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Leadership from First Principles According to Elon Musk

How to lead like one of the world's richest entrepreneurs

By Veronica WoodwardPublished 3 years ago 6 min read
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Elon Musk is a Visionary Leader

Geoffrey James, in an article on Inc.com describes Musk as a management theorist. James says ‘Musk seems to approach running a business much as he’d approach a complex engineering project: Figure out what works, and do that, even if it doesn’t make sense to anyone else. To paraphrase James’ summary of Elon Musk’s general business operation rules that he sent out via email from Tesla:

No large meetings or frequent meetings; add value to a meeting or call, if not, drop out; don’t use acronyms for objects, software or processes; avoid any terms that require explanation because they inhibit communication; communicate with individuals rather than chain of command; don’t follow any “rule” that doesn’t make sense; ideas that increase productivity or happiness are always welcome; never do anything that would make a great Dilbert cartoon, and contractors who can’t find an employee to vouch for them will be fired.

Within this paraphrased email, there is the idea of emotional intelligence and good, clear interpersonal communication. The Dilbert cartoons are references to not performing acts similar to the comic strip Dilbert where corporate culture is ironic, and people often do things that do not make sense or are completely absurd. Musk is an emailer, and is direct, and sees it as one of his greatest skills. He does however spend time on the factory floor with his employees, and according to some former employees, he does provide certain perks for people who stay the long hours at work, and does tend to keep the people at Tesla who are driven and passionate about their work. To work at SpaceX and Tesla requires a single minded determination, and alignment to the corporate culture, as in Elon Musk’s own words, he knows what is prescribed for his level of success.

Elon Musk’s Drive for Achievement

Elon Musk has a list of his own personal rules for achievement. These rules have been cultivated from a variety of interviews on YouTube:

Work like hell - you just have to put in … 80 to 100 hour weeks every week. All those things improve the odds of success. If other people are putting in 40 hour work weeks and you are putting in 100 hour work weeks and you are doing the same thing, and in four months you will achieve what it takes them a year to achieve.

I won’t ever pack this in, I don’t ever give up, I would either have to be dead or severely incapacitated

If you’re wanting to start a company and succeed at it, you have to work super hard. When my brother and I were starting our first company, we rented a small office space and we slept on the couch, and we showered at the YMCA. We were so hard up we had just one computer, and the website would be up during the day, and I would be coding at night, 7 days a week, all the time. I briefly had a girlfriend during that time, and in order to be with me, she had to sleep in the office. Work hard every waking hour, that is the thing that I would say particularly if you are starting a company.

Starting a company, I would advise people to have a high pain tolerance, because like his friend says: starting a company is like eating glass and staring into the abyss.

Add value to society: if someone is doing something to the rest of society, I think that is a good thing. It doesn’t have to change the world. If you are doing something that adds high value to people, even if it is frankly … a little game, or some self improvement in photo sharing, if it has a small amount of good for a large number of people, that is fine. Stuff doesn’t need to change the world in order to be good.

Getting the Best Out of People

For those who work at Tesla and SpaceX, they are doing things like being relevant in the world, and they are following in the path of their visionary leader. It is through Musk’s leadership, and his emotionally intelligent and thoughtful management processes that he is able to bring out the best in his team. He does have his stretch goals, and encourages his team to achieve beyond what they think they are able to perceive they are capable of, but he does his management style in such a way that he is able to retain high calibre staff and engineers.

To be able to get the best out of your staff, you have to be emotionally intelligent, so Musk describes a significant amount of emotional intelligence that he sculpts his vision with and encourages his staff to be a part of; for example, don’t do anything that would make a good Dilbert cartoon is a perfect example of requiring staff to act in such a way as to be emotionally intelligent and responsible.

The four skills of emotional intelligence are identification of emotions, use of emotions, and matching emotions to the task; conducting emotions through understanding them (what emotion needs to be conveyed through these actions in an appropriate way); and finally management of emotions in such a way as to staying open and aware of emotions, integrating emotions into thinking, and maintaining emotions in a healthy manner. This includes shifting perceptions in thinking in order to adapt (such as in cognitive behavioural therapy) as the coherence between logical thinking integrated with emotions will gain the most effectiveness. When leaders such as Elon Musk understand this, they are able to put this into practice and help to gain the best out of their teams.

From the Pareto principle, there is a general acceptance that 20 percent of the effort produces 80 percent of the results, so the use of first principles and other types of managerial theories, Elon Musk has identified efficient practices for business. For example, either add value to a conversation or process, or bow out of the situation. He also identifies meetings as a waste of time unless they are directed, short and are adding value to a process. Aristotle and Origen talked about first principles, and now people like Elon Musk use them in their practices.

Elon Musk describes first principles as the most fundamental truths, and looking to where you can see the knowns and to work from there to a system or process that is efficient. Josh Kaufman quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson in The Personal MBA: The man who can grasp principles can successfully select his own methods. This is a perfect reflection of Musk’s thinking and methodologies, he first adapts principles, and goes from there. His principles are that of resilience, leadership, emotional intelligence, first principles (fundamental truths) and clarity in communication. That’s what makes his managerial theory so effective, and his leadership so efficient.

References

Caruso, D., & Salovey, P. (2004). The Emotionally Intelligent Manager. San-Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

First Principles: The Building Blocks of True Knowledge. (2021). Retrieved 12 March 2021, from https://fs.blog/2018/04/first-principles/

James, G. (2021). Elon Musk's Management Advice Is So Brilliant That I Threw Away 37 Business Books. Retrieved 12 March 2021, from https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/elon-musks-management-advice-is-so-freakin-brilliant-that-i-threw-away-37-business-books.html

Kaufman, J. (2010). The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business. London: Penguin.

Koch, R. (2021). The 80/20 Principle: The Secret of Doing More with Less. London: NB Really Books.

Origenes., & Behr, J. (2017). On first principles. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Tolle, E. (1997). The Power of Now. Namaste Publishing.

Welcome to Dilbert. (2021). Retrieved 12 March 2021, from https://dilbert.com/search_results?terms=thought+it+would+be+funny

What do SpaceX employees think of Elon Musk? - Quora. (2021). Retrieved 12 March 2021, from https://www.quora.com/What-do-SpaceX-employees-think-of-Elon-Musk

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About the Creator

Veronica Woodward

I am a novelist of six novels, and working on my six novel called Dragon. I have also authored different books, and my new book is about Elon Musk, and his different beliefs. Find me on Amazon: Lori V Woodward FireStorm, Windstorm

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