Leadership.

I never understood how important it was.

Until one day I realized our organization needed it.

That’s when I started my homework.

I started with a simple question: “What makes a great leader?”

Here’s what I learned…
Of everything I discovered,

Erica Ariel Fox has the best framework.

She describes The Big Four leadership traits.

Great leaders have one of these traits. The best leaders have multiple.

Here are the traits:
1/ Dreamer

This is your Visionary leader who can’t help but live in the future.

They value creativity and a bold long term perspective.

They spew innovation.

Usually, the CEO is a Dreamer.
2/ Thinker

This is your leader who can do the hard thinking around strategy to make dreams come true.

They invest in reason and analysis to test assumptions.

A CFO creating budgets for the organization must be a strong Thinker.
3/ Lover

A Lover is engaged with the emotions and relationships within an organization.

They provide the glue that keeps everyone connected.

Feelings matter to a Lover and they operate from a place of humanity.

A CHRO should be a Lover.
4/ Warrior

Warriors are determined to achieve results in an organization.

They provide the conviction, energy, and drive towards these results.

Without a Warrior in the organization, it’s all talk and no action.

Typically a COO is a Warrior.
A healthy organization has a balance of all of these leadership traits.

Missing even one is a material gap in an organization that hurts it from reaching it’s full potential.
While I’ve provided specific role examples for each,

I’ve found that certain leaders can embody multiple of these traits.

These are Super Leaders.

A Super Leader can forever change the trajectory of an organization.
I recommend asking yourself the question: which one of these represents my leadership style?
Oh yeah, and a leader doesn’t mean a manager!

At Bolt, we consider ALL people at the company, no matter your roles or rank, leaders.

Everyone is an owner and a leader.
If you enjoyed this tweet, give me a follow @ryantakesoff.

I tweet about lessons learned building and operating a $4B+ business.

Let’s take off together! 🚀💪⚡️

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More from @ryantakesoff

1 Oct
At Bolt we’ve experimented with 1000s of interview questions.

It’s been trial by fire, but the result is we’ve now hired 300+ amazing people.

For 5+ years, I interviewed every single candidate.

Here are my 15 highest impact questions to include in your hiring process 👇
Question 1: I’ve read your bio, but how about we start sharing each other's stories?

This sounds fluffy. It's not.

It’s crucial to learn who the candidate is.

The best teams are a combination of skills + incentives + personalities.

Most hiring stops at the skills part.
Question 2: Give me an example of adversity you’ve had to overcome and how you pushed through?

This question shows you a lot about someone’s character.

We face all sorts of adversity at startups (major and minor).

It's important to construct a team of creative problem solvers.
Read 19 tweets
28 Sep
At Bolt we grew from $400M to $4B in the last 10 months.

That's a 10x in 10 months.

This wasn’t an accident, but it also wasn’t a given.

The shift? We started making EVERY day count.

What exactly does that mean?

Let's break it down 👇👇👇
First, a step back:

We decided as a team that any tactic we took to “make the day account” had to come from one of 5 principles:

1. Accountability
2. Simplification
3. Curiosity
4. Empathy
5. Balance

Now let's talk tactics...
Tactic 1: Remove All Blockers

- “But X didn’t put a meeting on the calendar”
- “The other team hasn’t gotten back to me yet”
- “I didn’t hear from Y”

No. No. and No

Getting blocked is not tolerated.

Our team became relentless about problem solving vs. problem identifying
Read 14 tweets
25 Sep
In the last 90 days, we’ve closed more deals than ever before in Bolt’s history.

These deals alone have added billions to our valuation

This wasn't an accident.

We completely changed how we negotiate deals.

Here are 10 tactics we use today to negotiate Bolt’s best deals:
First, an important philosophical point.

People think that to win a negotiation, the other party has to lose.

That’s not congruent with our culture at Bolt.

Candidly, it’s also not effective.

The best deals expand the pie and both parties feel good about it.
Tactic 1: Tell the other party what makes them valuable to you.

It's disarming and changes the framing.

It makes them trust that you are truly valuing them.

Too many people are afraid to do this.

Don’t be. Do it early and often.
Read 14 tweets
23 Sep
The biggest lesson I’ve learned in building a $4B company:

It’s all about the people.

I’m thrilled to announce today that Bolt is the first tech unicorn to officially shift to a 4 day work week.

Here’s why we did it and how we came to the decision 👇👇👇
@naval has a philosophy on work that describes it best -

Work like a lion, not a cow.

What does that mean?

Cows graze all day - slow pace, same activity, day in and day out.

This is how most jobs are set up.
But what if we worked like lions?

Short bursts of energy, high intensity and then rest and recover for the next sprint.

High performance isn’t about how much you put in; it’s how much you get out.

Cue: the 4 day work week.
Read 15 tweets
20 Sep
Over the last 5 years, I built a $4B company.

Sounds awesome right?

Not until recently.

I made every mistake imaginable.

The toughest part was getting my head right.

Here are the 12 mindset rules that I’ve developed.
Rule 1: Get Started

If you tell 10 people about your idea, it’ll go something like this:

- 5 will say it won't work
- 3 will say you're crazy
- 2 will be indifferent

The best part?

None of these people's opinions matter.

Just get started. It’ll be the hardest thing you do.
Rule 2: Never Stop

The leading cause of startup failure is founders giving up.

If you don’t give up, you can’t fail.

Easier said than done, I know.

Some days you’ll feel on top of the world, some days you’ll feel like everything is breaking.

Whatever it is, never give up.
Read 15 tweets

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