want to rely on other people for my performance like that just seems no what's funny is that this is what i'm hearing a lot from my team is that as well as this um thought that it is really hard to get a sense of satisfaction from other people doing the work rather than doing it yourself and i find that so funny because that is exactly how i felt when i actually stepped in this role and i think that i'm actually lucky because when we start gym launch i felt like i will do anything to ensure this business doesn't fail and so that means i'll become whoever i need to become i'll believe whatever i need to believe to make sure that i can progress forward and become the next best version of myself so that the company can progress it's really interesting because because of that i was open to finally doing this to managing people into leading prior to that i was not i just felt like i could rely on myself i didn't want to have to rely on other people and so that's the first thing is like what i'm noticing is that so many people believe that that is a sign that you should not be bleeding that you think that and i'm like no i think that's just like the cost of entries that you feel that way like of course you do because we're all biased towards ourselves and all of our own actions of course we think we're better at getting things done than everybody else you know we see all of our accomplishments we see all their flaws that's just how perspective works and so that's the first part the second part was something that someone said one of my leaders he said i just don't gain the same sense of satisfaction out of watching others get the work done that i do in doing it myself and i'm like well of course you don't because you've literally trained yourself to get satisfaction from the work you do and to disregard the work others do in fact maybe even discredit the work others do because you've been a high level individual contributor i would say that that's normal you have made the habit of rewarding yourself or feeling satisfied right you've told yourself right that you become satisfied when you do the work and now you just need to rewire that thought and teach yourself to be satisfied when others do the work this is something that was probably the most frustrating when i first became a manager a leader in our own company was i was like oh my gosh i'm so i just want to go in and do something like i'm so sick of all these calls and meetings and one-on-ones i just want to go get this satisfaction like scratch this itch and what i want to say here is that that's completely normal and to be expected that doesn't mean that you're doing anything wrong or that you're not meant to be a leader at all in fact this is normal and when this works against you is when you believe that thought and you let that thought mean that you shouldn't be doing what you're doing right rather than just like oh that's a shitty thought i should just try and think something else instead you make it mean like oh i'm not meant to be a leader i'm just too selfish i'm just too self-centered i'm definitely just an individual contributor it's like no you're a human we're all humans i truly don't believe anyone's born a certain way like i think that you can mold yourself however you want it's just like you've trained yourself into thinking these thoughts that don't serve you in this way you can train yourself to think other thoughts right and then the last piece to this is the piece that i think is the hardest for others to get over which is that i was talking to my friend when we were on a walk the other day and we were talking about being a leader and she said you know sometimes i feel like you don't even give yourself enough credit and i was like well that's because i don't believe i should get the credit almost sometimes to a detriment she's like well what do you mean i'm like well i believe that a leader should give credit to their team and to all those around them and that they should take blame right and so sometimes i think i do it a little bit too hard to the extent that i take all the blame and i give all the credit but i still think that is probably one of the first mindset shifts that you have to make which is that most people like being a high level individual contributor and not managing or leading because they get all of the credit right like you get the credit for saving the day you get the credit for doing a good job you get the credit for leading the project you get the credit for talking to the customer you get the credit for everything and then the funny thing is that when you become a leader your measurement of success is not on the credit that you are receiving but on the credit your team gets right so when i look at somebody say ahead of customer success i don't really look at what kind of credit she is getting i'm looking at her team because the measurement of her success to me is now how well her team is doing how much credit her team is getting not her right because her job is to create and empower her team it is another shift of course in which we have to understand that you have to be able to sacrifice that and in the short term i think the reason that most people just decide that they're not meant to be a leader or manager is because it feels shitty and they think because it feels so crappy that they shouldn't be doing it that there's something wrong that they're doing it wrong or they're just not meant to be this role they're not meant to be this person and what i told somebody today is i said i constantly feel a lack of um satisfaction in the sense of i don't do the things directly i have to coach people to do them and i so badly want to do them it's been like three and a half years since i've been the one doing a lot of those things day in and day out and i still don't get i still that urge right but it's one thing to feel something it's another thing to act upon that emotion right rather than just saying like i get that having this emotion is part of leadership and management it's going to be one of the downsides of a role like this is that i'm going to have that urge constantly i'm going to have to train myself to not succumb to the urge and jump in i have to train myself to not succumb to the urge and try and take the spotlight right and so i've had to retrain myself it doesn't mean the feeling goes away it gets much more subtle but doesn't go away but what you do learn to do is resist it right and so if you're thinking like you're not made up to be a manager or a leader especially if you own the company and you have that thought which is just so like not true at all especially if you own the company like there's just no reason why not i think acknowledging that like we all still have those feelings like we would like to do things ourselves we believe that we can do things better than anybody else we would like to get a sense of satisfaction from the work we do we'd like to just rather do it ourselves because we can do it faster and better right we all think that um and then we think that there's something wrong with us if we're having these thoughts when i just want to tell you like there's nothing wrong with you every single leader man i've talked to pretty much has these feelings some just don't want to admit it some say it in a different way but they're all there at the end of the day and so i hope that that helps if you're struggling with overcoming like this new hump of having say a bigger team and outsourcing more maybe delegating more um or just your first time leader um it is completely normal and to be expected to have these feelings and so i think that everyone should know that and i think that it is kind of bs if you just pretend like like it's all sunshine rainbows and i just love watching other people succeed all the time it's like no sometimes you just want to go in there and get it done yourself right you're like dude i missed that that's okay right over time you will feel a much greater sense of satisfaction for knowing that you have delayed your own sense of gratification for the greater good of your company and your life so if that was useful go ahead hit subscribe
