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If youre familiar with Gallup data about employee engagement, they have been playing one of their Top 40 hits for decades now. Its a classic weve all heard. The tune? People dont quit companies; they quit managers. Weve known this for years, but here we are, still stuck in the same leadership crisis. Too many managers dont understand the difference between managing work and leading people. Heres the plain truth: You manage the work; you lead humans. And when leaders miss that, the culture and performance pay the price. The brutal truths So, if youre willing to take a hard look in the mirror, here are seven brutal truths about leadership every leader needs to face. 1. Good leaders remove the fear from the atmosphere Traditional command-and-control bosses still use fear and pressure to push people forward. It may work in the short term, but it kills creativity, collaboration, and psychological safety. Modern leadersservant leadersflip the script. They create safety first, freeing their people to share ideas, take risks, and innovate without fear of punishment. When fear leaves the room, growth walks in. 2. Trust is non-negotiable for high performance Heres the leadership gut check: Does my behavior increase trust? Trust isnt just a nice-to-haveits the foundation of high-performing teams. Leaders who build trust practice transparency, keep commitments, talk straight, and hold themselves accountable. If your people dont trust you, nothing else will stick. 3. Accepting feedback fuels good leadership Too many leaders avoid hearing feedback because it threatens their ego. Thats a surefire way to lead in an echo chamber. The best leaders invite feedback, listen with curiosity, and ask questions until they truly understand. They dont dwell on past mistakesthey use feedback as fuel to grow and to better serve their teams. 4. Good leaders stay positive under pressure Challenges, setbacks, and even failures are inevitable in this day and age. The difference is how leaders show up in the storm. Emotionally intelligent leaders dont sugarcoat reality, but they keep their perspective grounded in growth. They frame problems as opportunities to regroup and reset. That positivity doesnt just reduce their own stressit keeps the whole team grounded. 5. Procrastination kills leadership Effective leaders are action-takers. They dont put off tough conversations or delay decisions until a crisis forces their hand. They anticipate issues and address them head-on before they spiral. Procrastination breeds chaos. Proactive action builds stability. 6. Boundaries are a leaders best friend Warren Buffett said it best: The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything. I regularly coach executive teams to protect their time, energy, and focusto say no to distractions, negativity, and overcommitment. The flip side? Saying yes to what aligns with their values and fuels their mission. 7. In the end, leadership is really about love Yes, love. And not the soft, sentimental, squishy kind. Im talking about love as practical, results-driven action, day in and day out. The rugged Green Bay Packers head coach Vince Lombardi nailed it when he said, I dont necessarily have to like my players and associates, but as their leader, I must love them. Love is loyalty, love is teamwork, love respects the dignity of the individual. This is the strength of any organization. In practice, leadership love looks like clearing roadblocks for your team, investing in their growth, advocating for their success, and treating them with dignity. Love is leaderships ultimate competitive advantage. The bottom line: The old Gallup song may be around for another decade, but leaders willing to face these truthsand live them outwill finally help their teams and organizations play a new song. Marcel Schwantes
Category:
E-Commerce
How did you get to where you are in your career? My interest in this question dates back 45 years to when I was an MBA student at Northwestern Universitys Kellogg School of Management. Whenever corporate executives were guest speakers at our classes, I would listen intently as they described what contributed to their career advancement. In the same vein, as I speak with leaders today, I always make a point of asking them what they consider to be the main drivers of their success. Over more than four decades, the two most common responses are: (1) I worked hard and (2) I have several unique skill sets. As I look back on my corporate career, including as chair and CEO of Baxter International, a $12 billion health care company, I agree with the importance of working hard and having unique skills. However, having engaged in the practice of self-reflection as the foundation of my values-based leadership, I know that far more than my own efforts and talents contributed to my success. Five factorsluck, timing, team, mentors and sponsors, and faith/spirituality or mindfulnessaccount for much of what I have achieved. As executives and those who aspire to leadership reflect on their own careers, they will no doubt see the influence of these factors. The result is a shift in perspective that encourages gratitude, attracts support, and leads to more opportunities. 1. Luck Without question, luck plays a part in every career, such as being in the right place and connecting with the right people who open doors. Over the years, Ive heard executives attribute their early success to a lucky break, including insightful advice from a teacher, a first boss, or a mentor. The same happened for me when I was an undergraduate student at Lawrence University. When I told one of my professors that I was considering a PhD in mathematics, he quickly offered a different opinion. Harry, if you get a doctorate in mathematics, your work will be of most interest to a small group of colleagues. Youre so outgoing, why dont you think about economics and pursuing a career in business? Youll be able to influence so many more people. If it hadnt been for that advice, I am not sure what my career path would have looked like. 2. Timing If luck is about being in the right place, then it only makes sense that it also has to be at the right time. One episode of fortunate timing occurred when I was an undergrad looking for a summer internship. I applied in-person at the First Bank of Minneapolis, where my application was put into a stack with about 150 others. In a stroke of fortunate timing, a vice president at the bank walked by the reception desk. I introduced myself, explained that I was looking for an internship, and politely asked for five minutes to tell him more about myself. Twenty minutes later, I landed the internship. Timing also played a part later in my career, especially when I was first promoted. There were times when I replaced someone who had accomplished very little in the position. Therefore, only a small effort on my part made a huge difference in what I accomplished compared to my predecessor. The more I recognize the role luck and timing played in my career, the more it reinforces a sense of genuine humility, another of my principles of values-based leadership. Its a reminder that success is not a reflection of being the smartest or the most gifted person in the room. 3. Team I am very well aware of the fact that I have been blessed with great teams at every stage of my career. If I had not worked with these talented colleaguespeople who knew what I didnt knowthere was no way I would have reached senior leadership positions, including chief financial officer (CFO) and then CEO and chair at Baxter. In fact, my teams success directly contributed to my advancement. For example, when I was one of eight VPs of finance at Baxter, there was an opening to become the next CFO. The other seven VPs had far more experience than I had. To my surprise, I was promoted. The reason? Everybody wants to work for you, and so many people who are promoted throughout the company were trained by you, I was told. When I share this story with my students at Kellogg today, I do so as a reminder of the importance of creating an environment in which others want to work for you. Its the best possible showcase of leadership. 4. Mentors and sponsors The influence and encouragement of so many have made a huge difference in my life. As I look back, I remember the late Donald Jacobs, Dean of Kellogg, who encouraged me to think about the kind of impact I would like to make as a leader: Do you want to be a very good finance person? Or do you want to be one of the people who helps run a company who happens to know a lot about finance? I chose the latter, and it made all the difference in my career. Another important mentor was William Graham, the long-time CEO of Baxter, who used to say, Arent we blessed to do well by doing good? He lived that philosophy and impressed upon me the importance of addressing the needs of all stakeholders, including customers, suppliers, shareholders, and even society. 5. Faith, spirituality, or mindfulness This last factor is really number one for me, but I want to be sensitive to the thinking of others (especially when teaching in a secular university). For me, though, my faith reminds me that any talents or skills that I have are God-given gifts; therefore, I am responsible for using these gifts to the best of my ability. In other words, its not about me. Spirituality, mindfulness, or the practice of faith can help others see that, as they pursue success, it really is about making a difference for others. These five secrets to success apply to everyone at every level. Their importance becomes clearer with self-reflection, reminding us that our career advancement is not just about us. Rather, the success we achieve broadens our ability to influence and help others as they benefit from luck, timing, teams, mentors, and a spiritual/mindful perspective.
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E-Commerce
Fast Company is delighted to make this article available to any student for free. Please request a copy by email. I was sitting on the steps of Duke Chapel at 2 a.m. in December 2023, the Gothic towers looming above me, a 210-foot reminder of everything I was about to walk away from. My phone was exploding with notifications: Y Combinator had just accepted us. ChatGPT had hit 100 million users in two monthsfaster than TikTok, faster than Instagram, faster than anything in human history. And I was about to break my single mother’s heart. The chapel bells rang twice, echoing across the empty quad. In six hours, I’d be dropping out of one of America’s best universities. The same university my mother had sacrificed everything to get me into. The same university whose acceptance letter made her cry tears of joy in our cramped apartment kitchen in Dhaka, Bangladesh, a place most Duke students couldn’t find on a map, where American university acceptance letters arrive like answered prayers, meant to lift entire families. The only thing harder than getting into Duke from there was explaining why I was leaving. Now I’d make her cry again. I threw up twice before leaving Duke that morning, once in the dorm bathroom, once behind the student center. Not from the previous night’s parties; I’d stopped going to those months earlier while my hallmates were doing keg stands. I was too busy watching the world change at warp speed. While my classmates wrote papers about AI’s potential, we were teaching it to think in practice. While they debugged thesis statements, we debugged systems that would touch millions. They worried about grades. We worried about scale.The decision wasn’t romantic. It was terrifying. But sitting on those chapel steps, watching my classmates live their normal college lives while history was being written in real time 3,000 miles away, I knew. My cofounder, Md Abdul Halim Rafi, and I were accepted into Y Combinator’s W24 batch with Octolane AI to build the next AI Salesforce. We were one of 260 companies selected from more than 27,000 applications, less than 1% acceptance rate. Duke’s is 8%. Harvard’s is 5%. I’m not great at math, but even I could figure out which achievement was statistically more improbable. Some trains only come once. And this one was leaving the station with or without me. Why This Moment Is Different History rarely offers moments when the ground shifts beneath our feet. I’ve studied them obsessively: The internet in the ’90s, when two Stanford PhD dropouts named Larry Page and Sergey Brin saw search differently. Social media in the 2000s, when a college dropout named Mark Zuckerberg connected the world from his dorm room. Today, it’s AI, and it’s moving faster than any wave before. Consider this: ChatGPT hit 100 million users in two months. TikTok took nine months. Instagram took 2.5 years. The telephone took 75 years. We’re watching revolution at warp speed. The AI market is projected to reach $1.81 trillion by 2030, growing at 35.9% annually, faster than the cloud computing boom, faster than mobile, faster than the internet itself. Here’s what kept me up at Duke: By 2028, AI will autonomously make 15% of all work decisions. Not assistdecide. We’re not talking about a tool anymore. The question for me was: “Do I want to build the next GPT or learn about it in a textbook?” Actually, scratch that. When BackRub started as a Stanford research project in 1996, Page and Brin had years to develop it before formally launching Google in 1998and even then, it took until their 2004 IPO (six years post-launch) before the world fully understood just how profitable and dominant they’d become. Zuckerberg had seven years after Facebook’s 2004 launch before Google even tried to compete with Google+ in 2011. AI founders? Look at what happened to Character AI: They built something revolutionary, then Google just hired the team. Look at Inflection, which got $1.5 billion in funding, then Microsoft basically bought them for parts. We don’t have years. We have months. Maybe 24 if we’re lucky. Every week I stayed in that Duke classroom, another AI startup was getting a $100 million Series B. Every test I took, OpenAI was releasing another model that made last month’s breakthrough obsolete. Every night I spent in the library, someone my age in San Francisco was defining how humanity would interact with AI forever. The companies that win the AI race in 2026 and 2027 will dominate for decades. The rest will be Wikipedia entries nobody reads. The Framework That Made Me Jump Dropping out sounds romantic. In reality, it’s a calculated risk that requires brutal honesty. Here’s the framework that helped me decide: 1. Conviction: Were we solving a problem that mattered? Sales teams waste 30% to 40% of their time manually updating CRMs. The question was simple: Could we eliminate a trillion-dollar inefficiency? 2. Timing: Was this the right moment? AI adoption was exploding, but it was still early enough for startups to move faster than incumbents stuck in quarterly earnings calls. 3. Traction: Did we have proof? Early customers kept asking the same question: How fast can you onboard us? One customer pulled out credit cards mid-demo. 4. Partnership: When you’re about to jump off a cliff, you better trust who’s jumping with you.Building a startup isn’t a solo sport. When you hit the inevitable walls (and you will), you need someone who believes in the vision as deeply as you do. Someone who can carry the weight when you can’t. Someone whose skills complement yours, who challenges your assumptions, and who won’t let you quit when things get dark.My cofounder, Rafi, my best friend since high school, left his comfortable job, said goodbye to his family, and boarded a plane to San Francisco with his wife after one phone call. He did this based on nothing but my conviction and our shared dream.br>Some nights we’d code in complete silence for hours, the only sound being keyboard clicks, because we knew we didnt have the luxury of giving up.When someone trusts you with every fiber of their being, failure stops being an option. 5. Runway: Could we survive? YC and early investors gave us just enough capital to go full time. Not comfortable, but enough. But when you’re building with your best friend who crossed oceans for this dream, you make it work on breadcrumbs. Without all five elements of this framework, I would have stayed in school. That’s why most people shouldn’t drop out, because unless those factors align perfectly, you’re not making a calculated leap. You’re gambling with your future. Why Most People Shouldn’t Do This Let me be brutally honest: Dropping out isn’t a badge of honor. It’s a tactical decision that’s wrong for 99% of people. Stay in school if: You’re running from something (hard classes, social pressure, your roommate’s terrible music taste) rather than toward something specific You don’t have a problem that keeps you up at night and wakes you up excited (insomnia doesn’t count unless it’s productive insomnia) You think being a “dropout founder” sounds cool on X/LinkedIn You don’t have at least 12 months of runway secured (No, your parents basement doesn’t count as runway.) You’re alone without a cofounder or strong support system (Chatting with Cursor AI or GitHub copilot is not a cofounder.) You haven’t talked to at least 50 potential customers The opportunity will still be there in two years (Spoiler: If it will, it’s not urgent enough.) The world needs doctors who finish medical school and engineers who master their craft. We can’t all be dropout founders, and thank God for that. Someone needs to actually know what they’re doing! What I’d Tell My Past Self If I could go back to that terrified kid holding his Duke ID at 2:12 a.m., here’s what I’d say (yes, I remember the exact time; anxiety has a way of burning timestamps into your brain): The fear never goes away. You just get better at moving forward despite it. Every founder you admireZuckerberg, Gates, Jobswas once exactly where you are: terrified, uncertain, but unable to ignore the pull of what could be. Your parents will understand. Maybe not today, maybe not this year, but when they see you building something that matters, they’ll understand that you honored their sacrifices in a different way. Failure isn’t falling, it’s not trying. You can always go back to school. You can always get a job. You can always become a consultant and use phrases like “leverage synergies” for the rest of your life. But you can’t always catch a wave that’s already crashed. Find your tribe. The loneliest part isn’t leaving school; it’s the months when you’re building in obscurity while your friends are at parties you’re no longer invited to. Find other builders. Share your struggles. The founders who seem to have it all together are often one bad day away from quitting too. A Final Thought Last week I got coffee with a Duke student who’s considering dropping out. He reminded me of myself: brilliant, ambitious, and absolutely terrified. I told him what I’m telling you: Don’t drop out to follow my path. Drop out only if staying would be a betrayal of the fire inside you. Drop out only if the problem you’re solving matters more than your comfort. Drop out only if you have something to build that the world desperately needs. And drop out only if you have someone like Rafi, someone who’d cross oceans for your shared dream. But if you have that fire, that problem, that desperate need to build, then maybe, just maybe, the biggest risk isn’t leaving. It’s staying.
Category:
E-Commerce
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