Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, and Elon Musk.
Real leaders are builders. They build relationships, build bridges, and make others stronger! The most recognized and acclaimed leaders realize the importance of effective communication and how that skillset is a cornerstone for “tuning in” to their team member’s needs, as well as the desires of their customers.
How do great leaders and communicators tap into the greatness of others? They master the art of being interested. Everyone loves to talk about themselves. A great leader will inquire before they inspire. This is the “buy in” necessary for credibility.
Have you noticed when you give a person an honest sincere compliment they light up with huge smiles of happiness? They glow!
Great leaders expect adversity!
Great leaders build and develop their countries and business organizations by developing, educating, and inspiring their people.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill:
As a child, he was sent to boarding school at 7 years old. He “played cricket, rode horses, studied the piano, and begged to be allowed to learn the cello or the violin.” At Brighton he went to “concerts, pantomimes, and dances.” He said, “I am learning to dance now and I like it very much indeed.”
He enjoyed “music hall tunes, for which he had a prodigious memory, or songs from the Savoy operas of Gilbert and Sullivan that he loved to sing.” When Winston was almost 10 years old “he wrote to his mother of a lovely stamp book and stamps that he had bought.”
Winston Churchill as a young man wrote dispatches while serving in the British Army as a young man, becoming an independent war correspondent and continuing his prodigious writing output after entering Parliament.. (Personal Development Winston Churchill on Hobbies by Mary Pat Campbell)
At the lowest period of his political career in the spring of May 1915 when he lost his office as First Lord of the Admiralty. he started to paint. He painted 100s of paintings. Churchill in 1921 wrote his essay entitled “Painting as a Pastime”. He discovered an escape that allowed his mind to wander, think, and create.
As a leader of his country when two other countries wanted to take over his country he rallied his country men and women to fight "no matter what the difficulties Never, Never Give Up!”
During the darkest days of WW11 Prime Minister Winston Churchill stayed strong for his country.
No matter how difficult the problem was Prime Minister Winston Churchill stayed strong and said Never, Never, Never, Never Give Up! He kept his country safe and strong.
Despite how dire the battle seemed, or how negative the voices were around him, Churchill consistently broadcast a message of optimism, strength, and victory…and it worked!
Churchill understood the power of optimism to set the foundation for victory.
Churchill understood the importance of laughter when it came to keeping an attitude straight. 'Laugh a little, and teach your men to laugh... If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin, keep out of the way till you can.'"
During a B.B.C. broadcast, Churchill proclaimed: "We are resolved to destroy Hitler and every vestige of the Nazi regime. From this, nothing will turn us-nothing. We will never parlay, we will never negotiate with Hitler or any of his gang. We shall fight him by land, we shall fight him by sea, we shall fight him in the air, until, with God's help, we have rid the earth of his shadow."
"Churchill not only saw reasons for hope and confidence in the darkest days of World War II but he was able to infuse his unique combination of stoicism and optimism into the very backbone of the nation, the armed services, and his own staff."
Leo Amery, a minister in Churchill's government said, 'No one ever left his cabinet without feeling a braver man.'... Great leaders bring out the inner strength that people often do not know they possess."
Churchill empowered others to be their best selves!
Churchill presided over one of the great and most dramatic turning points of civilization. His actions were pivotal in the shaping of the world that we live in today.
"He knew that if he could rally the mind, spirit, and heart of the British people, they would eventually emerge victorious. Churchill not only saved Britain from defeat but now in retrospect, he saved democracy as a form of government in the world. Here was truly a single individual whose life made a profound difference to everyone on our planet." Hyrum W. Smith, What Matters Most (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000).
What 3 lessons on leadership did Prime Minister Winston Churchill teach?
1) Be optimistic and confident. "Bring out the inner strength of people."
2) Churchill, 'Laugh a little, and teach your men to laugh."
3) "If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin, keep out of the way till you can."
Churchill was a builder and lifter of people.
Lesson: When in doubt, check your attitude and the attitude of those around you.
Prime Minister Margaret Roberts Thatcher:
If you were the new Leader of your country and your country was on the brink of disaster with virtual bankruptcy, rising unemployment, rising inflation, and crippling labor strikes, what actions would you take to save your country and what leadership principles would guide you to success?
In 1979 Great Britain's economy was bankrupt and the newly elected Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher immediately set to work privatizing all nationalized industries such as aerospace firms, telephone firms, utilities, the National Freight Company and public housing which was sold to its tenants. She sold all these industries at favorable terms to promote private enterprise. Her aim was to reduce government power and promote the rights of individuals who would be property owners and pay a mortgage on their new properties.
Labor unions were crippling Great Britain with their intimidation and strikes. Prime Minister Thatcher stood firm against the unions bringing the coal industries and the steel industries under control. Employers and their workforce had achieved the proper balance. It was no longer necessary for men to join the unions.
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher believed in putting her "faith in freedom, free markets, limited government and a strong national defense."
Early Family life and education of Margaret Roberts
Margaret Hilda Roberts was born in Grantham, England to Alfred and Beatrice Roberts on Oct.13, 1925. As a child, Margaret Roberts learned about the business of balancing budgets in her parent's, the Roberts grocery store in Grantham. Her family lived above the store and she and her older sister were raised to be truthful, to attend church, to help others and do charitable work in their close community. Margaret's father, Alfred Roberts talked daily about Conservative politics in their home. In Grantham he was a councilor in local politics.
Margaret graduated from Oxford University in Chemistry in 1947. She greatly admired one of her professors who shattered the glass ceiling and won a Nobel Prize.
After graduating she worked as a chemist. One of the companies she worked for was J. Lyons & Co., a food conglomerate, developing soft serve ice cream.
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher chartered new territory in male dominated areas of government and business. She went to law school after being married at a time when women did not go to law school or work outside the home when they had young children. She understood the value of a law education in society to help serve others.
She had the courage of her convictions as a leader to never give up regardless of the obstacles. With character, honor, integrity, and hard work she her country and her children and grandchildren of economic growth and prosperity and the right and honorable way to conduct business.
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister for 3 terms, 11 and a half years. When she became Prime Minister, her country was on the brink of financial disaster and with problems of law and order. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said at the time "Unless we change our ways and our direction, our greatness as a nation will soon be a footnote in the history books, a distant memory of an offshore island, lost in the mist of time like Camelot, remembered kindly for its noble past."
When she left office in 1990 her legacy was a sound economy with a society that was confident about its future.
Leadership Principles: As a leader she believed in working with experts who shared her vision, her plan of action with a shared goal of repairing Great Britain's economy. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was nicknamed the "Iron Lady" by the Soviets for the tough line she took against them. As a leader she had strength, determination, honesty, integrity, and the courage of her convictions with a passionate belief in the right way to get her country back on track once again.
Lesson: Don’t be afraid to shake things up. There is a first for everything.
Elon Musk, engineer, physicist, entrepreneur, businessman, investor.
Elon Musk’s Early Years:
Elon Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa. Elon Musk in grade school, taught himself how to code. IBM tested him and he was found to be a natural coder. Elon excelled in physics and computer science.
In 1997, he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in Physics and economics. “After graduation he used his computer science skills to found his 1st start up, a city guide software company called Zip2, online business directory, with his brother Kimbal Musk. He sold that company in 1999 for over $300 million to Compaq Computer Corporation.”
“With the sale he founded X.com, an online bank with 3 other co-founders. Musk was ousted as CEO in 1996, however, when the board of directors decided to install a more experienced leader in his stead.” (Like Steve Jobs, Elan Musk was replaced/removed in 2 of his companies.)
“X.com merged with software company Confinity just one year later, forming PayPal, a secure online payments platform with a foundation in payments conducted for Palm Pilots. PayPal would go on to be one of his most successful companies; Musk and his partners, including Confinity co-founder Peter Thiel, sold it to eBay in 2002 for a $1.5 billion stock deal. However, it was a rough start. PayPal was named at one point as one of the “worst business ideas” of 1999, and Musk himself was again removed from his role as CEO while on honeymoon in 2000, replaced by the board with Thiel.”
Elon Musk in 2002 “began his quest to send the first rocket to Mars.” (Space X) The cost of purchasing a Rocket was 55 Million dollars. Elon Musk used First principle thinking to solve this cost problem.
First Principle:
“Identify the problem. Break things down into smaller parts. Then look at each part individually, each component. Look outside your product category for a part or piece that can be imported. Combine the parts to create something new according to desired outcome. First Principle thinking.” (Story from Darren Hardy)
Elon Musk: “What’s a rocket made of?”
“Aerospace – grade aluminum alloys, plus some titanium, copper, and carbon fiber.”
“Then I asked, what is the value of those materials on the commodity market? It turned out that the materials cost of a rocket was around two percent of the typical price.”
Step by step he built his own rocket better and cheaper.
When evaluating an entire project, the costs may seem like they are set in stone, however, when you break things down into bite-sized pieces, they can be more manageable.
For example:
Problem: My car makes a grinding sound when braking.
Total solution: replacing brakes, pads, rotors, whole assembly. Cost: $1000.
Individual solution:
Most times replacing brake pads is sufficient. Cost $200.
Reducing challenges into bite-sized chunks is not only a great recipe for cost reduction; it is a fantastic way to remove friction from your customer experience.
By asking himself questions he solved his problem and built a new rocket from the ground up stronger, better and cheaper.
2004: Tesla: “These days, Musk is perhaps best known for his leadership at Tesla,the electric car company named after famed inventor Nikola Tesla. Valued at over $1 trillion at one point in 2021, Tesla was founded in 2003 by two other men; Musk entered a Series A funding round with an investment of $6.5 million, and eventually took an increasingly active role in the company. He has been CEO since 2008. The Model 3 is the most popular electric car in production today, with over one million units sold globally.”
In 2006, Solar City was founded by Elon Musk’s cousins. “Musk was their primary financial backer. Solar City became the leading residential solar installer in the U.S. Musk, via Tesla, acquired SolarCity in 2016 for $2.6 billion in stock and incorporated it into its operations as Tesla Energy.”
2015: Open AI: “Musk co-founded OpenAI as a non-profit in 2015, with a for-profit artificial intelligence research lab component; it was started with a $1 billion collective pledge from its founders. Musk has been open about his interest in developing “friendly” AI that supports humanity, but he ended up resigning from the board in 2018 due to conflicts with Tesla’s AI projects.”
2022: “Twitter: After buying up enough stock to make him a majority shareholder by April 1, Musk made the move to purchase Twitter for $44 billion at the end of April. His plans include making Twitter “better than ever” by “enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans.”
https://time.com/6170834/elon-musk-business-timeline-twitter/
Elon Musk: Developing, building companies, employing Americans!
“How does Elon Musk choose the people that he hires?”
INTERVIEWER: “How do you translate that to getting the "Right" people to think that way, to these breakthrough ways of thinking of these innovations that go on?”
Elon Musk: “Well, getting the right people is extremely important. And I actually interview everyone at SpaceX personally. And we're a 500 person company, so that's a lot of interviews.”
INTERVIEWER: “What do you look for in someone?”
Elon Musk: “What do I look for? It depends on the task. You know, it's different, and I'm not necessarily looking for someone who has brilliant analytic ability if their job is going to be assembling hardware. But I think, generally, I look for a positive attitude and are they easy to work with, are people gonna like working with them? It's very important to like the people you work with, otherwise life and your job is gonna be quite miserable. And, in fact, we have a strict sensor at SpaceX. And we fire people if they are. I mean, we give them a little bit of warning. But if they continue … then they're fired.”
“It's not merely his background with programming, branding, rocket science, economics, and physics that makes Musk such a talented organization builder. He's also supremely skilled in evaluating talent in face-to-face scenarios, in choosing the right candidate for a given role, and in selecting individuals who propagate a carefully delineated company culture. And everyone would agree that this is an important aspect for hiring people.”
Elon Musk: Developing, building companies, employing Americans!
In the early days he had 500 employees working for Space X. On September 2023 he has 13,000 employees working for Space X.
At a time when America needs to support and protect American jobs and industry, the Department of Justice wants Elon Musk to hire aliens!
“The Dept. of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday announced a lawsuit against SpaceX alleging that the company "routinely discouraged asylees and refugees from applying and refused to hire or consider them, because of their citizenship status, in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA)." According to the suit, SpaceX wrongly claimed that federal laws and regulations restricted the company to only hiring U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, also known as green card holders.” (August 27, 2023)
“Elon Musk hits back at DOJ over lawsuit alleging hiring discrimination by SpaceX”
"SpaceX was told repeatedly that hiring anyone who was not a permanent resident of the United States would violate international arms trafficking law, which would be a criminal offense," Musk said in another post on the platform. "We couldn’t even hire Canadian citizens, despite Canada being part of NORAD! This is yet another case of weaponization of the DOJ for political purposes."
“DOJ’s lawsuit noted that asylees and refugees are legally permitted by the federal government to live and work in the U.S. without expiration, and added that there is no restriction on asylees or refugees working for companies that have to comply with export control requirements.”
Three take aways from Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and Elon Musk:
1) Prime Minister Winston Churchill “Never, never, never, never give in…” He rallied a nation by his words!
2) Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady, stood up to bullies. She took a stand!
3) Elon Musk: there’s a better way. Why do it this way?
It can be made better, less expensive.
Leaders are tinkerers, builders, developers and thinkers!
Madeline Frank, Ph.D., is an Amazon.com Best Selling Author, speaker, business owner, teacher, concert artist, and parent. She helps businesses and organizations “Tune Up their Business”. Her observations show you the blue prints necessary to improve and keep your business successful. Her latest book “Leadership On A Shoestring Budget” is available everywhere books are sold. If you need a virtual speaker contact Madeline at: mfrankviola@gmail.com
