Elon Musk is now the richest man in the world. Find out what leadership tips he has for you to achieve success in the corporate world.
Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX and CEO of Tesla Motors, has established himself as one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs during the last decade.
But what is it about Elon Musk’s leadership style that captivates people?
The answer is straightforward: Musk set his sights on the near-impossible.
Whether it’s founding a colony on Mars or eliminating traffic in major cities with 600-mile-per-hour underground hyperloops, he leads in a way that calls into question what humans are capable of. Seeing his vision come to fruition is both inspiring and motivating.
There is a lot that startup owners and executives can learn from Elon Musk’s leadership philosophy when it comes to directing a company. In terms of leadership skills, Elon Musk is one of the transformational leaders who express a clear, unmistakable vision of a better future. Transformational leaders are also important in defining and articulating the plan that team members will use. Above all, companies led by transformational leaders are driven by a sense of purpose and positive outcomes.
How to Put Elon Musk’s Leadership Style into Practice
So, how can business owners and executives capitalise on Elon Musk’s strengths as a leader at Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company, and Neuralink?
Learn more about his most charming leadership skills and how to use them to your advantage in the sections that follow.
1. Allow Failure to Motivate You
Elon Musk has had his fair share of failure. Around Christmas 2008, he was on the verge of losing both Tesla and SpaceX. Even in the midst of adversity, he displayed exceptional leadership abilities that inspired his team to keep moving forward. Dolly Singh, the former head of talent acquisition at SpaceX, said on Quora that following the loss of Falcon One in 2008, “a failure in leadership would have ruined us not only in the eyes of the press or potential consumers, but it would have destroyed us within.” Failure is clearly a motivating force in Musk’s life, as he uses it to motivate his team to greatness.
To allow failure to motivate you like Elon Musk does:
- Don’t linger on the negatives when leading through failure.
- Rethink and improve the company’s strategy for accomplishing your vision.
- Inform your staff about the aim of the adjustments.
- Employees should be prepared for failure by learning how to recover from it.
- You may even create a guidebook for your firm on how to deal with failure.
- Show team members how to accept responsibility for mistakes and pivot away from setbacks.
- Destigmatize the shame that comes with failing to provide a safe atmosphere in which to fail.
- Discuss the value of failure and how it contributes to progress, growth, and creativity.
- Make it a point to lead this activity by revealing your personal failures and how you overcame them.
2. Develop Your Problem-Solving Skills
Elon Musk, as a transformational leader, focuses on resolving the world’s most pressing issues.
To solve problems like Elon Musk:
- Write down what you believe you know about the problem at hand.
- Is what you’ve written a guess or an absolute truth?
- If it’s an assumption, find out why people came to that conclusion.
- Use the 5 Whys method devised by Toyota Industries’ founder, Sakichi Toyoda, to get to the heart of the problem.
- To utilise this method, ask “why” and keep questioning your conclusions until you’ve uncovered the fundamental source of the problem.
- Investigate the issue and talk with leaders and professionals who can assist you in making an informed conclusion.
- To make the right decision, reverse engineer the outcomes of your potential solutions.
- Create an action plan and track the success of your resolution.
3. Develop a Hunger for Knowledge
Elon Musk famously stated of his youth, “I was reared by books.” Kimbal Musk verified this argument by noting his brother reading two books a day on several fields as a teenager in a Bloomberg storey. Musk recommends that people study material that provides a solid understanding of the subject in order to gain knowledge. Once this is completed, branch out into several subcategories to learn more about your topic of interest.
4. Be Determined to Achieve Your Business Objectives
Elon Musk’s transformational leadership style focuses on bringing about genuine beneficial change in the world. This type of leaders take decisive action. For example, Tesla’s management style is oriented on achieving company objectives.
Leaders place a high value on deliverables since team members must meet these objectives in order for the company to survive, grow, and realise Musk’s vision. Hard effort that serves a meaningful purpose is at the heart of Musk’s businesses.
To be Determined like Elon Musk for the achievement of your business goals
- Set tough goals to help people test the limits of what they are capable of.
- Work on the company’s business strategy at least one day per week.
- Only activity that moves the organisation closer to its objective should be prioritised.
- Delegating tasks that do not require your attention frees you time to work on the business.
- Plan out a fair completion date for every work.
- Hire a project manager who will coordinate with everyone on the team to ensure that everything is completed on time.
