The power of a people-first philosophy

Some of my goals this year are to (1) share more publicly, and (2) get better at writing. So in the hope of making progress, I wanted to share some thoughts on the power of leading with a people-first philosophy - especially after Linktree was lucky enough to take home a couple of awards at The Australian Financial Review's ‘Best Places to Work’ event last week.

From day one, Nick Humphreys, Anthony Zaccaria and I have sought to build an environment that puts our people at the forefront. We want our team to feel compelled by the opportunities ahead of them; confident sharing challenges just as much as wins; and comfortable showing up each day as their whole self, rather than a stifled version of who they are.

The reason why is simple: great people build great products. I wholeheartedly believe that talent is your greatest resource as a leader, and investing in people as individuals is key to achieving success as a collective.

Of course, benefits and perks ≠ culture. But there’s power in leveraging them to even the playing field, so your team can show up each day empowered to do the most challenging and rewarding work of their careers.

I’ve ultimately found that teams are like ecosystems - they’re delicate and complex, and getting the balance right is crucial. You stand the best chance of nurturing creativity and unlocking innovation when everyone is aligned around a common goal, and feels empowered to contribute their unique perspectives and expertise. Three things come to mind when I try to summarise my learnings:

(1) Empower your team as experts in their space

While you may have a vision for where you ultimately want to go as a founder, dictating the ‘how’ never delivers the best results. This has been one of my biggest learning curves over the last couple of years - I often think of it as the transition from being a founder to a CEO.

At Linktree, we use OKRs and operate in 30 day roadmapping tranches to empower the team to identify which problems they’ll prioritize and how they’ll solve them.

(2) Be transparent, so your team can make aligned micro-decisions

Transparency = less uncertainty = more autonomy. In my experience, being as transparent as possible fosters trust, encourages collaboration, reduces misalignment, and promotes accountability.

A few of the ways we do this are by sharing our P&L with the team so they know our financial standing, reporting back after board meetings with the TLDR of how things went, and sharing our Vision in detail so the team are kept in the loop about what success ultimately looks like. Doing so means we can unlock velocity as people can make aligned micro-decisions quickly.

(3) Invest in people's potential, both in time and financially

I’m a big believer that tomorrow’s leaders are formed today. Future challenges will require different skillsets, and fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement ensures your team is best equipped to navigate this.

We introduced Flex Benefits last year to ensure each team member has the financial resources to invest in their development - whatever they may decide that looks like. We also invest heavily in our ‘Becoming’ performance cycle to ensure that impact and growth potential is recognized over tenure and prior experience. I’m not sure we’ve cracked the right cadence for these - we currently run them bi-annually and I wonder if quarterly could be better, but it’s undeniable investing in potential translates into a more motivated team.

I’m not great at conclusions, so I’ll keep things short by re-emphasizing one thing: great teams build great products. And if we’re building a product that empowers our users to link everything they are, then it’s important our team feels empowered to show up as their whole self each day, too.