I recently read the biography of Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance. For those of you that don’t recognize his name, Elon is best known as a founder of PayPal, SpaceX, and Tesla Motors. He has successfully disrupted the banking, aerospace, energy, and automobile industries, and he’s only 45 years old. He is a fascinating individual and an icon of entrepreneurship and innovation. He’s also the real-life inspiration for Robert Downey Jr.’s portrayal of Tony Stark/Iron Man, my favorite super hero. One of the challenges of reading a biography like this, is that Elon Musk is extremely eccentric. He’s not an “everyman” so you never get the impression that you could simply replicate what he does and achieve the same results. Despite that fact, I’d still like to draw a few lessons learned from his career-to-date.

Dream Big. Really Big.

The only thing bigger than Elon Musk’s ego is his ambition. He literally wants to change the world. He only rejects ideas that are too small. He wants to turn science fiction into reality for a better future for all of humanity. He also wants to colonize Mars.

How big are your goals? Probably not that big. Mine aren’t either, but I have taken seriously the challenge to make big, career-long goals. I’m probably not going to change the world, but I would like to make a serious transformational impact on one thing: leadership in enterprise technology. By the time I’m ready to retire, I’d like to change the way corporate IT departments are led. Not just in the organizations I’m directly a part of, but as many as possible. This blog is a strategic part of that goal. How about you? What do you want to achieve with your career? Is that goal big enough? Can you go bigger?

Laser Focus

Elon doesn’t waste his time on things that don’t matter. The only thing that matters is the goal. He also has an intense sense of urgency. He’s always behind schedule in his mind. That only increases his focus to do whatever it takes to get the job done.

In enterprise technology, or any corporate-type job, it’s really easy to lose focus. There are enough day-to-day issues, meetings, and emails to more than fill your work-day. That might even feel productive, but tends not to do much to advance your big goals. I’ve written another blog article on this subject. Read it here for more instruction on how to make time for big ideas in your work-day.

Technology Makes it Cheaper

Elon isn’t just a technology dreamer. He is grounded in the realities of business. He needs to sell products and services that have real market value. While he loves technology, it’s not just for technology’s own sake. He leverages technology to make space accessible and electric cars affordable. He is relentless in this pursuit. While the first iteration might not achieve that, he has a vision to see a technology pathway toward affordability. If a given strategy isn’t trending in that direction, he shuts it down.

This is definitely something everyone in enterprise technology needs to grasp. Technology is an investment, but it has a return. If our technologies don’t bring a return, then we’re doing it wrong. Plain and simple.

Get Excited

Elon has a way with the public. He is a master-communicator for conveying his enthusiasm. It’s contagious. He is adept at stirring up buzz and inspiring supporters.

In enterprise technology, we often think about inspiration as something that sales and marketing needs, but we’re logical, left-brained engineers. We don’t need the “rah rah hoopla.” That’s simply not true. Optimism, vision, and excitement are oxygen to a fatigued team. If we’re honest with ourselves, we need inspiration from our leaders.  Be the leader that gives inspiration to your team.

Optimism Unfazed by Failure

Elon Musk and his companies are well known for their successes. They are also well-known for their failures. They had plenty of press in the early days of Tesla and SpaceX when they were plagued by problems and bankruptcy loomed. SpaceX’s first three rocket launches were disasters. When they successfully launched their fourth rocket, Elon is quoted as saying “the fourth time is the charm.”

How patient are we with failure in enterprise technology? It doesn’t take many failures before the critics and cynics start coming out of the woodwork. Many leaders are desperately trying to make huge transformational changes in their organizations. That does not go smoothly. There are plenty of false starts along the way. That doesn’t mean the direction is wrong. Stay the course. Keep the optimism. You are doing the right thing.

Insource What Matters Most

The traditional automotive and aerospace industries are highly outsourced. Companies reply on thousands of suppliers, and the companies themselves only perform the final assembly. That cedes a lot of control outside the company when it comes to speed, agility, and quality. Elon took a different approach. He insourced everything that mattered. He manufactures cars and rockets, not only in the USA, but in California of all places. The economics of that usually don’t make sense. Elon couldn’t disrupt those industries by following industry best-practices. He needed to invent his own, and he did it with in-house talent.

In the 18 years that I’ve been in enterprise technology, I’ve seen a lot of outsourcing. Some of it works and some of it doesn’t. The key to success here is to insource all of which truly matters to your strategic delivery and competitive differentiation. Leaders need the technical and business savviness to know the difference.

Kill Your Team?

Elon has a reputation for being incredibly demanding, difficult to work with, and downright abusive to his team. Some would condone that behavior as necessary in order to achieve the world-changing results that’s he’s achieved. I think it’s a leadership deficiency. I believe his successes are in spite of this, not because of it. I could be wrong. He’s the billionaire, I’m not. I think his results came squarely from his big dreams and laser focus, and were offset by his people-leadership inadequacies. Had he approached this differently, perhaps the world would have already been changed by now.

Driven leaders often blow away any obstacle in their way, even if that obstacle is another person. Successful leaders need to nuance their approach. Attack problems, not people. The ends don’t justify the means. Don’t go change the world and leave bodies laying around as collateral damage. There’s a better way.

Neglect Your Family?

Another sore subject for Elon Musk is his family life. He didn’t experience a good one as child, nor did he prioritize creating one for his family. Elon wanted to change the world above all else. His career goals are obviously ahead of his family. I’m sure Elon’s heart is in the right place. He would love to do better there. It’s simply a matter of priority. He doesn’t subordinate his career to his family.

The leadership lesson here is pretty straightforward. Perhaps we can dream big and focus on our career. That’s not enough. We also need to dream big on what kind of family we want to lead. We need to have enough focus left in the tank to execute on those dreams too. Most of us work first-shift jobs. That means work gets us when we are well-rested and family gets us when we are exhausted. Leave work with enough energy left to give your family what they need from you.

Those are my leadership lessons from Elon Musk. I can’t help but admire his incredible achievements. As a technologist myself, I am enamored with the technologies he’s developed. As an engineer, I’m exhausted to think of the unimaginable work he and his teams put into these efforts. As a leader, I’m inspired to stretch myself and my team to the outer limits of what we are capable of. I’m not Elon Musk, but I’m probably more capable than I think. So are you. Go do something huge.