Having launched our business 10 years ago, we have grown fast, built things, broke some, and importantly retained a start-up spirit of always experimenting and consistently learning how to be better. From my perspective there are seven leadership rules that you should always follow to stay ahead of the pack.
Know what you want to achieve
In order to succeed, you need to focus on creating a business model tailored to your business goals, not to the success of others. Quite often business leaders feel they need to replicate models of other industry leaders, rather than creating a unique solution to an existing problem. In 2012 we launched our HTML5 editor, replacing the Flash technology. We soon realised that building a website was not enough, therefore we shifted from a website building platform to a company providing users with all the tools necessary to manage their entire business online. This allowed us to stay ahead in the industry while meeting our business objectives. It also enabled our customers to establish their digital presence with beautiful websites.
Build a team that you trust with your eyes shut
Your team is your most precious asset, without them your business wouldn’t exist. If you want your business to grow and scale quickly you need to build a team that works well together, bringing a positive attitude to the workspace. In order to keep this healthy team spirit, you need to invest in team building. It builds trust, mitigates conflict, encourages communication, and increases collaboration. Effective team building means more engaged employees, which helps building a food company culture good for company culture.
Give some clear direction to your team
As a leader, you need to give a clear direction to your team. Without this, your team won’t be able to deliver and achieve the desired business goals. The best way to do so is to set up regular meetings to check on progress and make any necessary adjustments along the way.
Take decisions and build trust
No one wants a leader that can’t make a decision. You will have to make decisions several times per day, some tougher than others, but your employers will respect you for having a point of view, whatever that is, and in the long term, that will help build trust. Making good decisions in difficult situations is no small feat because these types of decisions involve change, uncertainty, anxiety, stress, and sometimes the unfavourable reactions of others. However, that’s what distinguishes leaders from other team members, they allow companies to move quickly.
Keep innovation at the heart of everything you do
We tend to think about innovation as the latest technological development. However, innovation needs to be embedded in a business from day one and drive everything the company does, from development to product design, from marketing to communications. It’s crucial to build a culture that encourages constant innovation. We have organised our company into a series of mini start-ups. There are no divisions, no task forces, only mini-start-ups that deliver creative solutions for the business.
Stay open and listen to your clients
During 10 years in business, we have gathered invaluable data from millions of customers. This information, combined with team’s big ideas, and engineering talent, allowed us to launch Wix ADI – artificial design intelligence. This is a great example of how real data gathered from our passionate user base was key to our innovation. We are driven by the feedback we get from our users and we develop in order to deliver what they need to succeed. We believe that this works. With no sales force, Wix grows at a rate of 1.5 million users per month and currently serve over 92 million users around the world.
Be accountable
You can’t run from it. As a leader, you need to be accountable for your actions. A good leader is the one that can claim victory, but also recognises failure and has the strength to lift the moral of them team and the courage start again from scratch.
Author: Omer Shai is a serial entrepreneur and the CMO of Wix, the leading global web development platform. An internet marketing veteran with 11 years of experience in search optimization, online advertising and social media. Omer is responsible for the company’s global online and offline marketing activity, which boasts an incredible growth of over one million new users every month. Prior to joining Wix, Omer co-founded and led the marketing activities for Hyperactive, the digital design corporation, and worked as an online marketing consultant for several leading brands.
