Fixable Mistakes Leaders Make – Sharran Srivatsaa

What if you could drastically improve your leadership with just a few changes? Sharran reveals five fixable mistakes leaders commonly make and shows you exactly how to correct them for better results and stronger teams!

Drawing from his experiences and lessons learned, Sharran covers mistakes like taking all the credit, failing to build a public presence, and not painting a big enough vision for your team. He shares why these issues are often overlooked, how they hinder growth, and actionable steps to correct them. Whether you’re leading a team, a company, or yourself, this episode will help you elevate your leadership skills and drive real change in your organization.

Ready to fix your leadership mistakes and unlock your full potential? Tune in now to learn how to become the leader you were meant to be!

“If you lead by force, all you get is compliance and never commitment.”

– Sharran Srivatsaa

Timestamps:

01:10 – Why leadership mistakes aren’t personality flaws

02:00 – How to stop taking all the credit

04:20 – The importance of building your voice as a leader

05:35 – The power of having a public platform for leadership

07:55 – Stretching your vision to inspire your team

09:41 – Softening your power to foster collaboration

12:18 – Sharpening your edge: Be known for a standout skill

15:09 – Recap: 5 Fixable Mistakes Leaders Make

Resources:

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– The 5am Club

– Join the 10K Wisdom Private Partner Podcast, now available to you for free

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– ARC Multifamily Real Estate Investing

– Sharran’s Partnership Program

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Connect with Sharran:

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– YouTube

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Hey, this is Sharran Srivatsaa. Welcome back to the Business School Podcast. In this episode, I’m gonna tell you about the five big mistakes that leaders make. I’ve had a chance to be in great leadership. I’ve had a chance to watch great leadership. I’ve had a chance to invest in great leaders, and I’ve had the opposite as well.

[00:00:14] I’ve seen, I. Crazy mistakes that trigger me, that irritate me, that frustrate me, that can be easily fixed by just doing some small things that will change the very course of your business and your life forever. I break down for you the five biggest fixable mistake that leaders make, and it all starts right now.

[00:00:36] One thing is for certain, just because it’s tried and true doesn’t mean it’s working right now. So the big question is this. Where can you learn what is working right now? The strategies, the tactics, the psychology, and the exact how to. How to grow your business, how to blow up your personal brand and supercharge your personal growth.

[00:00:58] That is the question, and [00:01:00] this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Sharran Srivatsaa and Welcome to Business School.

[00:01:11] All right. Let me just say this upfront. I’ve made about every leadership mistake I’m about to talk about. So if you’ve been leading a team, a company or organization, someone in a church in your community, or even just yourself for more than a year, chances are you’ve made one or two or many of them as well.

[00:01:26] But here’s the good news, the I actually believe that what I’m gonna share with you today are. Fixable mistakes, but they are mistakes nonetheless. So these are not character flaws. These are just operational stuff. They’re not personality problems. They’re just blind spots that, uh, sneak in and, and slow you down and make it harder for people to follow you and trust you and work with you.

[00:01:43] So let me just call them out one by one and I’ll show you exactly how to fix them. Many of them I fixed for myself. I had enough awareness or I got a bunch of coaching to do this and, uh, it is my chance to serve and share this right back to you. So here are five fixable mistakes. Lemme go to mistake number one, [00:02:00] and the big idea here is to share your credit.

[00:02:02] Here’s the kicker. If you are taking all the credit, don’t be surprised when your team stops caring. Now you may say, well, I’m not taking all the credit. Well, you are when you use I versus V. We language, I versus we. I was recently watching the A CEO of a large company speak and he literally said, I have this many cars, I have this many products, I have this many employees.

[00:02:26] And I’m like, you don’t have any of that. You are just an appointed operator, CEO. Sure. It doesn’t even like you’re a CEO of a large company and you don’t have anything. It is, we. We have this, we have that. We have this right? We do this, we do that. It’s completely sidelining the contributions of the rest of the team, which is so sad.

[00:02:45] And I used to make this with mistake. Even without realizing this, I have investors that that would say, oh yeah, I’m not gonna buy the building. I’m like, with not your money. With the investors’ money. And I’d say, I, I closed the deal or I built the strategy when it was really a team effort. It’s subtle, but [00:03:00] language shapes perception, right?

[00:03:02] And your team is paying attention. In fact, your subconscious is paying attention. And so I was reading the Harvard Business Review. Good Good magazine, by the way, always has good research, found that teams perform up to 30 to 35% better when leaders use inclusive language like we. And we’ve seen it all in action.

[00:03:18] Like I remember reading this story about Satya Nadella, who’s the CEO of Microsoft. When he became CEO, he shifted the, like this entire company culture from this it all to learn it all. How cool is that? Right From Knowit all to learn it all and that change in tone alone. That tripled Microsoft’s value in five years.

[00:03:34] Right? Now, I’m sure there are other things, but you gotta think about the key I versus we component in all of this. I, I, I, I, I is there’s, it’s, I’m so shocking when leaders say that. So if you’re doing that. Less I, more we. So, uh, here’s how you fix it. Start every recap with a win, with a we, not an I. You want to publicly shout out contributors by name and still go back to the we [00:04:00] and make the team success your default language.

[00:04:02] It’s all about the we. When I got a chance to reframe my language around this, you know, I would, I used to say, Hey, my name is Sharran Srivatsaa. I serve as the president of Real and all that it means is that I work for you. And that programmed the thinking, both the humility on my part and the gratitude on theirs, which is really important.

[00:04:18] So here’s big idea number two, which is build your voice. Let me say this out loud. If no one hears you, no one follows you, and essentially no one cares. I used to think that being a leader, man, staying behind the scenes and letting the PE business speak for itself, a lot of people think that like, well, just our business will speak for itself.

[00:04:34] Our word of mouth will speak for itself. Our quality will speak for itself, but that is not how leadership works anymore. That is not how the world works anymore. We have elections that are being, and, and, and bills that are being passed, and wars that are being started based on. A random tweet. A leader without a platform is like a samurai without a sword.

[00:04:51] I’ll say it again. A leader without a platform is like a samurai without a sword. People follow people, not logos. I was reading this study on LinkedIn that LinkedIn found that companies with visible [00:05:00] leadership online ceased like 50% more trust from both their teams than their customers. Why? Because.

[00:05:06] People follow people, not logos. Just look at Richard Branson. His personality is the business asset, right? You couldn’t name all the virgin business lines. You couldn’t in fact name any other operator in Virgin. You couldn’t even name the businesses that are Virgin in. But you know Richard Branson, he shares his lessons, his told your stories, his failures, you know, his time on Nicker Island and the version brand feels like him.

[00:05:30] And because of that, people are so drawn to it. So here’s how you fix it, right? You gotta, social media is free today. It’s free. I dunno how else to say this. People will spend time like for a week or a month or a year, working with a PR company to get one article on entrepreneur.com that 27 people read and that you’re done.

[00:05:48] But instead, if you post it every single day on a free platform, that everyone’s reading, that everyone’s glued on their phones. Why are people glued on their phones? Because they’re looking at the, these platforms. And if you are not on there, you are not going to be able to lead. You’re [00:06:00] not going to be able to share, you’re not going to have the influence.

[00:06:02] ’cause a leader without a platform is like a samurai without a sword. And on these platforms, I will tell you, you gotta share what you believe, what you’ve learned, what you’re working on, not like some stat update. Recently I saw some update about, you know, rates are going up and consumer consumer price index is down, or something like that.

[00:06:17] Well, duh, who cares? And you said that’s bad news. Like how insightful is that? How terrible is that? We could do so much better than you just regurgitating what you just saw in the news. What does it mean for you, your team, your employees? Why should somebody else care? A lot of times when you, when we put out a piece of information or a piece of content, you should ask the question.

[00:06:38] So what? Right? So what? Hey, you lost a bunch of weight. I, I, kudos to you. Right? You lost a bunch of weight. Awesome. You did it before and after photo. You’ve done it for three months. Okay. You’re posting. Yeah. Again, so what, so what, Hey, um, you got an award. Great. You posted it for like six times. So what? Now who cares?

[00:06:58] Like one time is a novelty. The [00:07:00] second time is fine. The third time is just irritation. So what? Ask the question. So what? Because only when you ask the question. So what? You’re not a reporter of news, your brand and media personality, it changes everything. And, and the big idea is you, you wanna be known for one clear idea of philosophy and repeated it.

[00:07:18] Often. If you know Gary Vaynerchuk, all he talks about it is, Hey, just hustle and, you know, lifestyle. You know, you have enough time, right? There’s a theme here. What does Alex Ram Mozy talk about? Hey, you should, it’s all about, it’s all about relentless effort. What does Lela Ver Mozy talk about? Hey, it’s all about leadership and building a team, right?

[00:07:35] What about Tom? Billy talks about building a plan. And so what, what’s Tony Robbins say? Change your state. And they all arrive at this over and over and over again, so be known for one clear idea. But if you don’t have a platform to share ideas, no one wants, no one gets the deeper look. A leader without a platform is like a samurai without a sword, right?

[00:07:54] Here’s big idea number three is to stretch your vision, and what I mean by that is your team didn’t sign up to chase [00:08:00] your KPIs. They signed up to chase a dream. What is that dream? You emailing your team and saying, Hey. Get those numbers up. Is it the most terrible way? And I’ll get to that in a second, but a leader has to, has to paint a vision so big that my operating vision and contribution fits nicely, so nicely within that.

[00:08:20] When Elon says he wants to, uh, colonize Mars, I’m like, Hey, that’s cool. Like, I want to build this space shuttle to get there. Now I see. My contribution within that bigger vision. I know it’s just Elon’s vision. I know that, that it’s what, it does not matter, but I get to contribute within a bigger vision. I dunno if you know the story.

[00:08:36] When JFK was walking the halls when um, Americans were sending their first rocket to the moon Apollo, and he asked the janitor, how’s it going? The janitor’s like, Hey, I’m working hard, putting him out on the moon. Even the janitor knew that he was helping put a man on the moon. And you know, like I read all these polls for a second.

[00:08:51] Like I read a Gallup poll that said 70 to 75% of employees are disengaged, mostly because they don’t connect with the mission or vision of the company. Like look at Elon. His [00:09:00] vision isn’t just electric cars. He’s created a multi-planetary future. You agree or disagree with him? He is. It’s inspiring, especially for those that want to contribute within it.

[00:09:07] Now, you don’t have to like him or dislike him, but there is a very clear vision has been painted, and that’s important. So ask yourself, would I be excited to follow this vision if I weren’t in charge? Right. Would I be excited to follow this vision if I wasn’t in charge or, and if you can use vivid or emotional language, not just a strategic jargon, a we’re going to redefine, uh, real estate.

[00:09:26] Hey, we’re going to, uh, change e-commerce. Hey, we’re gonna, you know, uh, reinvent, uh, pricing and payments like it, that’s fine, but you gotta do better, right? There’s gotta be a, you gotta paint a future that people can see themselves in. Until then, it doesn’t, doesn’t matter. And here’s big idea number four, which is to really soften your power.

[00:09:45] Your power was given to you by some title based authority that you can hire and fire somebody. But if you lead by force, all you’ll get is compliance and never commitment, right? If you lead by force, all you will get is compliance and never commitment, and we don’t want [00:10:00] compliance. I. That’s not what sat all we’re here for, as leaders for a long time I thought leadership meant being decisive, strong in control.

[00:10:07] Like while the decisiveness matters, the top down power kills trust. And if, if it’s not balanced with love and collaboration, the vast majority of employees say that they prefer leaders who collaborate over those who just command. That’s a, that’s not a soft skill. That’s like an insane human advantage.

[00:10:23] Ed Capel, if you don’t know him, he at Pixar built this into their entire culture. He gave everyone a voice, even the interns during this quote, brain Trust feedback sessions that they talked about, this openness really fueled creativity and all these other billion dollar companies that they worked. Crazy cool.

[00:10:37] So the question is how do you fix it, right? So number one, before a barking on order, ask more questions because the questions will actually light them up to teach them, to coach them to do the right thing. Second in, instead of saying, Hey, we should do that. Like I, I’ve seen a lot of, a lot of leaders will say, oh yeah, we should do that.

[00:10:53] We should do. That means you should do that. Yeah, we should do that. That means you should do that. That’s so terrible. Like, what a terrible way of saying. And then I’ve [00:11:00] also seen leaders say they’ll, they’ll walk in. I actually, you know, worked in that, worked at a company where the founder used to do this.

[00:11:06] He’d just barge into the room. He would not, you know, he would disappear for, you know, weeks on, on end, uh, go fishing or whatever. And he’d come back and be like, where’s my app? It was so insulting to everybody in the room, like, where’s my app? Where are my, you know, where are my profits? Uh, you know, up these numbers.

[00:11:22] Uh, you need to generate more leads. Like, it, it’s just so terrible. And, uh, and the whole idea of like, oh, we should do that means you should do that. Like the clear clarity and communication is so terrible. And I think that we, instead of. Barking orders. We need to soften our power and we need to share our decision making process with them, not just a result.

[00:11:41] Because the why are, why are we having this? A rise of people wanted this rise of one to two, to three people, uh, with AI agents and, you know, building a 10, 20, 30, a hundred million dollars business. Why? Because working with humans is complex and that complexity kills and we crave humanity. That means we have [00:12:00] to take care of our people.

[00:12:01] You can’t just talk about culture. You have to operationalize it, right? And the the, you gotta, as a leader, you just gotta let your team challenge you because you wanna be an idea. Idea meritocracy. Like the best idea wins not the best title. So I would really soften your power because if you lead by force, all you get is compliance and never commitment.

[00:12:18] Here’s my fifth big idea, which is, um, call it sharpen your edge. If you are not known for something, you are replaceable. And when I say replaceable from a leader’s perspective, you’re just not respected. Meaning, if you don’t have a standout skill. Like, no one cares about you. So if there is a, if you are, if you’re a leader of a sales organization and you don’t know how to sell well, you’re not gonna have respect.

[00:12:39] If you’re a leader of a creative organization and you don’t know how to, and you’re not a creative that, like, you’re not gonna have the respect. If you’re a leader of a technical organization and you’re not technical, there’s no standout skill. What is the skill that they love you for? They, why, why do people love Steve Jobs?

[00:12:53] Steve Jobs isn’t, was wasn’t just a face of Apple. He was like the design guy, right? That edge gave the company soul and it made him [00:13:00] unforgettable. That’s why we still talk about Steve Jobs today, right? There was this great study that Deloitte did that found that 90% of employees are inspired by leaders with a standout skill or strength.

[00:13:10] They’re like, man, Sharan can do that thing better than anyone else can. They love that, right? That’s super important. What is your skill? What is the thing that you do really well? And the best part is you can work on it, you can make it better, but what is the thing that you do really well that you can show up and do that?

[00:13:24] Other people look around and be like, yeah, that’s cool, and they don’t just. Love you and care about you and, and work quote for you because of what you do. They respect who you are. What is your standout skill? If you don’t have one, it’s time to, you know, it’s time to like work on one because they even will respect you.

[00:13:40] Your growth in that, uh, aspect of it. The cool part is you hear is what is your standout skill. It doesn’t have to be related to the, that business. It has to be something you just can’t be a nice person or you can’t be kind or you can’t be, I work hard and you can’t be a humanitarian or you can’t be compassionate.

[00:13:55] You can’t have, you can’t be a visionary. Like visionary is not a skill. It’s a thing that [00:14:00] someone thinks about you, you like, you, you didn’t do anything. What is the thing that they, what is the standout skill that people really look up to you for? That’s what’s important. So here’s maybe how you fix it.

[00:14:10] Ask your team, Hey, what’s one thing that I do better than anyone else here? Ask your team that because they’re thinking it, they’re just not telling you. Then you double down on it, study it, share it, build around it, because they already recognized it as part of you, and you make that skill a part of your leadership identity.

[00:14:25] And I remember this when I, uh, hire, I hired Tony Robbins, a speaking coach, and he said to me, he’s like, we need to figure out your core identity. And we spent this entire time that I’ve paid him a lot of money for. And he’s like, we just need to find your core identity. We just need to find your core identity.

[00:14:38] We just need to find your core. And then finally he’s like, I got it after seeing me present so many times, he is like, I got it. It’s tactically inspirational. I was like, what does that mean? He goes, everything that you do is tactical, inspirational. He goes, when you actually talk about how to do the thing, if you don’t talk about the tactics, you are out of, out of alignment, out of brand, off brand.

[00:14:56] And so everything that we’ve done so far, everything that I, you know, put out, I think about, alright, [00:15:00] is this tactical, inspirational, right? Right now I’m sharing this with you because it’s, I’m telling you exactly how to do something. And then at the same time, telling a bigger, big, bigger story routed being tactically inspirational.

[00:15:09] Alright, so these are the five big ideas on the five fixable leadership mistakes. Number one, share your credit because stop taking all the credit and lift up your team. Number two, uh, build your voice as in build your brand. A leader without a platform is like a samurai without a sword. So step out from behind the logo and lead publicly and share your thoughts.

[00:15:27] And don’t say dumb things online because. Now that actually makes it worse. You should probably just shut up instead, right? Number three, stretch your vision. Meaning create a vision. Paint a picture that is so big that other people’s contributions fit inside of it. Give people that future that is worth being a part of.

[00:15:43] Number four, soften your power just to control. Don’t say, you know, we should do this, which means you should do this. Don’t say, Hey, where’s my app? Where’s my, where are my where? Where’s my success? Where are my profits? Where’s my sales? Uh, it gotta be more collaborative because you gotta lead with influence.

[00:15:57] And the last but not least, sharpen your edge, [00:16:00] essentially. That means have a standout skill. Be known for something unforgettable, be known for something that is better than what they do, and only then will they respect you. Hey, I, I, um, I’ve been experiencing a lot of this. I, this is a, a little bit of a transition.

[00:16:10] Your time in my life. I’m thinking about like, all right, how can I be better? How can I do better? And, um, I was reflecting on the mistakes I’ve made and the mistakes I see. People around, uh, me in the industry and in the, uh, in the, in the broader world make. And I thought I would summarize these for you overall.

[00:16:26] So hopefully these are helpful to you. Hey, if you like this, can you do me a favor? Can you screenshot this episode and post it and tag me? That way I can know more, I can make more like this for you. I don’t really know if you’d like this because the podcast doesn’t have a response medium. So please do me a favor, screenshot this episode, post it and tag me.

[00:16:41] That way I can make more like this for you.

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