Now that you’ve raised money, how do you build a solid team?

You’re a first-time entrepreneur. You have an idea that will change the world and you have been fortunate to find an investor to fund it. Now you’re faced with your biggest challenge yet. How are you going to recruit people to join you on this mission?

Here are some hiring tips to help you get started. I also included insights from two entrepreneurs who have been very successful at hiring top performers: Jason Jacobs, the co-founder and CEO of RunKeeper, and Boris Revsin, co-founder & CEO of CampusLIVE, whom I’ve helped recruit a senior director of product and analytics.

1. Make a plan.

Hiring the best people is critical to your success so you need a strategy or roadmap to do it well (like any other aspect of your business).

Start off by prioritizing which positions need to be hired first by determining the importance they will have to your business today. Then write a detailed profile of the ideal candidates. Jacobs adds, “They say when fundraising, if you ask for money you get advice and if you ask for advice, you get money. Hiring is the same way. Reach out to people you think would be perfect for the role and get their advice on how you are thinking about the position.”

Of course, the recruiting pipeline doesn’t just fill up with top candidates automatically. It takes a lot of work. You should outline a project plan with specific tasks that will help you build your list of prospective candidates. Here are some ideas and tasks you should follow to help you set goals and measure your success.

2. Work your network.

Working your network is a crucial piece of any successful recruiting effort. You should already be diligent about connecting with people on LinkedIn, which helps. And this point cannot be emphasized enough: A-plus players know other A-plus players. “You want the people you trust to recommend other top performers,” says Revsin.

Another great suggestion from Revsin: make your advisors and investors an extension of your recruiting efforts. They have extensive networks that should open up introductions to key people in the industry. Ask them to help make introductions for you. After all, they too are invested in your success.

3. Get out there.

You are your company’s chief evangelist! People need to see the passion in your vision and believe that the climb is worthwhile. So you need to be out there and visible in the community. Every major city has networking events going on within your industry. Attend big events like NY Tech Meetup in New York or WebInno in Boston, but also find out about smaller groups where people are talking about topics relevant to your business.

While networking is central to recruiting, it also helps build your brand and creates buzz. Once people are talking about your company, you might actually get requests from candidates actively seeking to work for you.

4. You and your team should always be recruiting.

You never know when you are going to be meeting someone who could be your next hire. Have your recruiting hat on at all times.

And if you already have a co-founder or a few early employees, make sure they are all out there helping out with the recruiting efforts too. Everyone should be involved, especially in the early stages. Make sure your story is consistent from everyone. Getting a mixed message about the position or the vision of the company is a red flag for most candidates.

5. Aim high.

If you are going to build a successful company, you need to find the best of the best employees. If you truly believe that your company offers amazing opportunities, be fearless and go after the top performers out there. Yes, people do leave Google.

You will want to move quickly, but don’t just hire for the sake of having a warm body in the seat. Take your time and do the proper amount of due diligence to help ensure you are making the right hires.

Jacobs validates this point. “If you aren’t over the moon about the hire you are about to make, don’t hire [him or her]. Every single hire in an early stage company is critically important to get right.”

The founder of Joie de Vivre hotels on his new book, Emotional Equations, and the trick he uses to combat paralyzing anxiety.

Chip Conley knows fear.

In 2008 with the economy in recession, his hotel business Joie de Vivre sinking around him, a family member wrongly convicted and in San Quentin prison, five close friends recently lost to suicide—his heart just stopped. He was 47 years old. For an hour while doctors worked on him he came in and out of consciousness. “I was dead,” he told me during a recent conversation. “Flatline.”

Ultimately Chip survived and the experience jolted him into doing some heavy thinking. Amid so much chaos, anxiety, and uncertainty, how could he lead his company to a better place? His heart told him clearly that just trying to survive wasn’t enough. He was afraid and he needed change.

He started re-reading the psychologist Abraham Maslow and Viktor Frankl and began to realize that fear is largely about self preservation. And when you get into self-preservation mode, it’s next to impossible to think bigger. “When people get into that fight or flight place then they move away from the creative centers of their brain,” Conley says. Pulling yourself back out requires a special kind of discipline.

Chip has some ideas on how to do that. His new book Emotional Equations is his effort to understand and quantify how fear can overwhelm and control an entrepreneur. “Organizations that can diminish fear are those that are able to motivate, create, and innovate,” he says.

One way to better manage fear is something Conley calls “the anxiety balance sheet.” It’s an exercise designed to help you identify what you know vs. what you don’t know, and what you can influence vs. what you can’t.

On a piece of paper draw four columns. Column 1 is what you know. Column 2 is what you don’t know. Column 3 is what you have power or control over. Column 4 is what you don’t have power or control over. “What we find is that 75-80 percent of people have more in columns in 1 and 3 than 2 and 4,” he says. “People don’t realize how much control they do have. The more you can show them this control the easier it is to tap back into the creative side of the brain that allows people to see possibilities and options.”

One of the best paths to success in uncertain times, says Conley, is understanding enough about yourself and how fear affects you so that you can address it directly—and then get on with the work of growing your company and inspiring your employees.

The economic climate abroad has potentially severe ramifications to U.S. business travel as owners lose interest in European business opportunities.

According to a new report by the Global Business Travel Association Foundation (GBTA), if the European debt crisis deteriorates any further it could have a significantly damaging impact on U.S. business travel, which in turn could greatly impede the economic recovery in the States that’s just now seeing progress.

The U.S. business travel industry has seen considerable gains over the past three years, which Michael W. McCormick, executive director and COO of the GBTA, attributes to the growth of outbound international travel. Last year alone saw business travel spending up 7.6 percent to $251.9 billion.

However, the current economic condition in Europe could cause business travel from the U.S. to Europe to pull back, resulting in a possible slump for top-line growth that’s been fueled by “putting people on the road to find new business opportunities.” Not to mention the Euro slid to a one-month low earlier this week after Moody’s Investors Service put several European financial firms up for review, spelling bad news for the European banking system, as well as outbound international travel.

“There’s a strong correlation between business travel growth as a leading indicator for the overall health of the economy and for employment figures here in the U.S.,” McCormick says. “If there’s not a speedy resolution to the European debt crisis, then what we could see is a domino effect that could reach across the waters and start to have a deep effect on the economy in the U.S.”

How deep of an effect? The GBTA’s report paints three possible scenarios:

• Baseline/Current Scenario: The situation in Europe reaches a point of moderate stability, with continued growth in U.S. business travel reaching $263.5 and $277.3 billion in 2012 and 2013, respectively.
• Moderate Scenario: A drawn-out crisis causes business travel to plateau and eventually decline by $40 billion or 7 percent between 2012 and 2013.
• Severe Scenario: Far-reaching defaults, bank failures, and possibly a dissolved European Union would cause a sharp plummet in business travel spending by as much as $88 billion or 16 percent between 2012 and 2013.

With the frangible European crisis far from being resolved, McCormick fears a “very concerning environment” is on the immediate horizon. “Right now we’re seeing a 25 percent chance of moving to a moderate scenario and a 10 percent chance of moving to a more severe scenario–those are, unfortunately, very significant odds,” he says.

Despite the ubiquitous headlines that depict a less than favorable view of the crisis abroad, not everyone in the business travel industry is worried just yet. “Clearly clients are concerned with what trends might exist and what might be happening with the European crisis, but we haven’t had anyone say they want to modify their travel program in any way,” says Brian Hace, vice president of client service for business travel management company Carlson Wagonlit Travel. “There are still enough unknowns about the European crisis that there isn’t an immediate need to react.”

Should the GBTA’s predictions become a reality, Hace goes on to cite previous setbacks in the business travel industry, such as the Sept. 11 attacks and the 2010 volcanic ash eruptions in Iceland, as prime examples of how the system has been able to calibrate itself even in moments of crisis. “I think as an industry we have an infrastructure of people and talent to address whatever the need might be on behalf our client, whether it’s an immediate security situation or a more long-term economic situation,” he says.

Although the GBTA’s findings do indeed portray quite the extreme worst-case scenario, McCormick’s urge for business owners and travel agents to err on the side of caution is justifiable given the volatile economic climate in Europe. He says, “We certainly don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s one of the those situations now where we have to watch it very closely because it could have a very dramatic impact on business travel and business in general.”

When filling a top leadership slot, these are the blunders you don’t want to make.

In hiring for a top leadership position, you can make costly errors by either incorrectly diagnosing the situation, letting red herrings or other so-called rules get in the way of choosing the right person, or failing to set and follow a rigorous disciplined process. Here’s a look at the six top pitfalls to recognize and avoid.

1. “His charisma was intoxicating”

Having personal magnetism does not make someone the right person for a position. We have seen leadership appointments go awry by being overly swayed by a charismatic candidate. While it is impossible to ignore charisma in making people decisions, be aware of what it is and is not.

Recognize that charisma is a personal attribute, just like height, eye color, or left- handedness. Charisma can surely be a valuable trait in interpersonal situations as varied as general management, customer service, and sales, but it should not overwhelm having the right other qualities and experiences to fit into your organizational jigsaw.

2. “We don’t want any failures”

It is fair to make performance assessments based on someone’s tangible achievements and impact. However, considering only people whose career trajectories have been a straight line of successes is risky. After all, it may be your situation where the candidate crashes and burns for the first time. Furthermore, such a strategy limits your pool of potentially-attractive candidates. Assess mistakes carefully and focus as much on the competencies that are required for success in the position.

There is another important benefit to considering candidates who have suffered setbacks. They are highly motivated to succeed and eager to reclaim their reputations, so you may get a deeper reservoir of underlying motivation and work ethic.

3. “We thought we really knew him”

Gerry and Lindsay were close friends from law school and followed parallel paths to the executive suite. When Lindsay became CEO, no one was surprised that she picked Gerry as her COO. It didn’t work out, though. Lindsay’s leadership team took great satisfaction in their extraordinary work ethic and their patient, consensus-oriented management approach. In contrast, Gerry found the slow decision-making process frustrating, and ruffled feathers by trying to improve the efficiency of meetings and placing strict limits on his workday to fend off burnout.

It turns out that the seemingly trivial frustrations on both sides actually reflected deep cultural differences. Therefore it is essential to probe deeply into the underlying values behind cultural norms to really make sure that even if you think you know someone, the cultural fit turns out to be right.

4. “We never really agreed on what we were looking for”

A not-for-profit institution was six months into a search for a new executive director when the lead candidate withdrew from the process, only days before he would have received an offer. He later said that the more time he spent at the institution, the more he saw fundamental disagreement as to what the leadership team was looking for. He believed that without alignment about the direction and priorities for the institution, he would be ineffective at trying to lead the organization. Similar leadership opportunities have gone vacant for years because candidates perceived disagreement among those responsible for the hiring.

To mitigate this risk, invest the time to discuss openly what you are looking for before the hiring process begins. Utilize the process of developing a position description to bring the group together around a common situation analysis and set of selection criteria.

5. “We didn’t have time to run a thorough process”

A driver’s education video shows that for a typical suburban trip of five miles, the difference between one driver speeding, running through all yellow lights, and weaving in and out of traffic, and another driving conservatively at the speed limit is about seven minutes. For the speeder, the marginal time savings will be eaten away by a traffic stop.

So it goes with choosing the best person for an important leadership position. If you try to save time by eliminating a thorough process, such as hiring the first candidate for the job or skipping a detailed review of references, it is more than likely to cost you in the long run in terms of hiring mistakes.

6. “Let’s bring in a No. 2 and, when he’s ready, promote him to the top job”

Many believe that an outsider should be brought in through a two-step process: first as a second-in-command, and then promoted to CEO within one to two years. This approach rarely works, however, because of four serious disadvantages:

• The candidates you will attract will not be as strong as those you would attract by bringing in a CEO out of the gate.

• The skills for success are different between a No. 1 and No. 2.

• A COO or No. 2 does not have the change mandate typically granted to an outsider in the top job.

• The heir apparent is more likely to play things safe with a CEO who still calls the shots and is the primary conduit to the board, who will determine when the No. 2 is ready for the job.

This article is excerpted from the new book by James M. Citrin and Julie Hembrock Daum, “You Need a Leader—Now What?” published by Crown Business.

Make sure your new hires are not only computer literate, but tech-savvy. Here’s why.

Ever tried to teach your grandma to use a computer? I did.

While she eventually figured it out, there was a period in which she was too scared to learn. She was afraid to click on buttons and links because she was afraid she would break something. When made properly, software isn’t easily broken by amateur users, but it took her awhile to understand that and realize that there were no digital egg shells on the floor.

Once she realized she could explore a website without getting in trouble she started tinkering. And, as she played with the site more she programmed her brain to understand how to navigate it. She learned how to learn.

This is an important phenomenon to understand—I call the inability to do this “tech block”. Tech block is a mental barrier that prevents people from understanding how to use technology typically because they’re afraid to tinker.

What might surprise some founders is that while many might assume that this phenomenon is unique to people who didn’t grow up with computers, there are droves of younger folks who are computer literate but who suffer from TechBlock. They cower from new websites. They’re afraid to test, explore, and learn. As a result, they use outdated tools and decide to be an old dog disgruntled by new tricks.

As you can imagine having a person with tech block on the team of a tech startup doesn’t bode well. They’ll struggle to understand how to use the company’s hot new product and won’t proactively tinker with it to overcome the knowledge gap. Since people who build tech products rarely have tech block, you’re more likely to uncover tech block lurking around your sales or business development team. The people who are speaking to your customers may not understand what they’re selling. Terrifying.

When tech founders are hiring, knowing about this syndrome is a big deal. You’ll need to test for tech block in the interview process. This is done rather easily by asking people if they use the latest social media toys. Typically if they’re anywhere near the cutting edge they’re capable of self-teaching. If they’re not using social media, you may want to ask them to give you feedback on some other hot new products after the interview.

If you’re not running a tech startup, be careful not to assume that tech block won’t affect your company. Having people on your team who can identify and understand new tools can help your company operate faster, cheaper, smarter. Folks with tech block probably won’t be suggesting new tools and solutions to your old problems.

While tech block may not bring your company to its knees, it may take some spring out of its step. Be warned and beware.

Don’t wait. Here are seven reasons to launch a venture today.

Now that you know my belief that starting a company is your best hope of living the life you want, here’s the next logical question: When should you get started?

1. You’re young

The best time to start a company is when you are young. The younger, the better. Youth is a beautiful thing. It’s the perfect combination of ignorance and innocence. Stupid decisions are excused as learning experiences and the worst outcome of most youthful transgressions is a few days in juvenile prison, or, worse, going broke.

Blogger Michael Arrington recalled a conversation with a venture capitalist last year that “entrepreneurs are like pro basketball players. They peak at 25, by 30 they’re usually done.”

I don’t agree with the blanket statement, but I do agree that it’s easier to pour your life into a company when you’re young, creative, fresh, and fired up.

When I graduated from Northwestern in 1996, my primary asset was time and passion. I decided to focus these assets on two goals: making money and finding women who would date a geek in glasses with crossed eyes and a bum heart.

Starting a business killed two birds with one stone. I grew my first company into what became a publicly-traded firm (University Wire and Student Advantage) and I met my future business partner, best friend, lover, and wife at a wedding at age 22.

I’ve never met an entrepreneur who said, “Wow, I wish I hadn’t started so young.” The world is full of regrets and one of the main ones is from entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs lamenting that they didn’t start off earlier.

2. You’re miserable at work

Life is too short to sit behind a desk and be miserable. Show me someone who makes a million dollars a year but hates his job and I’ll show you an unhappy guy. Show me someone who makes a tenth of that and I’ll show you someone who is 10 times as unhappy.

I’ve always believed that misery loves company for a reason. Look inside any company and you’ll find a boatload of misery, the best fuel to start your own company. We grow up rebelling against our parents. Many grow companies to rebel against former bosses.

Use your nights, weekends, and lunch breaks to form your ideas and network and start laying the groundwork for your eventual prison break. And when you’re confident you’re on to something, jump. I assure you that you’ll never look back, even if all you have at the end is less money in the bank and a learning experience.

3. You’re out of work

There’s nothing like a good ol’ fashion layoff to turn you from a worker into an owner. It shocks and beats the comfort out of you. It’s a mini death forcing the least introspective to examine all aspects of their lives.

Let’s be clear, everyone who is laid off should not start a business. But a layoff is a great catalyst if you’re already thinking about making the move.

When you’re fired or let go, many fall into the trap of focusing energy on the people who “wronged” you. Just the opposite. Look at the firing as a blessing in disguise and motivation to reevaluate your life. Put everything on the table—new opportunities you have been ignoring, industries you’re interested, and starting your own gig.

4. You have no responsibilities

Start-ups and life responsibilities are often inversely related, if not mutually exclusive. The more responsibilities you have, the less likely it is that you will start a business.

I have many friends who have been speaking to me about starting businesses for 15 years now. And for many, they now feel it’s too late to jump in.

While age and responsibilities are often related, they aren’t always. So start a company when you have the time and the energy and the freedom to do so. Don’t wait until it’s too late and you’re trapped by a mortgage, private school tuition bills, and annual family vacations that you need to fund.

Starting your own firm has a ton of rewards—excitement, accomplishment, the promise of financial freedom, and more. But don’t kid yourself, it also has a ton of downsides—you won’t see your friends or family as much, your income will approach zero, the time you used to spend working out is now being spent networking, meeting, recruiting, and traveling.

Providing for others and keeping up with a lifestyle you’ve grown accustomed to makes it hard to start companies, especially for the first-time entrepreneur. If you are single, married without kids, or thinking about getting married and starting a family—and considering jumping on the entrepreneurial train, do it now before you decide that it’s just too late.

5. You have an incurable obsession

Our great country was founded on the idea that anyone with an idea can strike it big. John D. Rockefeller, the son of a traveling salesman, founded Standard Oil, and in the process became the nation’s first billionaire whose fortune swelled to more than $500 billion.

The Rockefeller story is a great one. But don’t get seduced by the myth, the money, the adventure, and the allure of being a self-made person. Starting a company is the hardest thing you will ever do professionally. It’s you versus the world. And the world wins 90% of the time.

Start a company after you sit on your idea for a while—and you can’t get it out of your head. You’re obsessed. You’re incurable. No matter how much you try not to think about the business, it keeps coming back. You start working on the idea during all your free time. You can’t stop talking to friends and family about it. And you feel like you will never forgive yourself if you don’t take a chance.

This incurable obsession must be consistent over an extended period of at least three months. Let it sit. Let it settle. And don’t confuse it with the entrepreneurial seizure, a more temporary excitement that will wane if you give yourself time to really think about the idea.

6. You are an “intrapreneur”

I am starting to spend time with more and more entrepreneurs who came to the game late but are in an ideal position to thrive. They have launched stuff inside large companies (also known as “intrapreneurs”) and have put some money in the bank. Despite having responsibilities and being older then 25, they are in a position to invest in themselves.

Just look at David Rochon and Michael Libenson from SavingStar, a mobile savings company I invested in and sit on the board of directors. David had 25 years experience in the grocery industry and Michael was a former consultant who spent 20 years building other people’s businesses.

The two launched Saving Star, which in December 2011 TechCrunch called the “Groupon of Groceries.” The two are well on their way to creating a formidable business that will revolutionize how consumers save money through a network of 24,000 grocery and drug stores nationwide.

It’s well documented that college dropouts create great businesses (Facebook, Microsoft, and Dell, to name just a few). But data also shows that age and entrepreneurial success aren’t tied. The Founders Institute released research last year that shows that being older increases the likelihood of success. They theorize that the “combination of successful project completion skills with real world experience helps older entrepreneurs identify and address more realistic business opportunities.”

The Kauffman Foundation reports that the Great Recession of a few years ago drove more people to start their own business than any time in the past 15 years. And the fastest-growing group of business starters? Old fogies like me (those who are older than 35)!

7. Do it today

You can try to pick the best time to start a business. When you are old, young, rich, poor, fat, thin, with hair or balding. But any attempt to do so won’t make you more or less likely to succeed. Entrepreneurs come in all sizes, shapes, ages and colors. And, believe it or not, our country doesn’t have a monopoly on business creation.

Great businesses have been created in times of prosperity. Great businesses have been started when we the country was facing its darkest hours and the entrepreneur was at her lowest low.

If you’re reading this story, you’re interested in starting your own business. And if you are reading to the end (yes, you! I’m talking about you!), you’re about to jump and seriously consider it. Why else would you read 1,500 words about a topic you weren’t passionate about?

So let me make it simple for you—the best time to start a business is TODAY. Not tomorrow. Not in two weeks. Not after you get promoted, pregnant, married, or your MBA. TODAY! You’re not getting any younger. Your life is not getting any simpler.

See that cliff in front of you that you’re scared to go over? Run up to it once again. But this time, actually jump. What you will find below is the life you wanted to live and all you need to do is get over the fear that’s keeping you back.

To see more about how I decided to start my first company rather than take a job, and how fear is getting in your way, check out my talk from late last year called “Death & The Pivot: A Love Affair.”

I’m going to be answering questions next week in my column. So please ask anything you’d like about starting a company in the comments below.

It wasn’t Abraham Lincoln’s strengths but the self-discipline with which he put those strengths toward the right purpose.

There is much we can learn by studying Abraham Lincoln’s journey from being just another politician to becoming America’s greatest president. (Wikipedia provides a compilation of “Historical rankings of Presidents of the United States” which makes it clear that in the eyes of many experts, and the public, Lincoln has consistently held this status). A key to this transformation was how Lincoln, whose birthday is today, developed the self-discipline to take one of his signature strengths—his natural power with words—and used it to serve the interests of the American people rather than his own.

One of the best communicators of all time

Lincoln was undoubtedly one of the greatest communicators among all American presidents. His words—as a public speaker, writer, debater, humorist, and conversationalist—continue to entertain, educate, and inspire us to this day. With only one year of formal schooling, Lincoln consciously cultivated this mastery of language and expression. As a young boy he would practice public speaking by gathering his friends together and stepping onto a stump to address them. During his days as a lawyer in Illinois, Lincoln would frequently meet up in the evening with friends at a tavern where they would engage in story-telling contests. And he gleaned valuable lessons in rhetoric by diligently studying Shakespeare.

As he began forging his political ambitions, Lincoln recognized the power of words to weaken and even destroy his opponents, and so he started to attack them with powerful volleys of criticism and mockery. Upon provocation at one political gathering in 1840, Lincoln mimicked and ridiculed his opponent, Jess Thomas, to uproarious cheering of the crowd. Thomas, who was present at the event, was reduced to tears, and for years afterwards, the people referred to it as “the skinning of Thomas.”

Lincoln was also in the habit of writing anonymous letters to newspapers to sharply criticize his adversaries. On one occasion in 1842, for instance, he used the fictitious identity of “Rebecca” to castigate and deride the state auditor, James Shields, calling him “a fool and a liar” in a letter, and making mock-allegations of an unflattering conversation that James had had with Rebecca.

How Lincoln began to use words for a higher purpose

But the Lincoln we know as president was not this brash, impulsive politician who launched personal attacks on his opponents. What made him change? All along, something had been stirring within him. Right after the “skinning of Thomas” in 1840, one of his friends reported that “…the recollection of his own conduct that evening filled [Lincoln] with the deepest chagrin. He felt he had gone too far and to rid his good nature of a load, hunted up Thomas and made ample apology,” according to an excerpt in Benjamin Thomas, Lincoln’s Humor: An Analysis.

This inner stirring intensified when some of his verbal attacks drew unfavorable consequences for Lincoln himself. In fact, when the letter he signed as “Rebecca” was published, the recipient of his reproach, Shields, was so enraged that he forced the newspaper to divulge the writer’s identity, and, when he was told that it was Lincoln, accosted Lincoln and challenged him to a duel. Good sense prevailed on both men just moments before they were to commence this fight-unto-death. Having learned a lesson by coming so close to an inglorious death, Lincoln never wrote such anonymous letters again.

Gradually molding his character, Lincoln also became highly attuned to the feelings of others, including his enemies, and highly measured in the way he communicated in adversarial situations. Once, as he and his wife Mary Todd Lincoln were approaching George Washington in a carriage, she remarked, “This city is full of enemies.,” Lincoln injected, “Enemies? Never again must we repeat that word,” as told in Lincoln As I Knew Him: Gossip, Tributes, and Revelations from His Best Friends and Worst Enemies.

On another occasion during the Civil War, Lincoln explained, about Southerners, “They are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist amongst them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist amongst us, we should not instantly give it up,” as recorded in Lincoln-Douglas Debates. Lincoln continued to retain his propensity for ridicule, but now it was mostly directed at his own self, in a self-effacing manner. When, during one of their debates, Stephen Douglas called Lincoln two-faced, Lincoln responded, wryly, “I leave it to my audience. If I had another face, why would I be wearing this one?” (This is from Presidential Anecdotes.)

How Lincoln learned to take criticism, too

Lincoln by now was also showing remarkable self-mastery in gracefully fending off the attacks hurled on him by critics, even those within his inner circle. On one occasion, he was informed that the Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, had refused to execute a Presidential order—and further, had called the president a “damn fool.” “He called me a damn fool?” Lincoln asked. “Yes! Not once, sir, but twice!” replied the excited congressman, who had brought him this news. “Well, Stanton speaks what is on his mind, and he is usually right about what he speaks, so if he called me a damn fool, I must be a damn fool. I will go to him now and find out why,” according to a 2005 Time magazine article The Master of the Game.

But changing oneself isn’t easy, so even as president, Lincoln’s anger occasionally consumed him, making him pour it out in letters to critics, errant generals, and others. He had the self-discipline though to not dispatch these “hot” letters; they were later discovered, unsigned, in a drawer in the president’s desk. In this way, one small step at a time, Lincoln built his self-discipline, and through it, the character of his presidency.

Lincoln’s journey suggests that the true measure of a leader lies not in how much we cultivate and exploit our strengths, but in how we work on tapping, in Lincoln’s words, the “better angels of our nature” to use our strengths in the service of a cause much higher than our own personal gain.

Do you have the power to sculpt your character?

Do you view yourself solely as who you are today—some good, some bad—or do you see the potential for gradually sculpting your character further, the way Lincoln did?

How aware are you of your strengths? What have you been doing to nurture them? Are there times when you have misused these strengths? Has this led to any inner stirring in you, and have you been striving to discipline yourself to use your strengths in more and more purposeful ways? What kind of life story could you craft for yourself if you chose to do that?

In the comments section below, I invite you to share reflections from your own journey in life and leadership. Some executives and MBA students in my Personal Leadership & Success classes and workshops have shared remarkable stories of their own personal transformation and growth—in wisdom, character, and life direction. If you have experienced a similar turning point, do describe it below, for your story may inspire us just as much as Lincoln’s.

The best leaders recognize their weaknesses–and struggle through them.

I am known as a pretty quick study on most issues I face in my professional career. But that ability to master the situation has hit a roadblock. It’s called physical therapy.

In my work I operate pretty much in the cognitive realm; I size up issues and help my clients work through them. As an executive coach I of course touch on the emotional domain because it is important to know how clients are feeling especially in their relations to others.

Physical therapy is another matter. While I have been through physical therapy a few times, I recently had a foot operation, and my current sessions have been not so much painful as disconcerting. I have been assigned some tasks that involve coordination in which I am woefully lacking. I know the motion that my kind therapist Jessica wants me to do, but I cannot reproduce the effort to satisfaction.

It reminds me of a drawing course I took in college. One day after class the professor pulled me aside and asked me point blank if I understood what was going in the class. I did not take his comment personally; in fact, I explained that sure I knew what I was supposed to do, but my hand could not reproduce the lines he asked us to draw. In my mind I could draw perfectly; in my hand I was pretty much a stick figure guy.

Knowing your limits is essential to self-growth. Leadership author and researcher Jim Collins wrote about this in an essay he contributed to Upward Bound: Nine Original Accounts of How Business Leaders Reached Their Summits. When he was in his early 40s he decided that he wanted to become a better climber. So he hired a personal climbing coach, a young woman in her early 20s. She put Jim through a rigorous unlearning process that forced him to undo all of the habits he had put into his climbing technique since his teen years. It was an awkward and humbling process but Collins persisted and gained the proficiency he needed to become better. He has since scaled the face of Yosemite’s El Capitan in a single day to celebrate turning 50.

Recognition of limitations is the first step. As Collins illustrates, it is what you do next that matters. This is an important lesson in personal development. An executive coach may be able to point out things to do differently but unless you try them out, and commit to the change process, no amount of coaching in the world will work.

This is what I have learned with some of my failings at coordination. I am not a total klutz. I used to play tennis regularly and I still play plenty of golf, but when it comes to certain aspects of coordination I am deficient. That said, I am not giving up.

I know this perseverance is essential to the growth process. Very bright people in management sometimes run into obstacles with a major challenge; it is not something they can knock off as easily as they once might have aced a statistics exam or physics final. Very often they are facing human issues, ones not solvable on paper.

And at first they may struggle at their lack of coordination that is ability to connect with peers or direct reports. Good ones, those who end up leading their organizations, pretty soon learn to acknowledge their limitations. And when they do, they open up themselves to others. People want to work with a manager who knows what he can and cannot do.

Mastery of a task may be a straightforward path. Mastery in leadership is a lifetime pursuit, one that is both humbling and challenging as well as rewarding to the individual, and the team, when it works.

Now back to physical therapy. Argh.

Don’t waste a minute tracking your employees’ hours. They’ll get more done.

“What time do you want me to start work?” That’s the question a new hire recently asked me. She looked a little startled by my reply.

“I don’t care.”

But it was the truth. I didn’t care—and I never have—what hours are kept by the people who work for me. You could say I’m the opposite of a control freak, in the sense that I have always resisted rules, for myself and for others. Why? Because once you have rules, you have to enforce them—and there’s no more tedious task in life.

I’m relaxed about timekeeping in part because I had great bosses early in my broadcasting career. They didn’t care about hours either. They trusted that, with a broadcast date in the schedule, any producer would work their socks off to make the best program on time—because that’s how you advanced your career. Nobody ever said, “Wonderful timekeeping, shame about the show!”

And so that’s how I’ve always managed people who worked for me. I’ve trusted them to get the work done on time and on budget—and they have. Treating employees like grown-ups made it more likely that they would behave the same way. Of course, this also implies that no one person’s schedule should mess up anyone else’s: we all work collaboratively and to do that, it’s helpful to be in the same place at the same time occasionally. But I’ve rarely had to spell this out.

I have also always taken the same approach to maternity leave. No woman knows exactly what she will want once her baby has arrived: some mothers can’t wait to get back to work while others decide that they want to stop for awhile. Their partners’ attitudes too are unpredictable too. So I’ve always taken the line: figure out what works for you and let me know. I have never yet had anyone come to me with an unreasonable proposal. Nor have I ever seen two proposals alike. People are different and so are families and I’ve always assumed that I was the last person to dictate how anyone should feel or behave.

I cannot remember a single instance of being disappointed by this approach. Of course I’ve had poor or under-performing employees and not a few staffers who were simply in the wrong job. But in none of those cases were hours the problem. Instead, I’ve had the privilege of working with hundreds of dedicated, committed, energetic individuals whose stamina was hugely enhanced by the freedom to work as they saw fit. They more often exceeded expectations than under-delivered.

‘But weren’t you afraid of being ripped off?’ I’m often asked. Strangely enough, no. I wasn’t ripped off, I wasn’t disappointed and, perhaps best of all, I didn’t have to walk around ostentatiously staring at my watch. There are much better ways to spend precious time.