People-first Leadership

One of my favorite books about leadership is "Leaders Eat Last" by Simon Sinek. Have you read it? It's a book about how leaders can create the right culture and environment for team's to work in and thrive. I've always had the mentality of the inverse org chart. Where I'm, the leader, is in the dirt and the customers are actually at the very top. And all my reports and teams are between me and the customers.

You can't practice People-first GTM without first practicing People-first Leadership. Or what I like to call serve people first. The first group you need to serve are your customers. To truly be successful with People-first GTM you need to see and treat customers as a partner and do everything you can within reason to solve for their success.

To do that, you need to create a culture that can spread beyond the walls of your brand with values that align to the success of your customers and beliefs. One word stands out to me in order to create such an environment. Intentionality.

Today's tip is to be intentional.

You can't expect something to just happen. I couldn't expect that the people-first movement would just happen without being intentional. It's why we worked on building a set of values for it, defining it, studying it out in the public domain, creating a space for it to grow and learning from others. Ultimately we're trying to help shape a shared culture around it. A culture that's intentionality built, yet flexible, and here to serve others before ourselves.

So as you go about this week, think about if what you're doing it mostly benefiting you first or if your operating in a way that serves other people first. Are you creating tangible and intangible value?