Beyond the Aha Moment: Essential Leadership Skills for Tech Entrepreneurs
As the pace of innovation continues to accelerate and competition intensifies, leaders in technology organizations must navigate an ever-changing business and technology landscape while inspiring their teams to achieve their full potential. Not only do they need to have an entrepreneurial mindset, but modern leaders must also be able to flexibly change roles as motivators, coaches, organizational drivers, communicators or visionaries. The stakes are too high for leaders to fail.
This issue of the IEEE TEMS Leadership BRIEFS offers insights on the multi-faceted leadership skills and strategies that are essential for entrepreneurs and leaders who want to build successful organizations and drive innovation. The success of tech entrepreneurs is often attributed to first-mover technologies and venture capital, but this assumption is challenged in Dileep Rao. In his Leadership BRIEF he argues that business and finance skills are equally critical for unicorn entrepreneurs to succeed. In his BRIEF Jeff Perry emphasizes the importance of networking outside of one’s organization to gain knowledge, future job opportunities, and referrals. By engaging in organizations or groups outside of one’s job and being a giver in relationships, entrepreneurs can build meaningful connections that can drive innovation.
Moreover, Jolly Wong highlights the importance of adopting open technical standards to improve efficiency and facilitate innovation. This can help bridge the gap between technical knowledge and creating market-relevant products. In his Leadership BRIEF Tobias Keller stresses the importance of positivity and its impact on subordinates’ performance. Leaders who promote a positive work environment, set achievable goals, and provide regular feedback can significantly enhance their followers’ psychological capital, leading to greater innovation and productivity.
The TEMS Leadership BRIEFS are a free membership benefit for all TEMS members. If you would like to contribute to the IEEE TEMS Leadership BRIEFS please contact me at sabine.baumann@ieee.org. I do hope this issue of the IEEE TEMS Leadership BRIEFS provides you with new ideas and actionable insights. Successful innovation depends on great leadership. Go for it!
Sabine Baumann, Editor-in-Chief
In this Issue
Dileep Rao – Why Tech Entrepreneurs Need Business and Finance Skills to Build Unicorns?
The common assumption seems to be that the key ingredients for venture growth are first-mover technologies and venture capital (VC) resulting in a belief that experts can pick winners from pitches before an innovation has reached the “Aha” stage, i.e., before evidence of potential. This Leadership BRIEF challenges this belief and demonstrates which leadership skills and strategies unicorn entrepreneurs really need to be successful.
Jeff Perry – Embrace the Power of Networking to Grow Your Engineering Career
Building your network outside of your current organization is important because it can provide future job opportunities, referrals for business or hiring, or help you learn from others’ experiences and perspectives. This Leadership BRIEF provides a guide to networking: start by engaging in organizations or groups outside of one’s job, ask questions to connect with people on a personal level, and be a giver in relationships by contributing in meaningful ways.
Jolly Wong – Open Standards Make Innovation Happen
Open standards can help organizations gain a competitive advantage, improve efficiency, create a foundational framework for businesses to design innovative solutions, and develop a global business sense. Understanding and adopting standards can also help technology professionals bridge the gap between technical knowledge and creating market-relevant products. This Leadership BRIEF discusses the importance of open technical standards in facilitating innovation, using the example of the development of Wi-Fi.
Tobias Keller – How Leaders Boost the Positive Psychological Capital of their Followers – Positivity is the Message
The positivity of a leader can have a significant impact on the performance of their subordinates, for example by expressing positivity in written communication. This Leadership BRIEF demonstrates that engineers with high levels of Positive Psychological Capital (confidence, hope, optimism, and resilience) perform better in problem-solving tasks than those with low levels.
