Effective Leading in Tech and VC

This is a bit off-piste but critical.

In any industry, and especially tech and VC, 99% of the focus is rightly on data points. However, in my C Suite experience, I have seen this approach 100% fail without some focus on inner leadership and could this be one of the causes of the high failure rate amongst funded start ups?

In my view there is too much reliance on form data capture, conformity to binary processes and systems.

In pitch decks, due diligence, KPI trackers, customer comms, employee comms, supplier comms – where is trust?

In a world entirely dominated by tick boxes where are the tick boxes for EQ? How are you measuring it? I’ve heard VCs talk about gut feelings. Where else does a VC rely on ‘gut feelings’? Nowhere. People only talk about gut-feelings’ in regard to trust as if trust is not important enough to manage professionally.

I spent 15 years delivering leadership coaching at the highest levels in UK plc so I have some simple tools and insights that might help get clear on how to measure trust. The key is NOT to use personal observations (gut-feelings) as your evidence. For example labelling diverse leaders as ‘not killer enough’ which just shows lack of skills. Do you, as a firm, accept personal labels as ‘facts’ ?

This 10 minute video might feel ‘soft’ but if you want to elevate by building trust in an organisation as an employee or leader or entrepreneur or as an investor then you must focus on this every day. Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.

Remember: soft skills are the hardest to learn.

If you practise this framework for trust building you will remove 99% of the ‘problems’ you may have.

• Maybe you have no problems?
• How do you achieve that?
• How do you personally build individual skills to build trust amongst those you interact with?