The Reboot podcast showcases the heart and soul, the wins and losses, the ups and downs of startup leadership. On the show, Entrepreneurs, CEO’s, and Startup Leaders discuss with Jerry Colonna the emotional and psychological challenges they face daily as leaders.
Episode 37 // April 1, 2016
For leaders, the temptation to tell, fix, and even do is so strong. “I know the way,” or “I have the answers,” or “the buck stops with me.” Sometimes it’s impossible to resist the ego boost of providing the answer, giving the fix, telling the way. But what impact does this have on the team and ourselves? And is it even true?
Jerry is joined today by Patrick Campbell, co-founder and CEO of Price Intelligently – a bootstrapped company in Boston. Patrick and Jerry explore different leadership styles, the power of “if I die docs,” and how the secret to leadership, and servant leadership, may not lie in having the right answers, but instead asking the right questions.
Top Quotes:
“My dad gets most excited when he finds an old manual about sheet metal or steam.” – Patrick Campbell
“My family struggled a lot of times to have enough money to pay the bills, and sometimes even to buy food.” – Jerry Colonna
“So much of what Reboot is about is people talking without bullshit, without filters, without spinning each other, and about the ups and downs of what it’s really like to try building something.” – Jerry Colonna
“For the first six months, we didn’t make any money.” – Patrick Campbell
“My upbringing made me more risk averse.” – Patrick Campbell
“I was intuitive enough to know that if the company failed I could always go and find a job.” – Patrick Campbell
“Once you get on the investor treadmill, you have to stay on it.” – Patrick Campbell
“If I didn’t work 18-hour days for 6-7 days a week during those first 6-9 months then we probably would have needed to raise money.” – Patrick Campbell
“Come hell or high water, I know that I can make money.” – Jerry Colonna
“A good entrepreneur always makes sure there is more money at the end of the day than there was at the beginning of the day.” – Jerry Colonna
“The point of building a business is to make a profit.” – Jerry Colonna
“A huge part of the company early on was figuring out how to make 1-hour of work equal 5-hours of work.” – Patrick Campbell
“To produce a truly valuable business it can’t solely rely on just me.” – Patrick Campbell
“‘Servant leadership’ is a much more scalable model of leadership.” – Jerry Colonna
“I was always very uncomfortable with the ‘you work for me’ CEO’s.” – Patrick Campbell
“I have found there’s a lot more power in ‘our’ rather than ‘mine’.” – Patrick Campbell
“The only way to create a humane and scalable organization that allows every individual to realize their fullest potential is through the “servant leadership model” where there is no ‘them’ there is only ‘us’.” – Jerry Colonna
“If what you are really interested in is building companies that are employing people 100 years from now then ‘servant leadership’ is the way to do it.” – Jerry Colonna
“The problem with the “top-down dictator-like” leadership approach is that you aren’t hedging as much risk as you think you are.” – Patrick Campbell
“You can’t work 18-hour days for 3-4 years, or put in enough time for a top-down approach.” – Patrick Campbell
“There’s a lot of problems with being self-funded.” – Patrick Campbell
