Zhou Hang: What is the real leadership? |at Shunwei
Shunwei Capital 2017–06–16 17:58

This article is the speech by Zhou Hang on Shunwei CEO annual meeting
Hello everyone, today I would like to talk with you about leadership, which is still a little bit metaphysical.
My current state, I feel, is that I am still in the water and have a rest near the bank in the course of swimming. After 7 years of starting a business, I officially rest on the edge of the pool when I think about what the next destination is and where I did not do good enough before. I am now in this state. I start to be an investor in order to keep sensitive to new things while engaging in novel activities.
Now, I have enough time to think about the past regarding what I have done, what decisions I have made, and which of them are wrong. When I was thinking, I found the mistake itself did not matter. I trust I must have made the best decision considering its specific environment and background at that time. Sometimes, I think it was a very reasonable decision made by me.
Later, I understand that we review the past so as to re-recognize the business rather than to blame ourselves for why we did not make a better decision at that time. Re-understanding shall be a way to do better in the future.

I have made a series of re-recognitions on what are being done, including recognizing of competition, innovation, strategy, leadership, financing, mergers and acquisitions. I report my current activities to you. Every month, I could make an intensive study on one subject, review the past, communicate with some investors, colleagues and competitors I got in touch before. Today, I would like to share one of the subjects. It is about leadership. Why shall I raise this subject?
I began to start up my own businesses 20 years ago. Since then, I have managed various companies from several staff to thousands of staff. In the process, I was once very diffident, with the leadership being exhausted as the business proceeded. Later, I made a survey on the lakeside to ask all the students whether they have leadership in their own opinion. 60% of them did not think they have enough leadership, which means what I have studied is a general subject. Especially for today, if you want to establish a relatively great enterprise, you could not only be a producer, passionate entrepreneur or a conventional entrepreneur. In the road leading to a great enterprise, leadership is indispensable.
How do we understand leadership?

Leadership is to what extent you could “motivate” others rather than make people obey you or command them. I take plenty of time to study. Many people like me want to know whether there is a model of leadership. Can we establish a model of leadership for us to learn and copy?
When I think about this, I am even more confused. When you study all the successful entrepreneurs, you could find they are different. Take Lei as an example, I am sure I cannot copy him. He is the most diligent entrepreneur working from 8 am to 9 pm. I believe I could not work like that. Jack Ma is eloquent and he could arouse passion of all the people. Can I copy him? No. Any entrepreneur is a person with leadership and is different from others. If I want to have leadership, what shall I do? Whom shall I learn from? Is there a model of leadership? Can I learn from them and have leadership?
After a rather painfully thinking process, I realized that there is no such standard model of leadership. That means leadership cannot be gained by learning from others.

At the same time, I found leadership did not only belong to Lei. What does it mean? We can do like Lei and we can have leadership. Everyone should have leadership, so that we could move forward.

What shall we do? Later I made an audacious conclusion that we should not attempt to gain leadership by imitating others. Only if you have the courage to truly be yourself, you could be accessible to leadership. You may be a little lazy, not diligent or indomitable enough. But it is you. Please do not blame yourself any more. Only if you accept yourself, can you display full advantage of yourself. When I thought about this, I started to get a little bit of power.
At this time, I could truly be myself. However, whom shall I lead?
As many people said, you shall lead the people who like you. I thought and realized that it is not right. Why? If a person shall lead the people who like him, who will have the most leadership? The answer shall be stars, who have tens of thousands of fans. Do they really have leadership? Obviously not. Those stars do not have the most leadership.

If I want to be popular with others, I will adjust my behavior to please others, and try to be the model others may like. Then I will be more and more unreal and not be myself any more.
So, I boldly put forward an idea, and I think it is the most meaningful though awkward-sounding subject I have ever proposed when I studied leadership.

You can only lead those you like. The quantity of them shall determine the boundary of your leadership.
However, if so, please ask yourself whether you really like all people in your company. How many people do you like? If you have label on that person in your mind, and you do not like him. Do you really have influence and leadership on him? I do not think it is possible. Liking people is a strong ability. The quantity of people you like shall determine the boundary of your leadership. You can like nobody even yourself, which implies that you cannot even lead yourself. So I think, when you have fewer labels on someone, you are easier to accept him and you have more leadership on him. Let’s think about who has the strongest leadership. The god, namely the religious leader, who likes everyone. This forms my new proposition.
Investors usually have experienced countless people. Someone is a pleb, but he is not suitable to enter into fashion industry. You may be very good, but everyone is not the god. Everyone’s leadership must has boundary.

You can only do things that fit you. Lei has shown strong leadership in aspects of consumption upgrading and cost performance.
I find an example in history. That is Lincoln. Lincoln is one of those who have the strongest leadership in the world. However, prior to his presidency, he managed a platoon with no leadership in the army and he was persuaded to quit. When he entered into political position, especially as the president, he showed great leadership.
I asked myself what mistakes I have made when I started the business. Later I found I was not absolutely indomitable, which may relate to my own personality traits.
However, in the wave of consumption upgrading and the pursuit of quality, I may find something very suitable for me. So I re-find self-confidence as such. I think that your leadership and traits also need to find something that really suits you.

Finally, I would share some conclusions I made when I study leadership by myself. Don’t worry. No matter what traits you have, you can get leadership, because everyone has leadership.
There are 3 points regarding this.
Firstly, be brave to be yourself.
Secondly, love your team who really like you, because you can only lead the people who you like.
Thirdly, find things suitable for your traits and leadership. I believe you shall give full play to your leadership and be a person with leadership!
Shunwei Capital was founded in 2011 by Mr. Lei Jun and Tuck Lye Koh, managing three US Dollar funds totaling 1.75 billion dollars and two renminbi funds totaling 2 billion yuan. The funders mainly come from sovereign wealth funds, family funds, fund of funds and university foundations and other international top investment institutions.
Shunwei Capital focuses on the Internet, mobile Internet, the high-tech industry and the transformation brought about by the integration of the Internet with other industries. We hope that through investing in companies with dreams, we can make our life better.
