The incomplete guide to leadership — Part II

In this series of articles that I call “The incomplete guide to leadership”, I have crowdsourced some leadership lessons from my network as well as added my own. In the second instalment, I talk about how to lead people effectively — even during hard times.

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go in a group.” — An African proverb of unknown origin

Nobody embodies the first part of this proverb better than the Swiss alpinist Andreas Steindl. He went from the centre of Zermatt (the Church square) to the top of Matterhorn and back down 8 seconds shy of four hours at 3h 59 mins 52 seconds. This route has around 2,860 metres of ascent and 2,860 metres of descent. As he explains — in his understated Swiss manner — descending is the hardest part: you really need to stay focused.

I bet. He has no to very little equipment, while literally running most of the way. You can find his exploits on YouTube.

But, while I’m sure it will arrive, we have yet to see the one-man company growing to be a unicorn. Legendary founders conjure up amazing results by sheer force of personality, but always with a team. With a group of followers. Because founders are leaders. The reward in leading may be a financial windfall, it may be changing a whole industry for the better, or it may just be enjoying the moments with your team where everything hits the flow state.

These are my learnings on how to build and lead world-class teams.

People know more than you think

It’s safer to assume that employees know more than you think they know about the state of your business. In the words of famous author John Le Carré: “people talk”. Not only that, as a species, we are generally good at picking up the subtle signs of distress, changes in behaviour patterns, mannerisms, ways of speaking, mood, body language and much more.

These changes are registered subconsciously and manifest themselves as feelings or thoughts. Remember — we…