How does a person with a brilliant idea become a leader in a short matter of time and in an uncertain context? This question came to me during the Web Summit in Lisbon, where I looked for answers, given with enthusiasm, diligence, a spirit of entrepreneurship and the desire to succeed.
Andrea Correia de Jesus
Fascinated by the number of creators and ideas presented in this Web Summit 2023 edition in Lisbon, Portugal, I visited several stands of start-up founders grouped by business sectors and depending on their Alpha or Beta maturity. In an environment of high frenzy made up of so many conversations and activities taking place in parallel, they tried to attract attention and presented their products, showing themselves available for challenging conversations with potential investors or simple curious people like me.
When talking to some of them the following question came to my mind: how do you transform a person with a brilliant idea into a leader in a short space of time and in an uncertain context? The conversation almost always started with the idea they had and the mission or solution they offered with their product. Everyone talked about their personal dream of growing and being successful. Of finding an “angel” who is interested in your idea and wants to invest.
I also asked them who made up the team, who did what within the team? It's interesting to hear the stories of how they formed the team and understand the diversity of roles that each one takes on in parallel, from taking care of the financial side to developing the technical side or taking care of all the small administrative aspects necessary to keep the activity going. One said that “yes, the initial idea was mine. I'm from the commercial area and then I looked for someone else to help with the technological side. Now there are two of us.” And another said that “we both started developing the app and later we needed one person to help with marketing, and there are now three of us”.
In honest conversations focused on personal experience, many shared the frustration of having chosen a less suitable partner to advance their idea and product, and how they later abandoned either the partner or, often, the company itself. They spoke of differing opinions, of not getting along, or simply of difficulties in collaborating or delegating tasks. “We were creating a kind of ChatGPT for the German market. But we don't understand each other on how to continue the start-up. And that’s why I decided to leave the project and start something new”, reported a participant at the Web Summit. Another revealed how “I hired a person who had the best technical knowledge, from Nepal, and was excellent in technical terms. But communication is very complicated. I have difficulty explaining what tasks to perform and getting him to perform them independently”.
I registered the responses and noticed that the stories were repeating themselves.
Just like the answer to my question “and how do you stop your idea from being stolen?” was almost always identical: “we run faster”. Running faster, accompanied by a smile and a slight shrug, seems to be the most common strategy.
Given so much enthusiasm, diligence, spirit of entrepreneurship and desire to succeed, I reflected on what will be the best way to train this generation of leaders in this context of start-ups and acceleration of ideas in which the watchword is “speed”?
And this question arises in contrast to the development programs for future leaders in the corporate world, which are very familiar to me, and which require a lot of time – around one to three years from the identification of employees as having leadership potential.
In general, in organizations, talent is identified in a timely manner, and the challenge is to offer an appropriate combination of internal and external development and training measures.
And the measures generally used in the training and development of leaders are:
Internal: such as choosing a mentor, opportunities to practice leadership by managing a project or acting as the boss's delegate, presenting at top managers' meetings to have greater visibility and contact with stakeholders.
External: such as participating in training courses to learn and improve leadership skills, such as delegation techniques, motivation, or conflict management.
These measures are often offered to groups of various talents, which encourages participation and the exchange of ideas and experience, and thus allows the learning process to be fostered. All the development and effort of the person trained takes place in a structured and protected context.
In contrast, in start-up talent there is no time to waste, and the challenge will be how to train creators and founders to become effective and empathetic leaders of growing teams with a high degree of execution. And this in a short period of time, which often takes just over three months. What are the essential leadership skills?
The multiple leadership models and theories offer us a lot of information about which leadership skills and abilities are most relevant to being an effective leader. There are descriptions of different leadership styles that adapt to different situations, and there are also many inspiring models of how to work with teams and keep employees motivated and empowered. However, all these models and theories are more focused on application in situations when an organizational structure already exists, and teams are already formed and functioning. Hence the scarcity of clues for the challenge launched.
Nothing like asking the target group. And so I did. And right there, at the Web Summit, I asked them directly which skills need to be developed most urgently to make the project grow. Neither Alphas nor Betas hesitated to mention the following aspects of leadership:
- Identification of talent, especially when it comes to interpersonal characteristics, the so-called “soft skills”.
- Management of teams with a focus on delegating and distributing tasks so that they can be carried out independently without the need for a high degree of supervision.
- Management of conflict situations, especially when there are divergent opinions on the next steps and/or cultural differences that require adequate communication.
Et voilà! Perhaps these are the skills that form the core of a leading start-up.
The most skeptical will say that there are many more leadership skills needed for a leader to be successful, and that learning leadership requires time and many years of experience. A few years ago I would agree... today, on the other hand, I recognize the opportunity to learn from leading start-ups and to accept the challenge of empowering leaders with “speed”.
And yes, it makes sense to place the central focus of leader development on acquiring talent and rapidly growing cohesive, effective teams.
In a second phase there will be time to create enzymes in the teams and encourage their development and the development of everyone.
But in start-up mode these will be the start-up leadership levers that will allow founders to move beyond the dream and be prepared to move forward when an “angel” appears around the corner.
22-11-2023
Portal da Liderança
Andrea Correia de Jesus, graduated in Economics from the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, is passionate about people development. With strategic and operational experience working with teams and stakeholders at all levels, Andrea is a leadership development specialist at the international management consultancy firm LBC. Andrea returned to her home country, Portugal, after an international career specialized in talent management – in which she worked at Daimler and Mercedes in countries such as the USA, the United Kingdom, France, Singapore and, more recently, Germany. Her focus is to collaborate with leaders to improve the impact of business on globalization, as well as attracting and developing talent.