10 Most Popular Leadership Insights from 2012

Continuing our year-end roundup, here are the top 10 leadership insights and must-read posts for entrepreneurs you loved most from the past year.

We’ve shared Our 10 Most Popular Sales Insights of 2012 and the Top 10 Recruiting and Hiring Lessons We Learned in 2012, now we’re bringing out the big guns. From recognizing the difference between managing and leading to discovering what it takes to turn your vision into reality, here are the most popular leadership insights for entrepreneurs — from OpenView and around the Web — featured on the Labs site in 2012.

10) Building an All-Star Expansion-Stage Team

No matter how brilliant or innovative, no leader goes it alone. Building a successful company takes building a great team, and in this post OpenView’s senior managing director and founder Scott Maxwell breaks down the keys to filling seven essential roles with the best people possible. You need to be confident your team can go toe-to-toe with the roster of any other company in your industry. If you’re not, you’ve got some recruiting to do ASAP.

9) 20/20 Startup Vision: The 9 Most Important Things Founders Need to Focus On

No list of entrepreneur leadership insights would be complete without tips from startup guru Steve Blank. In this excerpt from The Startup Owner’s Manual (published on Inc.com), Blank and co-author Bob Dorf describe the nine most important elements of a successful startup business, and provide insights that will allow founders to avoid painful trips back to the drawing board.

8) Great Leadership: 10 Ways to Be Great and Be Prepared

What defines great leadership? In this post for Inc., Brian Evje, management consultant at Slalom Consulting, identifies 10 characteristics that set effective leaders apart, from the confidence required to make mistakes and accept help, to the willingness to let go of yesterday’s tools and tactics. Read on to discover how you can be better prepared to meet new challenges head on.

7) A First-Time CEO Weekly Checklist

There’s certainly no lack of responsibilities to keep new CEOs busy, but what are the very first things they should address on day one? In this post for GigaOm, Andreessen Horowitz general partner Scott Weiss offers his suggestions for helping first-time CEOs make sure they’re focusing on the things that matter most. Created with insights from other CEOs and mentors, Weiss’s checklist is a must-read for anyone diving into a senior management position — or revisiting their priorities — in 2013.

6) Totally Boss: 8 Core Beliefs of Extraordinary Managers and CEOs

What does it take to be a truly great boss? In this post for Inc., Geoffrey James draws on his interviews with some of the world’s most successful CEOs and identifies eight core beliefs responsible for setting them apart. Whether it’s their approach to empowering their employees or their ability to identify and adapt to new approaches, exceptional managers go out of their way to see and do things differently. Discover which beliefs and tactics you can add to your own leadership repertoire next year.

5) Do You Practice Leadership or Do You Just Manage?

Every experienced entrepreneur knows there are big differences between managing a company and building one. In this post that originally appeared in Fast Company, Todd McKinnon describes how he made this discovery first-hand when he made the transition from a management position at salesforce.com to founding his own company, Okta. McKinnon reflects on the difference between executing against an established plan and generating and building momentum for one from scratch, and explains why “while management responsibilities can be delegated, leadership cannot.”

4) If I’d Known Then: 25 Founders Offer the Advice They Wish They’d Had

What can possibly be better than first-hand entrepreneurial advice from a founder? How about advice from 25? David Hauser (a founder, himself) invited 25 founders to share “the number one thing they wish they’d known before founding their first startup,” and shared the remarkable responses on his blog. The result is a priceless collection of hard-earned lessons from entrepreneurs who have been there and made mistakes that now — thanks to their advice — you don’t have to.

3) Taking the Leap: Cauzly.com Founder Jonah Lupton on the Secrets to Becoming a Successful Entrepreneur

One of the most difficult challenges for entrepreneurs is often taking that first step. After all, making the decision to go all in on chasing your dream when you know the odds are against you isn’t exactly a play most people would make. But for a select few, it’s a no-brainer. Jonah Lupton is one of them, and in this post he describes the reasoning behind his own decision to put it all on the line, and offers his advice for other first-time or aspiring entrepreneurs.

2) 5 Infographics Every Entrepreneur Needs to See

Few things are more complicated and complex than starting a business and getting it off the ground. With so many elements and processes to worry about, so many roles to occupy/fill, and so much data to analyze, it’s no wonder that the notion of making sense of it all in a clear, compelling visual format is appealing. That’s exactly what these five infographics deliver — from a concise breakdown of the startup lifecycle to a revealing look at an average day in the life of a tech CEO.

And coming in at #1 in our list of the most popular leadership insights of 2012…

1) Visionary Leadership: Why Introverts Can Be Great Leaders, Too

Not every leader has to be boisterous and outgoing. As leadership strategist and entrepreneur Lisa Petrilli explains in this post, introverts can be just as effective. The common core requirement for all great leaders is vision, and introverts just happen to draw the inspiration and energy to communicate that vision from a different source. Petrilli’s argument obviously struck a chord — and you certainly weren’t shy in making it our most popular leadership post of the year.

 

We want to hear from you!

What leadership lessons did you learn in 2012? What were your favorite posts (from our site and others) from the past year?