Reshaad Sha is the CEO of Liquid Telecom
Describe your leadership style
Some of the places where I have worked tend to label my leadership style as rebellious. That was and will always remain a compliment for me, primarily because of the results that I have been able to deliver with my style of leadership. Other than the benefits seen in results, I believe that I should continue to harness my leadership style as encouraging people to pursue their learning objectives which is a core component of this style.
Your top tip(s) to beat procrastination?
I use a few different approaches to beat procrastination in my own life:
• Switching off your email: When I am focusing on completing a task, I prefer to actually close my emails (the whole application) and give the task at hand my complete attention, especially when it is a large chunk of work.
• Bite-sized approach: I usually break up very large pieces of work into smaller tasks and set definitive deadlines for them, rather than trying to complete the entire task in one go.
• Setting deadlines: As I mentioned in the previous point, I always set very specific deadlines for myself and these deadlines are non-negotiable. Once I set my deadlines, I schedule these activities into my calendar so that I can block out the time to be able to deliver on them.
• Investigate: There are always some activities that we constantly keep putting off. What I do in this case is unearth the issues that are at play, so that I become aware of the reasons behind me delaying the activity over and over again. This helps me understand whether there is a pattern of some kind so that I am able to tackle the issue.
Favourite getaway destination?
The destination of my getaways really doesn’t make a big difference, what matters is the quality time that I get to spend with my family and being able to unwind.
Who or what inspires you?
Steve Jobs inspired me because of his disruptive nature and reinvention capabilities. It is commendable how he not only managed to successfully reinvent the company multiple times, but also his own leadership style.
Your one wish for South Africa?
My primary wish for South Africa would be for the country to have sustainable economic growth. This growth is not going to come from any short term fixes but rather from an investment in the education of our population.
If you could have any 3 people over for dinner, who would they be and what would you serve?
1. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – US House of Representatives
2. Shinzo Abe – Prime Minister of Japan
3. HH Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan – President of UAE
I would make the evening a co-created Italian dinner where the guests would take part in making the breads, the Italian salads and homemade pasta. This would allow for the preparation time to extend the time that I have with these guests in getting their insights and perspectives of the world we live in.
What five pieces of advice would you give to aspiring young business starters?
• Learning – immerse yourself in a constant state of learning, it is a mechanism to allow you to remain humble while increasing in knowledge
• Hard work – In the instant gratification world that we are now in, people often neglect the need to work hard and relentlessly pursuing ones goals.
• Financial savviness – Everything that you do will require a level of financial management and thus this should form part of your core knowledge.
• Customer – knowing who your customer is and what their needs happen to be are critical for success. A sleek, intelligent and innovative engineering solution that solves a problem that a customer does not have is worthless but a very simple solution to a customer’s problem is worth millions.
• Time – manage your time like you would any scarce resource. It will be in short supply especially during the early phases of developing the business and subsequently when engaging your potential customers.
What is the one thing most people don’t know about you?
I would prefer for that to remain unknown.
What would you do with an extra hour in your day?
If I had one extra hour in my day, I would definitely use it to catch up on my reading which I never have enough time for.
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