From AI Solopreneur to CEO: How I Lead Teams That Actually Deliver Results

Leadership is not natural. To be excellent and excel in business, you have to excel at being a leader because you're only going to be able to get so far on your own, which means you have to be able to make people follow your purpose. But you don't actually have to make anybody do anything, because if you are a good leader, they will share your purpose, you will instill it in them, and they will follow you as long as you reward them along the way. Being a leader is about influence, impact and inspiration. Those are the three things that it's about. And if you can instill that into another human being, they will. They will follow you, they will help you, and they will benefit you. So today I'm going to take you through what a team looks like when it actually wins against a team, which is basically, the boat is sinking and it's just staying afloat. So let's jump in. People don't follow instructions, they follow purpose. If you give somebody a purpose and make somebody feel like they're part of something, then they will follow you. When I walk into a room, my energy is always good. I'm happy to help people, I'm happy to share experiences. I don't want anything from them. I just want to be known as somebody who gives out good energy. That makes me a good leader. Right? I've led many teams in many different ways because I have that mentality now. Great leaders paint a clear picture of where the business is going. And this image on the screen now, you can see the clear difference in exactly what I'm talking about. In one boat, you have the leader stood at the back shouting, row. And his team are looking at him like what? In the other image, the leader is in the boat rowing with them, and the team are rowing alongside him because they look at him and they see the purpose, they see the direction, they see where they're trying to go. And that, my friend, is the Leadership 101. If you could, if you struggle to understand leadership, screenshot that picture, take that image and stick it in a frame somewhere in your house that you see every single day. Because 99% of leaders stand on the boat and they shout. 1% of the leaders, which are the most successful, they're the ones who get in the boat and row. And I'm not talking about necessarily doing the work, doing the grunt work, but they are part of the team. It's not where C suite, you're down there. It's. It's. We all have the same vision, we all share the same ambitions. Let's all make this bigger so we can all grow together. And when you have that, you have a successful environment. Inspiration beats instruction every single time because vision gives work meaning. And when you have meaning at work, you have purpose at work. And when you have purpose at work, you will follow your leader. Real leadership is about trust, not control, right? Because it's reverse psychology as well. If a team member feels like you trust them, they will run through a brick wall for you. If they feel like you want to control everything, then they will always be under your wing expecting instruction to come from the top. If you don't trust your team, you're the guy on the boat shouting, rowing. If you trust your team, you're in the mix with them and you're rowing alongside them and they can follow you on your journey. Micromanaging kills. It absolutely saturates motivation, right? If you, every single task that they're doing, if you're trying to control it, all you're doing is just killing the motivation. They just, they just feel like there's a weight on top of them and that they just have to deal with what you have to say every single day. And there is an element of, has been an owner of keeping control. But for 99% of things, you don't want that control. You want people to express themselves. You want people to be able to go and do what they need to do in the way that they need to do it. It's very similar to, like the way that you sell AI services. No one cares about the actual implementation. Businesses don't care how you build it, they care about the outcome. And that is exactly how you should treat your team. Listen, I trust you 100%. If that's what you need, go and do it. No problem. And by doing that, you instantly build rapport with your staff. You instantly build rapport with whoever you are trying to lead. It's very similar to sports. Think of like football, for example. A good captain is a leader and he doesn't lead by speaking, he leads by example. He leads by doing the things that you should do and then you follow suit. There are good captains in football and bad captains and there are good leaders in life and bad leaders in life. When it comes down to delegation, you should delegate outcomes, not just tasks. So when you say to somebody, hey, I need this pitch deck for this person done by 5pm, what you're actually doing is giving them a massive headache and micromanaging them. When you say, listen, you know, we've got that project coming up, I know you've knocked this out of the park for me, 15 times below. If you can get that pitch deck, produce and present it for me, that would be absolutely excellent. I know you know what you're doing. You don't need me to tell you how to, how to go and do it. You've got the experience. Just go knock it out the park for me. Instantly their mind has changed now. They don't want to let you down. Now that the leader, that the leader has given them trust and when you they have their trust, they don't want that to be broken because when it's broken, you've then let that individual down. Do you see the mindset shift that happens inside of people? What would happen to you in those two situations you would be more motivated to do because they've geared you up, they've backed you up, they've pumped you up, they've said, you know, you're the guy, you're the girl for this, like I'm going to give it to you and you just run with it and let me know how it goes. If it doesn't go well, then it's not your fault. And that is something which is critical like to being a leader. You have to understand that treat delegation as development. Give people space to grow. Allow them the ability to be able to self improve alongside improving as your company. Don't be scared that they're going to leave or overtake you or do what anything else because all you're doing there is just suffocating your own business. You need to just make sure that you get the best out of that individual. And by doing that you need them to be able to improve and self improve. That is exactly what you need. You don't just want them sat underneath you. When it comes down to direction and things, you should give though, you should give direction. You should provide tools for them to be a success. Provide tools for them to get out of the situation that they are in. If they need softwares, if they need X and Y, you should give it to them. And then guess what? You do, you get out of the way completely. You let them go and run with it. They've got everything that they need. You trust them because you've hired them. If there is an issue, you support them. You don't blame them, you try and support them. And that is how you truly lead a team. That is how you empower. When you delegate. Moving on to part three, which is a really critical part which is the majority of leaders get wrong right faster accountability and then constructive Feedback. Everybody in business is quick to point the finger. Nobody wants to take accountability. If you're a proper leader, nobody will be afraid of you, of afraid of making a mistake. They will be comfortable and forthcoming with any issues that arise. Accountability is about growth, not blame. If something goes wrong inside of your company, the first thing you should say is, well, what did I miss? What did I do wrong? And after that, you then look at what actually happened and focus on the issue that actually arose, not who did it or where it came from or who's whose fault is. You focus on that and then you resolve it and stop it from happening. Next time. Set crystal clear expectations from day one. Issues arise, focus what happened, not who did it, and then move on with your team and they'll respect you a lot for it. How you control that and make sure that that issue arises in a very minuscule, limited way is by providing feedback frequently and privately. Don't ever blast someone out in public. If you ever blast someone out in public, stop watching the video. Now. You should be intelligent enough as a leader to understand that feedback should be given privately. If it's necessary, give it privately, but regularly. So that means that when they do excellent jobs, you tell them they do excellent jobs. When you are doing a bad job, or some say a bad job, when somebody is struggling and something's happening, what do you know about what's going on in their life? How do you know that something's not happening at home that you don't know about that's making the performance drop slightly? Work's not life. Work, our purpose here is really important. We're all behind it. But sometimes life gets in the way. Things happen in life that cause downturns in performance, and you have to be sympathetic to that. How can you ignore that. Is your life perfect? Is every leader out there's life perfect? Do they not have bad days? Do they not make mistakes? Yes, they do. So why do you expect your staff members to be any different to you? They're not. They're human beings. They're exactly even to you, that you are no better than them. Just because you're the leader or the owner of the. Of the company, you're not. You actually have the opportunity to become a worse individual the more successful you get, because money just brings out who you actually are. Because money's never changed one person on the planet. It just showcases who they've always have been. And I strongly believe that when it comes down to the flip side of the coin of giving feedback privately, you should celebrate Things that go well publicly. Celebrate it so that it makes that the whole team knows that this guy did a really good job. This girl did an excellent job on that. Reinforce progress. Reinforce that this is a new standard that you've set inside of the company. And replace criticism with curiosity. Ask questions before judging what happened and watch what happens to your blessings for your team. Your revenue will grow if you treat your team with respect. Moving on to step four, where it's cultivating empathy and emotional intelligence. It's something that you have to learn if you're going to lead a team. Just before I jump into that, if you enjoy this sort of content, it would mean the world to me if you could hit the subscribe button and the like button below. But emotional intelligence is the ultimate leadership skill. If you can understand someone's emotion and communicate properly, then you're in a really strong position. You know the saying that like as soon as somebody gets angry in an argument, they've already lost? That situation is true. And it's true in life in general. If you become agitated and angry, you've already lost the debate because you're too emotional. You've allowed your emotions to overcome you. So emotional intelligence is so important both for you and for people who you're trying to lead. People work harder when leaders understand them. And not every person is the same. Some people you might need to be a little bit tougher with than others to get the best return on investment out of them. Other people need an arm around them when they make a mistake because that's just the way that it is. And again, going back to sports, it's the same thing. Certain basketball teams, they pump up their star player. They're like, you're the guy. You're going to go out there today, you're going to score 35, five points. You know, you're gonna have a double, double whatever and you're going to be in a position where you are the, you know, you are the leader and the winner. Whereas there might be somebody else in the team now where you go to and you instead of doing that, you're in their face. What you going to do today? What's what? What player am I going to get out of you? Like, who are you going to be? Are you going to be there in the pain? Like, are you going to be there? Like, are you ready? And that you g up people in differently? Like, different people react differently. And you have to have the emotional intelligence to spot that because they'll work harder for you when you marry those two Things up. Keep an eye on your team. They're precious to you. You know, adopt your leadership system to what motivates each team member. So each team member will have something that's more important to them than the other. Could be financial, it could be a title, it could just be respect, it could be with the work that they deliver. Whatever it is, make sure that you tailor it to that individual. Because if you don't manage your emotions, your tone is going to set the wrong temperature in the room. The temperature in the room should always be one of positivity. Even if there are flames in the, in the building, even if there's some fires to be put out, your energy dictates exactly how all of that gets solved. And as a leader, it's your responsibility to be able to control. You control yourself, but also control how your team react to that. Part five, Lead by example and continue to learn how to lead by example as your business evolve and your life changes. Because that can also be a swing. You have your own personal things to deal with and you have to push them down. Like, as an extension of point four, something I wanted to say about leading by example is like, when it comes down to me and my daughters, I've got a young daughter, Rosie, and Amy, she's the most beautiful little girl on the planet. But do you know when something bad happens and I'm around, I don't panic because even if it's bad and something has happened, a glass has smashed on the floor or she's knocked something over, if I panic in that moment, I am programming her to panic. Next time something like that happens, she will panic the way I panic. I control and set the temperature in the room by ensuring that I behave in a manner that's reasonable for what has happened. There is, of course, times where you maybe would panic in your life, but in a very, very minute, and they don't happen to a lot of us. So lead by example. And that is exactly what the final point is. Leadership is something you earn. It's not something that you say and get. You can't take, you can't take respect, you can't take the purpose. You cannot take and make people believe in what you do. You have to show them that that's why they should do it. You should model the behavior that you expect out of your employees. And when you do that, the effort, the integrity, the respect, the way you move, the hard work, the punctuation, all of those things they rub off on the team because they see you doing it every single day. You're showing up every single day. And as business evolves, you've got to keep learning. Great leaders are lifelong students. They continue to learn throughout their life because you can always improve. It doesn't matter who you are, what you do. Look at the best basketballer. Look at the Knicks and look at Jalen Brunson. Incredible. Or look at Cat like they're great players, but there's things that they can improve on every single day in training. There's things that they could. They can improve. They might only be marginal, but they can improve on it to make themselves a better player. And that is exactly what you need to do to make yourself a better leader. You can't inspire growth if you have stopped growing yourself. So as an outro, a quick recap. I hope that this video has helped you become a good leader. But seriously, these are the key traits that leaders have. Now, when it comes down to the points that we've discussed and what we actually need to focus on, when it comes down to the outro, I've just got to cover a few things for you. So number one, define and communicate a clear vision. Make sure that you define and communicate a clear vision so your team can get behind that purpose. The second one is empower and delegate effectively. Empower your team. Boost them up. Make them the best possible version of themselves. They will respect you for it. Number three, fast accountability and feedback. Give them when something happens, no finger pointing. Find the issue, find the solution, feed it back to them. Let them know where it broke down and what we've done to fix it and move on. Forget that it ever happened. Nobody is perfect, including yourself or me. Lead with empathy and emotional intelligence and people will buy into your authenticity. Authenticity is key. When it comes down to leadership. You have to be authentic. And if you're not authentic, people will see through it. You become authentic by showing empathy and being emotionally aware. And then the fifth one is walk the walk. You know, don't just talk the talk. Be a lifelong learner. Continue to evolve yourself. If this video has helped you become a better leader, giving you some insights into leadership and how you should grow your team, then subscribe for more content. Let me know in the comments if you like content like this. And I can certainly give it you because I have led a lot of individual teams in my life through a multitude of different events and I can tell you one thing. Every single person that's been in my team at one stage or another will tell you that I'm an excellent leader because I lead by example. My name is Michael Elliott, and I'll catch you in the next one.