From revolutionizing space travel, transforming electric cars to inventing the brain-computer interface, this man has done it all. Elon Musk is the founder of space transportation company SpaceX, electric vehicle company Tesla, payment merchant PayPal, solar energy service company SolarCity and the inventor of brain-computer interface company Neuralink. Recently he sent a Tesla car into space.
Below are the 6 lessons from Elon Musk on being successful as a leader.
1. Innovation can be deduced from anywhere
It would be wise to mention that as an entrepreneur, you’re required to keep your mind running fresh of ideas. Musk believes that human brain is the breeding ground for great ideas. He had recently made his Hyperloop project open-sourced. Thus, opening a plethora of variations when it comes to innovation. Musk is involving larger groups to achieve a common vision and solve bigger problems.
2. Building great products
Do you know just after the world financial crisis of 2008, Musk started developing Tesla Roadster car which was a best seller in over 31 countries? Tesla today has become the future of electric mobility. What Elon Musk did was, he built great products like PayPal, Zip2, SolarCity etc. His visionary ideas have now made electrical mobility affordable and possible to be adopted in the mainstream.
3. Finding the purpose bigger than yourself
When it comes to Mars, colonizing the planet was much more than just a business decision for Musk. He believed in the concept of multi-planet species, he just didn’t want that humans are only confined to Earth forever. This is a novel way of thinking, in lieu of this, we can now see a red shiny Tesla marching towards Mars as you read this article. He always said that he had an existential crisis. Meaning? Well, Elon Musk believes in expanding the scale of consciousness as well as the scope of the same.
4. Set your priorities
We all have limits. In 2006, when Musk emerged with a revolutionary idea for a solar panel enterprise, he simply shared the idea. His first preference was & is SpaceX, if he had devoted his resources and energy to Solar Panel company, the endeavours to Mars would be not possible in his lifetime. Well, after sharing his idea with Lyndon Rive, Musk became the prime investor in SolarCity.
5. Want to be a leader? Try putting yourself forward
Citing a real example from his life, in the year 2008, it was 2nd August and the day was scheduled for the third launch of the SpaceX’s rocket. The whole world was watching Elon Musk after the rocket passed the first and most crucial stage, they lost the communication with the beast. And that’s it, mission got failed and people started making fun of him. Left heartbroken with 300+ other employees, he went on saying that he will never give up and he really means never! Verdict? A month ago Falcon Heavy, SpaceX’s rocket successfully departed from Earth carrying an electric Tesla into space. One should step-up when failure happens and face the critics.
6. Hire selectively, work rapidly
If there is something except ‘N’ number of innovative things about Elon Musk, he is very picky when it comes to building his workforce. He has often regarded hiring people as a single biggest challenge. He believes in hiring the best people in the world for the desired job. He believes if somebody isn’t working as they were supposed to, get rid of them for the viability of your goals. Apart from this Elon also strongly believes in investing his earnings into new businesses. The money generated from the sale of Zip2 was used to fund PayPal, $100 million generated from the sale of PayPal was used to fund SpaceX. Simple math, superior thinking.
