(Excerpt from Lazy Leadership by Andrew Wilkinson)
Henry Ford didn’t build cars, he built factories. To me, a great leader’s job is to build a machine that produces a product. It’s not about doing the work itself. Many CEO’s forget this and get stuck in sales, marketing, product — whatever part of the business they love — while they ignore the bigger picture. An exceptional leader builds a company that functions without them.
… I now think of my companies as machines. I determine the result that I want, design a machine that will produce the result, then figure out what sort of people I need as part of it. If I’m part of the machine, I think about my strengths and weaknesses, and if necessary replace myself with someone better suited to the role.