Why You Should Hire People Smarter than You
Like anything in life, your leadership path will challenge you to become the best version of yourself. Most successful startup founders I know talk about how they had to not only come to terms with their psyche’s inner workings, they also had to improve themselves as they built their companies. As obstacles arose, they became increasingly willing to look at themselves and strengthen areas they identified as their weaknesses, enabling them to carry forward with ease. Consequently, some of the most prolific leaders are also remarkable people.
Acknowledging your blindspots requires the inclination to both face and surround yourself with people who aren’t afraid to constructively critique your ideas should they warrant amending or augmentation. It is not imperative that you fix all your weaknesses to be a great leader, however, it’s crucial that you’re aware of them, and that you are prepared to rectify them. No one is perfect but self-awareness cannot be understated.
True confidence comes from thoroughly understanding yourself, and it makes you unstoppable. Moreover, when it comes time to hiring, you can choose candidates who excel in your weaker areas. Often, we get stuck when we refuse to admit, much less own up, to our blindspots, putting our careers in jeopardy. Owning our weaknesses and hiring our teams to mitigate weaknesses helps us create the best teams.
One of the best ways to be successful and move ahead in your career is to hire people smarter than you. This takes a lot of confidence and trust in yourself, but when you hire people who are brilliant at what they do, as well as accountable and trustworthy, you equip yourself with the tools needed to build an A-level team. If you choose to err on the side of insecurity, you will choose people who will never be better than you, which, in turn, will hold back your career too. Doing the opposite—having confidence and trusting yourself—will allow you to hire the best people for the job, and the best talent always delivers the kind of results that leads to promotions all around.
When I was working at a fast-growing tech company, there was a VP who was hired to create a cloud infrastructure that would help the company scale. It was an important and high-pressure task, and the VP hired a team of very talented senior people, who were essentially his peers, at the VP level. He even gave some of them a VP title as an enticement to work at the company, not caring what others thought about having his direct reports be so high-level. The team had a great horizontal culture in which each team member knew what they were responsible for as they worked as a team on larger initiatives. This team successfully delivered the required infrastructure and the leader of that team was promoted to SVP within six months. I have never seen such a fast, well-deserved promotion at that level of a company.
Aside from the ability to deliver the best results, having a strong team allows you the time needed to focus on other projects, manage up, and take time off. Having a team you trust offers you that flexibility and choice. I am a strong supporter of taking the time off you need, but, as a leader, you can only do that when you know that things will run smoothly in your absence. The peace of mind that comes with being part of a strong team is invaluable.
Finally, innovation is bred from diversity of thought and the willingness to try new things, and the majority of highly intelligent people see the world through a unique lens. That unique perspective will be instrumental to you as you lead, especially when it comes to innovation. You need the best ideas and so does your company, so hire people who can deliver that.
It takes time to find the right talent and then create a strong team wherein members trust each other, but the level of talent you have will not only determine your own career path, but the success of your company.