10 Leadership Lessons from Warren Buffett | No BS Coaching Advice
By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
The virtues in these lessons are lovely. Start with one. See if there’s a second one later on that you can embrace. Any of them will make a difference.
Hi, I’m Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter. I’m a coach who helps people be more effective in a variety of different ways. They can evolve career development, job search, hiring more effectively, managing and leading, a whole host of different things.
I stumbled into a meme online– 10 leadership lessons from Warren Buffett. I got such a kick out of this one. They’re wonderfully simple. Do one of them. Just
do one of them. Don’t worry about doing all of them. Start with one. It’ll make a difference for you. Let me go through them with you.
Love what you do. If you ever watched Buffett talk, in any venue, the guy has a lot of juice for what he does, right? And he says “there comes a time when you ought to start doing what you want. Take a job you love. You’ll jump out of bed in the morning. I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don’t like because you think it will look good on your resume. Isn’t that a little bit like saving up for sex for your old age?” We’ve heard that last quote many times. The key part is doing work that you love.
Learning how to communicate effectively is number two. You’ve got to be able to communicate in life and it’s enormously important. Schools, to some extent, underemphasize what he says. If you can’t communicate and talk to other people and get across your ideas, you’re giving up your potential. If you’re not sure how to communicate, practice by going to a Toastmasters meeting. Toastmasters meetings. Practice by working with a coach. I think Toastmasters would be much less expensive, and it’s a good launch point for you.
Number three. Choose your business. associates wisely. It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours. You’ll drift in that direction. It’s like another quote that I’ve seen. You’re the sum of the five closest people that you spend time with. And,, thus, if you deal with people who are unsuccessful, you tend to be unsuccessful. If you deal with people who are more successful, the environment will tend to pull you up to them.
Don’t micromanage. Hire well. Manage little. Buffett says,
Number five. Plan for the future. The primary job of a board of directors is to see the right people are running the business and to be sure that the next generation of leaders is identified and ready to take over tomorrow. In other words, plan for your future.
Transparency is highly appreciated is number six. If anything, taxes for the lower and middle class, and maybe even the upper middle class should even probably be cut further. But I think that people at the high end, people like myself, should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we’ve ever had it. We can disagree about taxes. I think the idea of transparency is a very useful process for any leader.
Number seven, patience is a virtue. No matter how great the talents or efforts, some things just take time. You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant (Duh!) and, I think, also on a different theme, the notion of touch, rather than pushing all the time is a remarkable virtue. So, by just holding a little bit longer, you’re able to get more out of the situation.
Manage your time wisely is number eight. You’ve got to keep control of your time and you can’t unless you say “no.” You can let people set your agenda in life (So true). Be prepared to take risks and learn from mistakes. People are so afraid of making mistakes, they take no risks. Buffett says risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing and most of you have some idea, but you don’t have perfect knowledge. I’ll add in most of you won’t take such risks as to risk the house, risk the firm, risk your family and its safety.
Don’t worry. most of the risk that you’ll take are relatively inconsequential by comparison to those.
Number 10. Treat everyone equally. Personally, I really hope I can treat everyone equally. I think I’ve done a pretty good job so far. I know I can do better. I’ll quibble about this one, you may differ. But for me, I think it’s hard to do. And I don’t think that we’re ever going to get to that point and we can all do better.
I’m Jeff Altman. Hope you found this helpful. I hope you enjoy this and, like I said, pick one to start off with. If you’re watching on YouTube, click the like button.. Let other people know it was worthwhile. Also want to mention, subscribe to my channel there by clicking the icon in the lower right or the picture of me in the upper left.
And lastly, if you’re interested in one on one coaching, go to my website, either TheBigGameHunter.us which has all my content, or NoBSCoachingAdvice.com, which has my content minus the job search stuff. There’s a button on either that says “Subscribe; you’ll get notified whenever I release something new.
Have a great day. Take care!
ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a career and leadership coach who worked as a recruiter for more than 40 years. He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with more than 2400 episodes. He also hosts Job Search TV on YouTube, and Amazon, as well as on BingeNetworks.tv for Apple TV and 90+ smart sets.
I do a livestream on LinkedIn and YouTube (on the JobSearchTV.com account) Tuesdays and Fridays at 1 PM Eastern. You can send your questions about job search, hiring better, management, leadership or to get advice about a workplace issue to me through LinkedIn’s messaging. You can also message me through chat during the approximately 30-minute show.
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