Twitter founder Jack Dorsey on the 12 habits that will make you a better leader

Jack reads the following from The Score Takes Care of Itself by former 49ers coach Bill Walsh:

1. Be yourself. “You must be the best version of yourself that you can be... If you’re faking it, you’ll be found out.”

2. Be committed to excellence. “At all times, in all ways, your focus must be on doing things at the highest possible level.”

3. Be positive. “There is a constructive place for censure and highlighting negative aspects of a situation, but too often it is done simply to vent and creates a barrier between you and others.”

4. Be prepared. “Good luck is a product of good planning.”

5. Be detail-oriented. “Organizational excellence evolves from the perfection of details relevant to performance and production.”

6. Be organized. “You must think clearly with a disciplined mind, especially in regard to the most efficient and productive use of time and resources.”

7. Be accountable. “Excuse making is contagious. Answerability starts with you. If you make excuses so will those around you.”

8. Be near-sighted and far-sighted. “Keep everything in perspective while simultaneously concentrating fully on the task at hand… All efforts and plans should be considered not only in terms of short-run effect, but also in terms of how they impact the organization long term.”

9. Be fair. “I believe your value system is as important to success as your expertise… Be clear in your own mind as to what you stand for. And then stand up for it.”

10. Be firm. “I would not budge one inch on my core values, standards, and principles.”

11. Be flexible. “Consistency is crucial, but you must be quick to adjust to new challenges that defy the old solutions.”

12. Believe in yourself. “To a large degree, a leader must ‘sell’ himself to the team. This is impossible unless you exhibit self-confidence.”

13. Be a leader (bonus). “You must know where you’re going and how you intend to get there... You must be able to inspire and motivate through teaching people how to execute their jobs at the highest level. You must care about people and help those people care about one another and the team’s goals. And you must never second-guess yourself on decisions you make with integrity, intelligence, and a team-first attitude.”

Jack also walks through the 10 things leaders SHOULD NOT do:

1. Exhibit patience, paralyzing patience.

2. Engage in delegating—massive delegating—or conversely, engage in too little delegating.

3. Act in a tedious, overly cautious manner.

4. Become best buddies with certain employees.

5. Spend excessive amounts of time socializing with superiors or subordinates.

6. Fail to continue hard-nosed performance evaluations of longtime—”tenured”—staff members, the ones most likely to go on cruise control, to relax.

7. Fail to actively participate in efforts to appraise and acquire new hires.

8. Trust others to carry out your fundamental duties.

9. Find ways to get out from under the responsibilities of your position, to move accountability from yourself to others—the blame game.

10. Promote an organizational environment that is comfortable and laid-back in the misbelief that the workplace should be fun, lighthearted, and free from appropriate levels of tension and urgency.

And lastly, he shares six points from how General Patton ran his army during World War I:

1. Remember that praise is more valuable than blame

2. Use every means before and after combat to tell troops what they’re going to do and what they have done

3. Discipline is based on pride in the profession of arms, on meticulous attention to details, and on mutual respect and confidence

4. Officers must assert themselves by example and by voice

5. General officers must be seen in the front line during action

6. There’s a tendency for the chain of command to overload junior officers by excessive requirements in the way of training and reports

Full video: Y Combinator “Jack Dorsey at Startup School 2013“ (Oct 2013)