Question about leadership

I believe i'm a good leader. I have received this comment from many of the people I worked with and their feedback reinforced my belief as I grew in experience and knowledge.
I was asked this question on Linkedin by someone and I thought it would be worth sharing with everyone:

Hello XXXXXX,

I believe leadership has a lot to do with emotional intelligence, empathy and experience. Being a leader to me is like being a father in your family. You have to mentor your team, watch over it and be considerate when it comes to people's situations and circumstances. But at the same time a father is strict and disciplines his children because he wants them to be disciplined and to grow up strong. The same applies to teams. A leader should be firm but gentle, it's a mix between 2 worlds.

You have to be assertive as well and knowledge in the field you're working in, as you know in development and software, developers tend not to respect their managers if they don't understand the business or the software industry, so you have to get enough knowledge and experience to aquire their respect so you can direct them in the way you think your company needs but at the same time give them enough freedom to make their own choices and decisions.

I hope I was able to help, let me know if you need more information.

Regards,
Joe

That was my reply in short, I hope it helps someone understand my point of view.

It's really not what you know!

I don't want to sound cynical, nor do I want to put you down! I know that you probably think that it's whether you can code this, or make that. Whether you can create this, or do that!

I promise you it's not.

It's not what you know, what you've learned in school or in university. It's not what your dad or mum told you. It's not even what you and your friends think you can or cannot do.

I've been trying to play the entrepreneur game ever since I was 15 or so.

My dad was also an entrepreneur, he passed away last year a few days shy from my birthday. He worked hard for over 60 years, ran a small business manufacturing a product that sold in our home country market through all the major supermarkets.

He knew how to make things, he knew how to perfect them, knew exactly how much liquid to put in so it gets sterilised enough, knew exactly how to cut it and make it into a product he can be proud of.

60 years of hard work, and we were barely making ends meet. I don't deny that the business went through ups and downs, it helped us go out, helped me go to a good university. Whenever I was behind on a payment, dad would always step in. It helped me and my brother and sister go to school even buy a few cars across the years. But we were far from rich, middle class barely.

But my dad did not know what it takes to become rich. I am not admitting that I do, but I can tell you that it's not about what you know, it's not even about what you sell. It all comes down to these 3 little words:

WHO YOU KNOW!?

The reason my dad was in business was because my uncle knew a guy who was starting his own distribution business. This guy was rich and he saw a product that can sell, which my dad knew how to make. 50 years later, here we are. Was it the product? Hell no! The product can get you so far, if it's good enough for people to buy, that's all it needs. I admit that in the market there was so much competition, products of lesser quality, but they were cheaper! Apparently the companies that manufacture this product, know better people, people with influence, people who know other people and can get their products on the shelves. They sell more than we do, they make more money than we do and they're not better at what we do.

My advice for you is to focus on cultivating your public relations skills. Learn how to make friends, learn how to network. Make sure that you know people with money, become their friend, get close to them and when the time comes, whether you are an entrepreneur or not, they can give you that push you might need.

Finding ways how not to get rich!

I was thinking during my shower of ideas to write about. I thought I will discuss my 18 years journey to getting rich, which I have yet to do. Then I thought I would talk about details of my many attempts at achieving wealth and the first thing that came to mind, was the famous Thomas Edison Quote "I have not failed, I have just found 10,000 ways that won't work" and it immediately hit me.

I have learned so many ways how not to get rich that I can probably write a book about. So here I am, I will be going over all of the ways that I have tried and failed at getting me rich which would potentially help other people in their journey as well.

To give you a bit of history, ever since I was young - and by young I mean in my early teens - I've always been driven to literature. I liked to read in school but most of all I've always liked to write. Unfortunately writing for me was a method to express anger, depression, break-ups, adolescence, a crush, anything that had to do with negative emotions.

Which is why it has always been an off and on thing.

Whenever I felt depressed, I wrote. I guess I never really wanted to share my thought with anyone verbally and as long as I wrote about it, it was as if I told someone what I was thinking. Unfortunately it was a one way communication process, I never really received any kind of feedback.

Whenever I stopped writing, it meant I was in a good place in my life, too absorbed with what was going on, to really reflect or at least to get this urgency to write.

I think this time it's different. I'm 38, I have a good life, I don't deny it has ups and downs, but nonetheless i'm grateful for everything I have, content with what I have achieved so far or let's just say i'm OK with it, as I'm still not rich.

I moved to a different country, a 1st world country and compared to my 3rd world home, this is practically a whole different level. I get to use public transportation extensively, which gives me about 3 hours or less of daily reading. Which brings us to why i'm writing.

I'm getting almost 1 hour daily of self assessment, inner thought, inner monologue, after which I realised that I really want to pursue this.

... and voila! Here we are.