Elon Musk Leadership Model: 5 Tips to Manage an Effective Team for Your Business
Here’s one of the most common questions I get asked:
“What is Maverick?”
According to Dictionary.com, a maverick is a lone dissenter, as an intellectual, an artist, or a politician, who takes an independent stand apart from his or her associates. Therefore, a Maverick is a nonconformist, an individualist; a free thinker and a loner.
If by any chance you are rebellious in nature or like to disrupt conventional policies or ideas, chances are that you are a Maverick!
So when we Add “Think” to the word Maverick to make up Think Maverick, we literally want every individual here at thinkmaverick.com to Think Like A Maverick!
Why Think Like A Maverick?
The World’s Best Entrepreneurs, Artists, Actors, Actresses and Athletes are Maverick Thinkers…. Just think about it!
- Steve Jobs wouldn’t have made a comeback after being kicked out of his own very own company…
- Bill Gates, Will Smith, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, Bruce Lee, Anthony Robbins…. Just To name a few.
I won’t go into details here as I’ve dedicated a special article on “So what is a Maverick?”
Among all the successful Maverick Thinkers, Elon Musk intrigued me the most. That’s the MAIN reason why we choose Elon Musk — the world’s most maverick billionaire as our ThinkMaverick Magazine Logo on Itunes!
So, for the next 8 days, I’m going to share some of his best & worst kept secrets with you!
I truly believe Elon Musk is a Game Changer for your business and dreams.
If you believe he is, the price of admission to get to the top of your game is just a few minutes of your time.
Follow my series as we unravel the secrets to his universe.
Day 1: How to Stay Motivated Like Elon Musk
Day 2: How to Learn Like Elon Musk: 4 Tips to learn faster and better than everyone else
Day 3: Elon Musk Leadership Model: 5 Tips to Manage an Effective Team for Your Business
Day 4: Elon Musk’s Advice for Starting a Business
Day 5: How Elon Musk Overcomes Challenges
Day 6: How to Work as Hard as Elon Musk in a World of Lazy Dreamers
Day 7: How Elon Musk Work 100 hours a Week
Day 8: 9 things I learned from Elon Musk
Elon Musk Leadership Model: 5 Tips to Manage an Effective Team for Your Business
1. Get the Team Right:
“You are your company and your company is the team you get!”
The biggest advantage of getting the right team is that your job is almost halved as they are aware of the expectations. A team which is passionate and avid just like its founder can always achieve great heights.
Elon Musk is known for his grueling schedule and his commitment to his passion is something legendary. If you still think that it was possible by one single man alone, then you wrong.
Musk is ably supported by his team who follow the same enthusiasm and his vigor. You defiantly cannot plan to build a rocket to Mars or to start a car that runs on electricity if you do not have a team that is wild enough to believe in you.
For the most part, Elon chooses his team by himself. More often than not, many times he would in the interviewing panel while the candidate was being selected. This was the sole reason why was he was able to collect a batch of like-minded individuals and how they could afford to work in tandem with Elon’s vision.
2. Be the Leader:
Anyone can be a manager but not everyone can be a leader. Leadership is not a title one gets but it is something which one earns.
In more ways than one, your employees would always look up to you- be it for your leadership or your direction. Ensure that you are always there for them. Guide them and steer them well in the direction in which you prefer to go.
Elon Musk once quoted in an interview that as a leader, one should understand that his employees are not there for serving him. The leader should in all essence be the one who works more than his peers.
Elon has made it to the Glassdoor Highest Ranking CEO list for the year 2017 and he has every right to earn it. Though his work schedules are grueling, his employees always give their best for the leader that he his and their trust in his visions.
3. Be The Inspiration:
As an entrepreneur, you are in a way trying to solve one of the world’s problems. To get there, you need to get a loyal group of following that believes in you.
More often than not, the people working under you and the end customers for whom the product is intended should get inspired by you and your creations. This is not an easy job but trust us- This is where your appeal and your agility as a leader comes into play.
Though Musk faced many hardships from his childhood, he has managed to work at it to his advantage and built a sizeable amount of adult charisma. In his own words, you can be a true inspiration when every employee under you feels that they are not coming together to work but rather that they are coming together to build something new for the future.
In spite of the grinding schedule and deadlines, Elon Musk’s workplaces are always fun to work with. His inspiration is what leads them and this is exactly what makes them work in tandem with him.
4. Never Overlook Talent:
In any business, never have the assumption that the more number of people you hire, the less time it would take to get results. This is a crucial blunder which many first time entrepreneurs make when venturing out.
Numbers would never give you the desired output but only talent will. Hiring the right-gifted people for the job sometimes makes all the difference.
These people are singular in comparison and always stand out in the crowd. You have to look out for these people and make sure that they are part of your team.
Elon found this the hard way when he was running his software company. He realized that getting more programmers for the job ultimately ended him in a soup, whereas hiring that one talented programmer made all the difference which these people couldn’t make.
Nurture talent always and hold on to that talented set of individuals who go to great lengths. There is no set pattern on how to find these right people. It happens simply by experience.
5. Talent Vs Personality:
Taking the cue from the previous point, never also assume that only the talented sets of individuals are needed to make your company rosy. You should also need a personality to go along with it.
Talent and talented individuals can only get you to a certain extent. Only the people with the right personality and character can go the extra mile and make your company admired.
Elon’s initial focus was to hire only talented people. However, he soon found that only these talented people are never enough to make the outcome what he envisioned.
In spite of the talent pool he commanded, Elon constantly felt that there was something amiss from the work. His regular exchange with such people made him understood what it was.
It was the Integrity and Humility of a person!
Integrity and the humility of the person are what makes him a great individual. Of course, this can be found out only by interactions and experience and never through a resume.
You never would want a talented person who steals from you or has sinister ambitions motivating him. Hiring the right candidate who shares your enthusiasm is a mandatory aspect in any organization.
“The biggest mistake, in general, I’ve made, is to put too much of a weighting on someone’s talent and not enough on their personality. And I’ve made that mistake several times. I think it actually matters whether somebody has a good heart, it really does. I’ve made the mistake of thinking that it’s sometimes just about the brain.”
Over to You!
If you liked this post, don’t forget to share it on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter.
This is day 3 of 8 Days of Maverick Success Tips from Elon Musk.
If you are interested in learning more about my entrepreneurial journey, Check out this ThinkMaverick Magazine App.
If you ever want tips please follow my Instagram page and ask away.
Coming Up Next
Discover more LIFEHACKS from the Man behind the Iron Musk in this Special Featured Issue. Get the Free Promo Code to Subscribe to the Magazine for Free here.
Originally published at thinkmaverick.com on July 18, 2018.
