The New Leadership Secret — Driving Innovation by Making People Successful

Pranav Kumar
Sep 2, 2018 · 5 min read

I’ve always believed in humans. Our abilities are unmatched, and when we’re motivated, we can achieve the impossible. However, most company culture are based off of the opposite of these assumptions. Based off of the ideologies that managers work off, humans don’t like to work, don’t like their line of work, and don’t like to be coaxed. Unfortunately, this has led to the corporate culture of working 9–5 jobs, uninspired, unmotivated, and unhappy. For good reason: most employees don’t have a reason to feel inspired, motivated, or happy. A whopping 70% of American workers are dissatisfied with their career choice. We must face and address the problem: a corporate culture that promotes mediocrity. Fixing this epidemic will take time and effort from employers and employees alike. However, the potential upside is enormous; imagine an economy where most workers love their jobs and are self-motivated to do more.

A change in leadership style is at the forefront of this movement. The prime place to explore new, innovative leadership strategies would be exactly where one would expect: startups. The livelihood of these companies depend on the intellectual vitality and motivation of its initial employees. As a serial entrepreneur having invested in many startups and running my third venture, I know the importance of selecting this special team. But beyond that, it’s ultimately the chemistry of said team that drives a startup to be special. This can only be created by the one in charge. Through 15 years of entrepreneurship, I’ve learned that helping people feel successful individually at a communal level is crucial. It may seem like a lot, so let’s take a minute to digest that. Employees must feel special, because they are. They need to be able to understand their importance to the company through their contributions. Encouraging this as a leader not only creates a sense of success, it creates a drive, a passion that monetary compensation simply cannot match. Expanding this to the team level is just as important. A bunch of successful employees focused on their own work is not going to create a successful company. A team needs to be successful together, contributing meaningfully to each other and others around them.

It’s quite obvious that there needs to be a shift in perspective of management in companies all around the world. However, the harder question to answer is: How do we do it? While there are many different takes on leadership styles, strategies, and community building, I feel that many small actions need to be taken in order to ensure harmony and productivity in a group. As a leader, one needs to be perceptive enough in order to see where the shortcomings and possible pitfalls are going to be. However, this has to be done without being overly intrusive or obnoxious. Taking the effort to make observations on a group’s dynamic will go a long way in determining how to increase productivity and motivation. After identifying the areas where employees may falter or have difficulty, a leader needs to be able to improve by facilitating the development of skills in the area. This can be done with or without bringing up the issue with the individual or team. This choice is up to the personal style of the leader and what they feel more comfortable with doing. It is still crucial that a leader is able to identify the weaknesses in a team or individual, and help them feel successful on a community level. This effectively increases both interpersonal and intrapersonal passion and motivation.

By increasing passion and motivation, a leader can set the stage for future success by creating a team that’s willing to work long and hard to help a business thrive. From my experience as the CEO of HuEx, a Palo Alto-based startup, I’ve seen that it’s the small things that matter. I’ve learned that uplifting others both personally and professionally go a long way. Compliment the product of someone’s long hours, and make it into a habit. This can especially be applied to the Silicon Valley, a bustling business center with unimaginable competition and stress. The smallest (ultimately biggest) thing a leader or CEO can do is make your team feel appreciated. If you think outside of the individual, outside the team, and outside the business, the very concept uplifting another person makes logical sense; it’s a mutually beneficial activity. These small actions create a snowball effect, leading a long-term behavior change in favor of productivity, sociability, and motivation. Norihiro Sadata, a researcher at the Physiological Sciences, Nagoya Institute of Technology, said, “To the brain, receiving a compliment is as much a social reward as being rewarded money. We’ve been able to find scientific proof that a person performs better when they receive a social reward after completing an exercise.”

Working with the UI and UX designers at HuEx, I thought, “How can I uplift my team to make them the best in the industry, or help them maximize their respective skill sets?” I realized that the solution was not one of micromanagement. Rather, it was one of encouraging independence, originality, and self-direction. I believe that once an individual has a solid understanding of the mission of a company, they are able to guide themselves to solve problems or tasks assigned to them in an efficient, timely manner through self-motivation. Since I’m not the best in UI and UX, I now have an expert from IDEO helping our designers with the process, refining the product with semi-weekly sessions. I realized, and subsequently noticed, that simply sharing the concept that someone from IDEO, a renowned design and consulting firm, is going to be helping the team created immense motivation. This resulted in better work quality, a better work ethic, and a sense of worth and success.

This leads me to my final point and conclusion. Too often we get tangled in the debate of “work-life balance” without realizing that a balance can naturally be created by promoting self-motivation, cohesion, and a feeling of communal success. By generating these sentiments, a leader can open the doorways to a team that is self-motivated, self-driven, and independent. Employees naturally enjoy their work, something that’s hard to achieve in today’s hyper-competitive corporations. Happy employees means great work, work that may be used to fuel a new, groundbreaking idea that changes the future.

“Motivation is the result when one feels successful, not that one feels motivated by being successful”- Pranav Kumar

HUEX

Our vision is to create more collaborative living and working for everyone.

Pranav Kumar

Written by

Serial Entrepreneur,Investor, Evangelist, Meditator, CNBC Award winning Asset Manager. Excited about Sharing Economy

HUEX

HUEX

Our vision is to create more collaborative living and working for everyone.

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