Why does study continue?
People who stop paying attention to a leader’s job may get caught out, since the job constantly changes. It seems that there is a case worth examining here. Arif Bhalwani Third Eye Capital without a client, an office, or a degree, long before he went to business school.
That sequence tells the reader something. The study was not a way in. The door was already open. The learning itself was more satisfying for Bhalwani than the results he produced, so he kept studying. In meetings, they ask questions a more image-conscious leader would not ask and read in strange places. There is a notice. Ununderstood things become harder to understand for others in the room.
What does failure teach?
Humility comes first, then usefulness. As a young man, Bhalwani started eight businesses, all of which did not succeed. Those who failed are credited with shaping how the firm operates today. A large company today is run as if it could disappear tomorrow.
It is characteristic of leaders with this habit to respond in a particular way to setbacks. They search for the exact moment things broke, the specific decision or assumption, without attempting to draw sweeping conclusions from one bad experience. A position is held while it still makes sense and abandoned only when the facts change, which is harder than it sounds when everyone nearby is losing patience. And enough room is left so that a wrong call does not finish the business. Being correct most of the time is nice. Surviving the other times is what keeps a firm alive.
Handing off real work
Leaders who delegate well are oddly slow about it at the beginning. Watching comes before assigning.
- Leadership is more about how a person handles problems that have no tidy solution than how they handle routine tasks.
- Leaders then step back far enough to let the person decide what to do, not just execute, and ownership of the outcome follows.
- The truth must be told in all circumstances, including the bad parts, because that is the only arrangement that will keep everyone honest.
Done for a couple of years, this produces a team that stops waiting for instructions, not because of any written rule, but because the trust was tested often enough that nobody doubts it anymore.
Values under strain
Bhalwani spoke of an obligation to contribute that arose long before any career, moulded by a family taking in refugees. That obligation is not treated as a slogan. It turns up in ordinary choices, the kind nobody writes a press release about.
Inspire your team without a leader. A team needs to know what will be accepted and what won’t, on good days and on bad. As soon as the standard bends, people stop watching it and start watching the leader’s moods.
The key to this is not found in a single trait. When the novelty of doing things the same way has worn off, it is still the same for years and years.
