5 Lessons on How to Be a Productive Leader by Nathan Chan

In this episode of The Lifehack Show, we have invited Nathan Chan, the CEO and Founder of Foundr to join us.

Nathan has a passion for entrepreneurship and people, which is why he created Foundr, a global media and education company that produces magazines, books and online courses for entrepreneurs.

Nathan believes life is too short to do work you hate, and is on a mission to grow Foundr into a household name that impacts tens of millions of people with its content and online business school.

In this episode, Nathan is sharing how he started Foundr, and his hacks on getting things done as a leader and entrepreneur.

Check out the full interview video here:

You can also listen to the interview on our podcast channel Spotify, Apple Podcast and Google Podcast:

Lessons on Leadership & Productivity from Nathan Chan

Nathan has shared a lot of his thoughts and tips on how to get things done as a productive leader and entrepreneur, here’re some of the key takeaways:

1. Be Disciplined And Stick to a Routine

I’d get up early in the morning and before I started my day job, I would get up at six in the morning, go through emails et cetera… I’m basically going to the office early and find a meeting room and do an interview or two in the morning, then I’d go to my actual job and I’d start at nine. I do interviews during my lunch break as well.

When asked about how he managed time when he was still working a full-time job and starting Foundr, Nathan told us how important it was to stick to a routine.

Despite trying to grow his business, Nathan wants to be able to invest as much time as he can with his family, friends and parents  Stricking a balance is tricky yet essential. Nathan still allows time for family and friends in his disciplined schedule for work. He’d spend time with his family every Sudany and schedule catching up with friends two weeks in advance.

2. Get Help And Focus on Doing Things That You Enjoy

When Nathan just started Foundr, he did almost everything including markeintg, the writing, and the interviews. But he did get help from others and he employed people on a contractual project basis.

When you want to get ahead, sometimes there’s just things you hate that you’re really bad of and you dread it… If you can afford it, find somebody on a contractual project basis and get them to do it. Then you will focus on the things that you enjoy.

Nathan looked at it from the sense of what he was bad at, and that it was actually better for him and the business if he delegated it to someone else.

3. Be Clear of What You Want to Achieve

Many leaders and entrepreneurs struggle about when to step back from the operation and focus on seeing the bigger picture. Nathan has this piece of advice for them:

It comes down to really what you want and what the goals are… what’s the purpose and really how big do you want to build… It’s your job to go out if you want to build something really large and special, that you have to find the best possible people you can, and you have to be a great leader that can lead them.

If you want to achieve something really big, remember that you will need more than just YOU to achieve it.

4. Find the Right People to Help You

Nathan mentioned one thing that was truly inspiring in the interview:

There are people that are better than you at all sorts of different things, and you can’t be a master of every single trade.

So when it comes to getting help, it’s about the who instead of the what — who has done it before? Who has solve a similar problem already? How can you help your team and share with them these people who have done it before to give them the blueprints?

By providing your team with resources, education, and introducing them to people who have “been there, done that,” you can skill up the team effectively.

5. Empower Your Team Members Instead of “Managing” Them

Nathan believes that in order for a team to drive outcomes, it’s important to help the mebers to discover themselves what they could be doing to make improvements. To him, the key to communication comes down to making sure everyone knows where they’re going, what they need to do and what success looks like as a company at a company level, a team level as well as an individual level.

Like getting things done, it’s not good just saying hey do this, go do this…. because really you don’t want to be thinking for people, you want to empower them, you want to give them ownership, you want to give them autonomy, you want to give them accountability.

At Foundr, Nathan encourages and fosters and environment for continuous growth and learning, so team members are empowered to do their best work with autonomy at Foundr.

Bottom Line

Whether you’re an entrepreneur or a leader at work, these leadership lessons by Nathan will surely help you become a more productive and effective leader.

If you want to watch the full interview with Nathan, don’t forget to check out the YouTube video above. Stay tuned with us on The Lifehack Show as I will be interviewing more leaders and productivity experts!