Favor respect over positional authority

Leaders who grow don’t depend on the same motivations for others to follow them.

Often when a leader starts off in an organization, his only claim is title. He was hired as a manager, he was selected as a senior so-and-so, etc. People follow him because of his title or out of respect for another’s selection, but only because they must. If no other reason develops besides position, the people will stop following.

A growing leader; however, does not rely upon position for long. He begins to build influence with those he leads until they begin to follow because they’ve seen his competence and have enjoyed his effectiveness. In time people would follow beyond the requirements his position demands because they respect him. If he continues to develop influence the eventual result will be an impact that stretches far beyond his position. (Maxwell, Based on Maxwell’s Five Levels of Leadership, pg. 111)

The leader of an unrecognized startup begins with little positional authority outside the people who’ve agreed to help. The first hires to the company are not likely following only because of position either, since an entrepreneur at first needs to depend on people who’ve caught the same vision. Because of this a leader needs to depend on higher motivations than position alone even to launch a startup.

In time; however, the entrepreneur is recognized as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). New hires begin to follow his leadership simply because he’s got the title, not because they respect him. This is no time for the leader to depend upon his new-found authority, but to continue to grow in character and competence and in service to his employees so their following will not remain at position alone but move towards respect.

As an entrepreneur without many results to bolster other’s respect it’s unlikely apart from respect that anyone’s going to follow me into the launch of a startup. I can start at the bottom of Maxwell’s leadership pyramid (Maxwell, pg. 111) with a business card that says ‘CEO’, but I suspect it’d take only a couple weeks to burn through the respect inherent in the position before I’d have no employees or partners. It’s therefore imperative that, in the process of iterating through business models in an attempt to find a working model I also invest in the people I’ve partnered with. I’ll need their respect of me to grow as the company grows, or they’ll find some other startup to join.

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