#256: Hayden Brown, CEO of Upwork – Create clarity for your team

25:04You know, no one in my company is going to believe that I'm serious about AI unless I'm showing up using these tools, pushing on them where they're not using the tools, etc. Of course, we also have some programmatic things in place. We started an AI-ification program where we have a bunch of initiatives that are really focused on targeting and unlocking this value. But personally, I feel I need to champion this both by doing and showing up with our teams to really advocate for our AI adoption. Has it been a challenge for you to take people with you in the company to get behind this movement? Or has it been something that people have easily gravitated to?

25:38Because we're obviously changing old habits by getting used to this. Totally. And we've seen everything internally. You know, we always had kind of this cohort of early adopters who were, you know, leaning in, advocating. We've bought two AI companies in the last two years. So that's brought in a lot of like super forward-leaning AI talent, including our head of AI who came in from one of those acquisitions. But you're right. There's also a long tail of other people who've been worried or skeptical or feel like maybe they don't have permission to use these tools. So we make it a constant habit.

26:10Every week we're talking in our, we have a weekly kind of mini all hands meeting. We're talking about and showcasing how people are internally are using these tools. We've created workshops and webinars and now really communicated to everyone that the expectation is they are using these tools. So it has taken, you know, in some places kind of the snowball needed to start rolling before speeding up. But now it feels like it's moving really fast in terms of executing on this like opportunity and getting everyone in the company involved in it. How important has it been for you to make it clear to everybody that this is a bus everybody's got to get on?

26:43It's my top priority. It has been so important because you're right. There's skepticism. There's fear. People worry even in our company about their jobs being replaced by AI. I mean, this is a widespread phenomenon. So I have had to be very clear. And it's one of those things like repeat, repeat, repeat until people are sick of hearing it. And I'm sick of hearing myself say it, but repeat what our goals are and really reassure people as well as push them and challenge them in terms of where we're going. And this is, I think, essential for every leader. It's not going to happen in the business without each of us really leaning in and driving this change.

27:15You know, you're obviously a leader who can clarify and you've done that many, many times. You're a great communicator and you have these obvious skills and you're at the top of an organization, which I think is fantastic and you're a great example for my daughter and so many others. Did you ever find being a female really inhibited your ability to take on opportunities or even get opportunities? And if so, how'd you work through it? I used to be very naive on this topic. When I was 22 at McKinsey or Microsoft, I was thinking, it doesn't matter that I'm a woman. Like, that's not going to hold me back.

27:53No one's going to penalize me for that. And of course, in the last 20 years, I've seen tons of instances where I'm underestimated. I'm looked over. I mansplained to constantly just because, you know, people think, oh, she can't know what she's doing or she can't take this on. So, of course, I've experienced that throughout my career. I think the thing that has been, you know, really interesting as the CEO, I've really realized that in our culture, there's kind of two types of women leaders who are stereotyped. There's kind of the mom who's like soft and fuzzy, but maybe like a little clueless or can't make those hard decisions.

28:27And then there's, I'll call her the jerk, you know, the person who's like cold hearted, like doesn't care, like, you know, just breaking glass everywhere. And I am neither of those things. I bring a lot of warmth and love and caring that's genuine for my team and our customers. I'm also hard driving and decisive and bold and analytical. And people don't know what to do with that. I think they often can only kind of look for or see one, not both of those things at best. So it's become clear to me that I need to do a lot to communicate, as you mentioned, and really show up and try to educate my team and our stakeholders in terms of who I am and what I stand for.

29:05because the stereotypes that people really fall into, especially for women leaders, just don't apply. What specific advice would you give to a female that maybe you wouldn't give to a male that could help them climb the ladder? Unfortunately, a lot of women who are so capable, and the studies have shown this, hold themselves back from that next step because they feel like, oh, they need to do a little more, prove themselves a little more or learn a little more or go do that other job before they do the job they want to do. And a piece of advice I give to a lot of folks that come to me and we chat is, if you're thinking about going and doing that thing, don't do the three things first.

29:43Like, go do that thing now. You're ready. You're capable. Go do it. That's what a lot of men do. They don't wait until, you know, they have that perfect profile or capability. And I think that's something that, as women, we can constantly push ourselves on because our culture doesn't necessarily foster that in us. Yeah, I agree. And, you know, it's great to see that you're leading the way and showing people that it can be done in the very best of ways. So congratulations on that. And, you know, your company provides a great service to your customers. And I was just curious, you know, what advice can you give on how to balance between full-time employees and freelancers?

30:24And maybe you could use Upwork as an example. We have about three quarters of our workforce today is freelancers. And that's been true basically since we were born as a small startup. We've always built our workforce as hybrid. And what we see today in the environment more broadly is a shift where more and more companies are looking critically at their full-time employee staff and realizing the limitations of what that staff can do for them. Often those people in their current payroll don't know how to use AI tools, aren't maybe moving fast enough up the learning curve, don't have other critical skills as these businesses are moving in a very dynamic environment.

31:04So that trend is causing more companies to have a smaller core FTE group and a larger group of contingent freelance and kind of third-party vendors that they work with. And that I think is an enduring shift we're going to keep seeing more of. So for every company, I think the key is moving from a mindset of, in the past, Like most leaders have thought like, oh, I hire or I do work with the unit of the FTE. That's like the unit of measurement. Like I need to add these FTEs or subtract these FTEs. That's how work is comprised. The shift for leaders is to say these aren't FTE units. Now it's skills or projects or efforts.

31:39And once we break down the work to be more clear about what those boundaries and goals are, we actually may not need a big team of 10 FTEs. Maybe we could have four or five specialists who really focus on that project and then we keep going with them or disband it based on what we find. And so it's a different mindset around kind of what the unit of work is, how you define and scope the work. And then, of course, going to this tremendous pool of freelancers, which is a$1.3 trillion economy in the U.S. alone, to find that skilled talent that you probably don't have to be moving fast enough and most agile in this current environment.

32:12And how do you go about defining the scope of a job so that you can decide, OK, it's a full-time employee or it's a freelancer? I mean, do you have a process that you use to get at that? We do. I mean, we start with really what's the goal here and what's the timeframe in which we need to achieve the goal? And is this something that's going to endure beyond that or not? We also look at aspects, of course, that are around kind of compliance and how much control and direction do we have to give to this work? Or is it more kind of autonomous and we can share context and then have experts go off and do some of this work for them?

32:46So these are two of the factors that we look at in figuring out, you know, can we do this with freelance talent? But for us, David, basically every question kind of starts with the premise, like, why can't you do it with freelance talent? Like, that's where we always start is like, this should be something we can do with a flexible team. And we really push ourselves to say in places where people want more headcount, like, is that necessary? And they really have a high bar to justify in order to make that happen. That makes sense. And as I said at the top of the show, you've been leading this remote work environment before people even talked about remote work environments.

33:21And you've been doing this a long time. And it's now the new normal for every company. What advice would you give others on how to navigate this well? How do you really be a company that knows how to lead a remote workforce? The first thing is, I think too often people mistake a remote first or remote forward workforce with we don't get together in person. When in fact, our model has always been a combination of, yes, lots of fully remote team members, lots of flexibility in terms of when, where and how people work. But we still have strong cadences of getting teams together. So they really build not just business context, but also social context and relationships.

34:05And that is really a huge unlock for remote teams. they have to have that as a foundation. So remote teams have to have a lot of in-person touch points. It can vary based on the team and the work, but that's a key part of relationship building. And then you also need to be very clear about what are the remote work practices. So for example, in our company, in every meeting, cameras are on for every participant. And that is really the guiding light as just one example, kind of practically of how we ensure people are like seeing and hearing from each other, able to read body language. It's not about just dialing on the phone, you have to be like physically present.

34:37Those are some of the things that we do. In addition to like weekly touch points where you build culture, you've got to build culture with a remote team that's not in the office. And for us, that means things like a half hour touch point every week where we can put our culture on display, showcase work that's happening, create context, and also let people see and hear about things that are happening across the business that they're not hearing about when they're not in an office, which is what most of our team is. So those are some of the things that really have helped us build remote culture and our malt fabric, but every company has to approach this for like what's right for them.

35:09We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Hayden Brown in just a moment. Like Hayden, the co-founders of Warby Parker know how important it is to move fast. And for them, agility starts with fast, open, streamlined communication. We found that to be successful and to grow quickly, right, information has to flow quickly within the organization. And similarly, it's got to flow quickly between the two of us, right? We need to model the behavior that we want to take place throughout the organization. So we also, our office is an open layout. We sit right next to each other in between meetings.

35:45We're often sharing notes with one another. Sometimes we're the first people that we talk to in the morning and the last person we talk to at night. I don't know how much our wives love that. But again, to be a high growth company, right? You got to make quick decisions. And if those are going to be good decisions, they have to be informed decisions, which means information needs to travel quickly. And we think that our competitive advantage is having the best data, having the best information and having that flow throughout the company across functional groups that are in other companies often don't talk to each other or don't even exist within the same company.

36:26Right. And that's our competitive advantage. We have direct relationships with our customers because we sell direct to our customers through our stores and our website and our apps. So we're able to get all this customer feedback and data. And then we disseminate it quickly across the company, whether it's to eyewear design or our merchants or to the technology team or to the CX team or to the marketing team. Right. And then we're able to sort of move nimbly and quickly. Go back and listen to my entire conversation with co-CEOs Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa. Episode 181 here on How Leaders Lead.

37:04What have you learned about managing conflict in a remote environment? You know, you talked about the body language and, you know, but, you know, how do you wrestle tough things to the ground in a remote environment? So it's not just a telling kind of back and forth mode that way. Two things have really helped us. So one is the in-person relationship building, which again, is about dinners. It's about going on hikes. Like when teams get together, they focus on that. That social fabric then builds the psychological safety that people can have conflict with each other and feel like that's okay. And also when they hear, you know, a challenge or a pushback from a colleague, they can know, oh, that's coming from a place of positive intent because we talked over dinner and he's a super nice guy.

37:50And he's only saying this because he really thinks it's better for the business. So let's hash it out. So positive intent and psychological safety comes from that relationship building. The other piece of it, which I talk a lot with our executive team about is you can't have like one dimension of communication. It can't be, you know, only scheduled meetings. When there's a conflict, we have an agreement that we will resolve things quickly. So we'll turn around, we'll get on the phone right away, or we'll set up an in-person meeting right away. Or we'll take action so that these things don't fester and become, you know, out of proportion or bigger conflicts.

38:22It's about use whatever tool necessary to kind of bottom this out immediately and don't let it wait. So never like let a conflict roll into the next week, for example. Resolve it by Friday. Maybe that's part of your build and break approach. You know, you're building the culture and you have to break down the barriers when you see them. Totally. And that's why as a product manager, I love this job. Like I now get to build the company, not just the product. And to me, that is everything. Speaking of that, you were a product manager. Now you're the CEO. You run every function. How did you broaden yourself?

38:52I'm a huge learner and I'm hugely curious. So I'm always asking other people for tips, advice, input, reaching out to broaden my network and really learn about the things that are the next kind of challenges in the role. So I had the good fortune of doing a lot of product marketing, you know, some other things before I became the CEO. But I've also realized there's nothing like trial by fire. And sometimes you can prepare, you can learn, but then you just have to go and do it. You have to get into it and you learn a lot by doing, you know, that would be like my first earnings call. I had never led an earnings call before, but I, I prepared, I practiced, I kind of thought through it.

39:28And actually then I took like a giant risk and surprised the street with some announcements they weren't expecting and it paid off. It totally worked. But, you know, at some point you have to kind of set aside this idea that everyone else knows better. Kind of like what I learned at McKinsey, like everyone else is more expert. I learned, you know, everyone's kind of making it up. And so it's okay to learn, be smart, start with first principles and then go and apply that knowledge and then rinse and repeat. Now you're a very confident person, but has there been a time where you really had some significant doubt?

39:55And if so, how did you, how'd you work through it? Can you share that? Yeah. So two months into the job as the new CEO, and mind you, I stepped into a context that was, you know, we were about one year post-public. Our stock price had been faltering. Investors had some questions. I was put in as this new CEO. They didn't know yet. And I had a clear idea of what we needed to do with the business. But some of the things I felt we needed to do were very risky. So I laid out my strategy and my plan to the team. But part of that was saying, we have to act like we're in wartime. We have to work a lot harder.

40:30The bar for excellence is now going up. And this is what I'm asking of and expecting of you. And the thing that I was wanted to do that I debated was I actually wanted to make sure everyone at the company who wanted to be there was there and committed to this new plan and this level of effort. And that anyone who was not intending to be there or did not feel like this was a good idea for them was out the door. So what I wanted to do was this thing, we ended up calling it the Graceful Leave Program, where we offered everyone a severance package after I had shared this new strategy and these new expectations and said, every single person, if you don't wanna be part of this, here's a check, here you can go now.

41:08But the question for us was, A, like, what is this going to do? Like, are we gonna have 20 people left at the end of this? You know, who's gonna stay and who's not? Is this too risky? And also, when do we do it? Because I was two months in and there was a lot of discussion, maybe we should do at the end of Q1 or Q2. Well, it turned out we did it in February. We executed this plan. We offered people severance. A number of people took it. We also helped coach some people out that maybe we're not a good cultural fit. So it was a huge actual win for us. But what I realized was the pandemic hit in March.

41:39And if we had not moved fast and executed on that in February, we would have been in a very different situation in terms of executing that type of transformation of our workforce and our business during the pandemic when it was like a no-no to fire anybody. So I had debated and deliberated the timeframe. I got some great input from people that were like, hey, we know you want to move fast. Just do it in February. And I did it. And looking back, that was such a good decision. And that gave me a lot of confidence in future decisions about moving fast, not equivocating, and just going for it, even when the outcome was very much unknown.

42:09Yeah. Well, the graceful leave, that's another example of where your clarity really paid off. You said, this is where we're going. I'm excited about where it is. I I think there's huge potential there, but you got to believe it too. And if you believe it, we're together. If not, you know, you can leave grace for that. That's a pretty good example. And you mentioned COVID and you became CEO right before the pandemic. How did that accelerate your learning just on remote work? What have you learned about remote work because of COVID? It's a great question. And because we were a hybrid and remote-oriented company before COVID, we always had a 4-1 model in our offices, four days in the office, one day remote.

42:56And then we had this extensive team of freelancers predominantly who were nowhere near our offices. So we had this huge remote workforce. It was easy for us to flip the switch and go fully remote when COVID happened. I did learn how hard it was for other companies and how much we could help and educate them with some of our practices. So that was a benefit. But I also learned, to my comments earlier, remote work when it's fully remote, and you can never get together in person, which was the case more or less for the first, you know, one and a half, two years of the pandemic, is very different than remote work when you can have these in-person touch points.

43:27And I think one mistake we made during COVID is, you know, we grew the business significantly. Our top line nearly doubled or did double. Our employee base expanded significantly as well. But because we were already so good at remote work, we didn't think about incepting our team members that we were hiring with all of the practices, with the level of intentionality that we had had in the past, because in the past, people just come into the office and be remote and they kind of learn these things through the way our culture work. They'd be in person sometimes, et cetera. Without those in-person touch points and without enough intentionality around what our remote work model was, we actually kind of backslid periods of time where it was like, oh, this isn't as effective as it could be.

44:03So since then, we've really dialed our dials in terms of the intentionality, in terms of the communication around what our approaches are. But I think it was definitely interesting to see kind of through that period, you know, some of the struggles that we ourselves had at moments because of our growth and because people didn't all understand how to work in our remote company. And nobody has a crystal ball, but if you could look out five years from now, how would you describe the remote work world? It's going to keep getting better because the technology will improve. And I do think technology enablement is a huge driver here of whether remote work is successful or not.

44:37So I'm an optimist in that sense. I do think though, at this moment, everyone is recognizing the value of in-person and trying to find that balance again, having many companies swung extremely remote. And I think that's going to continue. I think we're going to see more of these hybrid models where people have a mixed workforce of on-site and remote folks. But the technology enablement will mean the remote people can contribute and be participating at even higher levels than probably what we see today. You know, I've seen technology where it's like if you and I were sitting right across from each other like we're doing right now, I could basically put my hand into your screen and it's almost like we could shake hands.

45:15It's like, yeah, pick up an apple off your desk or whatever. I mean, it's amazing. You know, where do you see that going? I mean, I am sure these things will continue to come kind of from the lab, you know, into reality. That is the natural technology lifecycle. And I think it's easy to underestimate how impactful they'll be. I'll give you one example. We as a leadership team decided to adopt kind of, we got the like meta 3D glasses and we did some of our team meetings as during the pandemic through like a virtual reality setup. And most of it was actually like terrible because the technology wasn't very good and there were all kinds of issues.

45:55But one thing I remember clearly was the stereoscopic sound where we could kind of talk over and with each other more naturally the way you are in a room versus on Zoom where it's kind of turn by turn talking and then people talk over each other and they both have to stop and it's kind of messy. Just that improvement actually made it feel like such a better, higher quality touchpoint for us as a team. So if you imagine, that's just like one small innovation that can come to all of our remote work tools and then multiply at times these more dramatic things, you know, whether it's kind of hologram type, you know, in-person experiences like the one you're describing.

46:28There's a lot there. And again, I think that the exponential improvement of what remote can be based on that is huge. You know, this has been so much fun and I want to have some more with my lightning round of questions. Are you ready for this? I'll do my best. I'll do my best. Well, one thing I know is for sure, we're going to get some clarity here. Okay. What are the three words that best describe you? Bold, analytical, compassionate. If you could be one person for a day beside yourself, who would it be? I'd want to be one of my kids. I would love to be a child again and experience childhood, you know, through their eyes and also see what kind of parents they think my husband and I are.

47:06What's your biggest pet peeve? I have this thing. I'm a stickler for setting goals with dates and then being clear with metrics using a framework called from X to Y by when. Clarity again. Who would play you in a movie? Can I say Idris Elba because he's just so awesome. Perfect. I love it. How many languages do you speak? 2.2. What's the 0.2? My Nepali used to be a lot better when we lived in Kathmandu, and now it's definitely degraded. And what's your other language besides English? Spanish. Oh, and I have a bit of Japanese too. So maybe it's 2.5. What's the one thing you do just for you? Drive fast with loud music and the windows down.

47:47All right. If I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear? You would hear Gold Gun Girls, which is like one of my favorite songs by Metric and probably some Taylor Swift. I'm still like the man and you've got to calm down. There's some of my favorites. Besides your family, what's your most prized possession? Maybe my house. We designed that thing to be so purposeful for what we wanted. Yeah, that's great. What's something about you few people would know? I'm a huge design junkie. Like my close friends know this, but architecture and interior design, that's like my second life. And what's one of your daily rituals, something that you never, ever miss?

48:26Sun before screens. I always have to look at the sky before I turn on my phone in the morning. Oh, that's cool. That's cool. All right, we're out of the lightning round. Great job. And I just got a few more questions for you. We'll wrap this up. You know, I've heard you tell stories about the adventures your parents would take you on as a kid. And you lived in Nepal. And, you know, how are you leaning into that same kind of adventure now as a parent? It's really important to me that my kids feel like they're part of a world that's bigger than, you know, where we are in California. We do an international trip minimum once a year with them so they can kind of see and experience the world.

49:04This year, I also took my 10-year-old to Ecuador on a one-on-one trip because I wanted her to see that and to have that one-on-one time with her. So travel for us is a big thematic where we're constantly getting out, and I want my kids to have that exposure. I'm not ready to be an expat with them yet, but I do want them to feel like they really are global citizens. And what kind of leadership, because you're obviously an excellent leader, what kind of leadership do you try to take home with you when you're dealing with your husband and your family? and how do you look at leadership at home? Leadership at home for me, David, is all about love.

49:39It's all about leading from a place of love. My biggest goal as a parent is for my kids to know they are unconditionally loved. It's not about grades, it's not about performance, nothing is conditional about how much my husband and I love them and so I'm constantly focused on peeling back any layers and just making sure they know how much they are loved. And you mentioned compassionate is one of the words that you'd use to describe yourself and compassionate, being kind. How do you balance that with just the tough-mindedness it takes to be a CEO? Like having a graceful leave policy, for example.

50:16I mean, that took some tough-mindedness. Yeah. You know, it can seem like these things are at odds, but I actually see them as interlinked because, you know, in the example of that graceful leave policy, yes, we invited and asked some people to leave the business at that time because we knew they weren't a right fit or we wanted them to self-select and we wanted the existing people to like really opt in. But that's a compassionate thing to do, to give people choice and to give them agency and acknowledge that they have that agency and acknowledge that if they're not the right fit, this is not gonna end well for them or for us anyway, even if we play it out a little bit longer.

50:50So I think a lot of these choices on the face can seem like they're not coming from a place of care and kindness. But one thing I love is like letting people be free to go find greater opportunities somewhere else if they're not a fit here. And that actually is an act of love. Hey, listen, every great company has a North Star. You know, there's something that it's a noble cause. You know, you go to work and you're just, you're not just going to work to make a paycheck. You're going to work to really make the world a better place. You know, what's your purpose, Hayden? And how do you drive it deep in your organization?

51:25We're very fortunate because we, as a business, have a purpose that is so evident in everything we do. Our purpose is to create opportunity in every era of work. You know, we've done this for businesses and talent through the advent of, you know, mobile, shifting to the cloud, social media, like all of these phases of work that have happened over the last 20 years. We've been right there helping our customers transform and meet those moments. So for us, that purpose around creating opportunity in every era of work continues to be fresh and relevant because work is constantly changing. And there's always more we can do to make work better for all the participants in it, which is like, it's a huge mission statement if you think about it that way.

52:08So we have this purpose, we drive it through, I mean, we show it in every all hands, we talk about in every weekly meeting, how the work we're doing connects back to that purpose. And one of the ways it becomes very vivid is through customer stories. I'm bringing customers in through video, through live interviews, et cetera, to talk about how that purpose has impacted them directly. And I think that is one of the things that energizes us all the most. You know, we started out this conversation by talking about dating sites and what you'd learned that you could apply to Upwork. And I'm actually interviewing tomorrow Whitney Wolf Hurd, the head of Bumble.

52:48Yep. What question would you like to ask her if you could? It seems like on the precipice of AI, a lot of the prior models around dating and even companionship are changing in terms of both the tools that can be used to facilitate matches and people actually looking for things from AI tools in terms of relationships that they didn't even think about before, we wouldn't even have thought about in the past. So I'm really curious to understand how is she seeing her business, not just in the next year or two changed by AI, but what does it look like in five years? I think that would be an interesting prognostication.

53:24All right, great. I'll definitely ask her that one. And thinking about the future, what do you see as your unfinished business? I mean, Upwork feels like very unfinished business for me. I mean, we are at the beginning of unlocking a huge market and really changing work for so many more people. So this is like an incredible privilege and joy to work on this very unfinished business. And what's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone who wants to be a better leader? You know, I think people see bold moves as somehow hard and they hold themselves back because they want to find some path that maybe doesn't seem as disruptive.

54:02But the clarity and the boldness and really facing like, what's the worst that could happen? We asked ourselves when we did this graceful leaf, what's the worst that could happen? And we said, you know, we'd rather be a tiny team of highly committed people than a big team of medium or not committed people. And I think asking yourself what's the worst that can happen can really unlock for you as a leader, willingness to do these things that on the face of it maybe seem bold or hard, but once you think it through, it's like the obvious thing you would do. Well, I can tell you the best thing that happened to me today is this conversation.

54:31You are a tremendous leader. I'm so excited that people will get to learn from your insights and be able to hopefully up their game like you have continually throughout your career. And And I wish you all the best. Thank you so much, David. This was a lot of fun.

54:53It's probably easy to categorize clarity as just one more leadership skill you have to have. But Hayden shows us it's one of the most important tools a leader has. Without it, your team will miss opportunities and be less efficient. But to give your team clarity, you need more than good communication skills. You need curiosity to truly understand challenges they're facing. You need courage to step into tough conversations. And you've got to be willing to make bold decisions, especially when no one else is quite sure what to do. Hayden models that so well, and it's a big reason Upwork is able to succeed in a world that's moving faster than ever.

55:34So here's your challenge this week. Find one way you can clear up a situation for your team. Maybe it's a conflict that's been festering, a product that's been stalling, or a big decision that needs to be made, but there's confusion all around it. Step in and lead. Bring the curiosity and courage I know that you've got and give your people the clarity they need to move forward. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is that great leaders create clarity for their teams. Coming up next on How Leaders Lead is Klaus Kleinfeld, former CEO of Siemens and Alcoa. So be sure you subscribe on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss it.

56:19Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of How Leaders Lead, where every Thursday, you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you'll become the best leader you can be.