Eric Siu argues that the best leaders stop prioritizing politeness and become more forceful. Near-death experiences teach them to make quick, decisive calls that save time and money, rather than wasting resources on endless consensus-building.
I think leaders really become leaders once you go through a couple of near-death experiences, which we've been through. You've been through so much where you're just like, dude, enough. Like, I, I've seen this movie before. I, I know exactly what I want, and I'm going to ask for what I want, and I'm not going to wait. I don't care what you think. You're spot on, because earlier on when I was more sympathetic and I was trying to figure out how to push in a polite way, which doesn't really work out in my opinion, um, a lot of those companies had near-death experiences and some of them actually did die. And in today's world, the reason I push harder and I don't care is because I know the consequences from not pushing and not pushing when you should push. Maybe they'll figure it out and then I'll push then. No, it doesn't work. You just lose a lot of time and money and it just crushes the business.
