Joel Campbell shares what makes a great leader: hire good people, give them autonomy, and stay thoughtful and humble. He emphasizes building a positive work environment where people can do their best work.
When you first become a leader, I think there's a lot of talk about what leadership is, and you have in your head what you think a good leader is. But when you're put in the place where you're leading a team and a broad team with many functionalities, the thing that you learn quickly is that you don't have all the answers. And you have to hire good people. You have to push them to excel and grow and develop, but you can't hold on to them too tightly. You need to let them be professional and do their jobs. I think that's the thing I learned. I hired some really good people. A couple of them are actually still there, but I was able to turn them loose, give them direction and let them go out and figure out what needed to be done and let them shine. And stepping back from being down in the weeds, managing or micromanaging, if you will, the day to day, to stepping back and becoming more of the person who directs broadly. What is the strategy for what we're trying to accomplish? Kind of handed down to me from senior management, but then down to my team. What are we trying to accomplish? What's the big picture? Here's what I need you to go out and do and let you and your team go out and figure out how to do that. That was probably one of the biggest lessons I've learned that's carried over even into my current role today, is to not get in people's way, but to hire good people and let them do what they do best. I think our job as leaders is to be strong and to stand up for our people, to stand up for what we believe in, but not to do it in a demeaning or condescending way. We should be kind, but we shouldn't be weak either. We shouldn't be timid souls who don't have the ability to stand up and support people. We should be thoughtful. I think we absolutely need to be thoughtful in the way we think about leading people, the way we think about leading a project, pushing the organization to maybe move in a different direction that it's not willing to or hasn't moved in the past. And I said many times, as I've interviewed for roles and as I've talked to people, I think there's a great deal of humility that should come with leadership. Being a leader is a gift and it's an honor and it's a privilege to be able to stand in these roles and to lead people. And we shouldn't take that for granted. Lord, that over people. But at the same time, we should be proud to be given the gift of leadership to be able to do it. We should make sure that we're not arrogant about it and that we don't lord that over people in a bad way, that we have a sense of humor and we have some fun along the way. I'm a firm believer that if you can't go to work every day and have a fair amount of fun in what you do and make fun of yourself, make fun of other people, but make fun of yourself and make sure that your staff know that they're cared for and that they're loved, and that you really want them to grow and develop along with you. I think that we've missed out on a great opportunity to lead people in a really effective way.
