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Hi everyone, here’s what we have for you this week:
Elon Musk isn’t the only South African CEO leading multiple global tech companies. In this week’s episode of The Everyday Leader, we hear leadership lessons from Matthew Henshall, who runs Lessonspace and Code4Kids, both of which are edtech platforms with a growing global customer base.
International Coaching Week (16-22 May 2022) is here! This year’s theme from the International Coaching Federation is “Reimagine the Future” to challenge the global community of coaches to continue growing its impact.
Most managers want to learn alongside peers from other companies. But many leadership development learning opportunities don’t cater for this reality.
Read on for more details…
Stepping into a leadership role by necessity, parallel learning through managing multiple businesses, and the risks of aiming for a perfect outcome
Here are a few highlights from the conversation with Matthew:
Stepping into a leadership role can sometimes occur by necessity: When founding his first startup, Matthew has several other co-founders whom he considered more technically advanced. It was for this reason that he volunteered himself to figure out the business side of things. His co-founders embraced this and he shares a story of a particular case early on where there was a disagreement around a decision that needed to be made. One of his co-founders told him that he needed to be the one to make the final call, and that they would rally behind the decision together. He found this very humbling as it made him realize that he needed to make a smart decision that will be the right one for the team and to set up the business for success.
Managing multiple businesses or teams simultaneously can help provide perspective and parallel learning: Matthew currently manages two businesses concurrently which has accelerated his rate of learning. He says this has allowed him to spot similarities and differences in each business. It gives him an opportunity to think more about why certain business and team strategies might work with one and not the other, and he has even found himself connecting peers across both companies to exchange specific learnings he feels would be relevant to each other. This dual-business set up has also forced him to shift his leadership style from doing everything for his teams to more of an enabling role. He used to tell people his role was to “make sure you know where you’re going, have what you need to get there, and I’ll help you get there” to instead only promising the first two.
Aiming for a perfect outcome comes with risks: Matthew recently heard a sports analogy for business decisions that reminded him of the leadership decisions surrounding the sale of his previous platform, SkillUp Tutors. The analogy is that a tennis player can increase their odds of achieving a winning serve by aiming to serve the ball closer to the out-of-bounds line, but this also increases the odds of losing the point altogether. Matthew reflects upon the the stage at which he was selling the business that he and his team had built over several years. He is proud of how he handled the situation, and knows that things could have ended in a completely different way.
Celebrating International Coaching Week 2022
Held since 1999, ICW is an annual opportunity to celebrate the power of coaching. In the spirit of this year’s theme, remember to ask yourself “How are you reimagining the future?”
Most managers want to learn alongside peers from other companies
Learning from peers can unlock new perspectives. In a recent poll we ran on our LinkedIn company page, 80% of respondents indicated that they would prefer to learn alongside a mix of managers from both their own company and other companies.
Many companies’ leadership development programs aren’t yet designed for engagement with peers from outside of their company. If you find yourself in this category, consider applying to join our fast-growing Peer Coaching Network for yourself or your team.