By Deepak Reddy, Vice Chairman at Aditya Educational Institutions (2009-present). Originally published on Quora.
When I think of leaders I admire, I think of Elon Musk.
He’s a guy who dreams big. Across industries, he defies the status quo and does so with a sincere appreciation of the skills and attributes required to inspire a team and actualize change.
However, actualizing change like Musk is harder than it seems.
When I first stepped into a leadership role at Aditya, I had big plans for disrupting the education industry. But I was young and had not yet taken the time to hone my leadership abilities. What I found was that the people around me didn’t embrace my enthusiasm for change, nor did they understand my vision.
But that wasn’t their fault. It wasn’t until I took a step back and focused on developing myself as a leader that I started seeing success. In the process, I learned some things about the science of leadership.
I’ve since identified four traits that all quality leaders should possess.
#1: Strong leaders dream big, even in the face of doubt
This is what separates change-makers like Elon Musk from the average person. Most people have good ideas, potentially even great ideas, but they don’t follow through on them, or they allow naysayers to shake their confidence.
Consider the disbelief Elon Musk must have encountered when he first started telling people he wanted to colonize Mars. He wasn’t a rocket scientist. He wasn’t even an engineer. I imagine many people told him it could not be done. Or, moreover, that he was not the one who could make it happen.
Luckily, he didn’t listen to them. He believed in his dreams and in himself. Now, we have SpaceX.
#2: Strong leaders acknowledge their failures
Equally important as dreaming big, however, is remaining humble and acknowledging when you have done something wrong.
I’ve recognized this as one of the primary problems plaguing people new to leadership roles: They are more concerned with others’ perceptions of their personal performance than the strength or collective progress of the team they manage.
This might look like leaders blaming someone personally for something that’s gone wrong. This is hardly ever the right thing to do — at least not publicly. As a leader, you are responsible for engendering camaraderie and trust among your team. Playing the blame game, so to speak, has the opposite effect.
I know this from experience. When I first stepped into a leadership position at Aditya, I initiated a new and ambitious marketing plan that I was certain would succeed. It did not.
There were a variety of reasons why the initiative failed, none of which were technically my fault. I knew this. But I knew, too, that continued progress was more important than saving face.
I called a company-wide meeting, during which I took total responsibility for the failed campaign. This eliminated any opportunity for bickering or animosity, and the conversation that ensued centered around what procedural and strategic changes we as a team needed to make in order to ensure this kind of thing didn’t happen again, instead of focusing on who was to blame for the failure.
#3: Strong leaders encourage new and different ideas
Strong leaders have the ability to not only encourage, but to genuinely consider new and different ideas.
My father, who ran Aditya before me, encouraged everyone underneath him to think creatively about how to improve the company. If his employees didn’t have ideas of their own, he’d sit with them and help them generate some. He’d collaborate with them. In this process, real improvements were made.
I strive to do the same thing with my employees now. I provide them with the freedom and agency that creative thinking requires, and I listen to them as they detail the ideas they’ve come up with.
Sometimes in this process, employees generate lackluster ideas. That’s OK. The key is collaborating to improve those ideas. Personally, I try to acknowledge some logical aspect of the idea and push the owner of it to build upon it. “Yes,” I might say. “I see that. But what about this? What if instead of X, we tried Y?”
The more good ideas your team generates, the better.
#4: Strong leaders groom other leaders
Finally, all quality leaders understand that they are not experts in every field or department of their business.
When your startup is small or when your idea is still in its infancy, you might be taking the lead on a variety of processes and tasks. But as your company grows, it’s actually against your best interests to continue running everything yourself.
Strong leaders identify which aspects of their business could be run by other talented and inspired individuals. Then, they go out, find those people, and give them the tools they need to succeed.
Grooming potential leaders is one of the most important things you can do in running a company. The more people who understand your vision and will work alongside you in turning that vision into something real, the more likely it is that it will happen.
Plus, the more leaders on your team who in turn inspire the people working for them, the stronger your collective whole will be.
In the end, when it comes to the success of your company or dream, it’s not about you.
What matters is the manner in which you inspire and collaborate with those around you, how you groom future leaders from within your ranks, and that you stay mindful of the big picture and the dream you hoped to achieve.
That’s how you become the next Elon Musk.
By Deepak Reddy, Vice Chairman at Aditya Educational Institutions (2009-present). Originally published on Quora.
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