Leadership Lessons from Mark E. Watson III

Principal at Aquilla Capital Partners

Leadership is a tricky business. It’s hard to navigate yourself (let alone a team) to success. It’s even harder to take a business from insolvency to a $3 billion firm. Yet, Mark E. Watson III checked that off his list and is now dedicated to sharing his leadership and financial advice with the next generation of investors.

Among that advice are tips for leaders in 2021, who are finding themselves leading remote and hybrid workforce teams.

Five Ways to lead a remote team from Mark:

• Focus remote team communication on outcome based projects.
• Instead of thinking about how people spend time, get comfortable communicating in an asynchronous fashion.
• Instead of always having to be together, slow down and be more purposeful.
• Make sure that you spend enough time clearly articulating where the company’s going, and why.
• In the world we live in today, it’s more important to lead than to manage.

He also sites a quick phone call as his method of choice when needing a quick moment of clarity — and levity. Mark notes a call to a colleague can invite moments of levity, replacing old water cooler chats.

To listen to more leadership advice from Mark, including keeping team meetings short and valuing collaborative work time, checkout his recent appearance on a recent episode of the Team Anywhere podcast.