In the classic rockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, there’s a moment when a band member demonstrates an amplifier that goes to 11—one louder than 10. While it’s a cheeky metaphor, I’ve often thought about how leadership can adopt a similar ethos, pushing beyond boundaries to foster exceptional teams.
It’s definitely easier said than done. Yet one thing that really pushes us to 11 is moving from a set of individual leaders to a distributed leadership. But building a global team of self-starters isn’t just about ambition or delegation. It’s about cultivating a culture of teamwork that empowers independence, ownership, and creativity at every level.
I’ve found the following five leadership principles to be pivotal in my company’s culture—particularly when it comes to building a team of self-starters.
1. Live and let others live
Leadership isn’t about control, it’s about enabling others to do their best work. By eliminating micromanagement, we empower the team to take charge of their processes and outcomes.
Firstly, asynchronous work—the practice of working that doesn’t require all team members to be online simultaneously—is a cornerstone of our culture. We don’t expect immediate communications—everyone fine-tunes their own processes focusing on results rather than attending endless meetings.
We choose asynchronous work despite the ongoing trend toward returning to the office (RTO). Asynchronous work drives productivity beyond the confines of a physical office, making it particularly effective for distributed teams across different time zones. By embracing asynchronous communication—whether you operate remotely or, as in our case, in a hybrid model—companies can build autonomous, resilient, flexible teams capable of succeeding beyond the office.
More importantly, asynchronous work powers the “flow state“—where a person is fully immersed in the activity. Asynchronous work protects time and concentration that requires you to get to that state and reduces interruptions. For example, we implement “no meeting Wednesdays,” which is a dedicated day that enables our team members to reach their flow state.
2. Make it your job
Radical ownership isn’t just a buzzword; it’s our business philosophy. Accountability and responsibility for the outcomes empowers team members to own decisions that impact those outcomes—thus, growing a leadership mindset. As a result, those team members who never say “It’s not my job” grow into the most loyal ones, with a strongest sense of belonging.
For us, radical ownership also means admitting mistakes and adjusting to avoid them in future. A mistake doesn’t equal failure. However, the inability to learn from it is. Constant striving for self-improvement, proactivity in detecting mistakes, and radical candor in assessing work is the most efficient professional growth route.
One of the guiding principles that we abide by is “don’t sweep dirt under the rug.” This translates into taking immediate responsibility when something goes wrong and finding a solution. For example, if a product launch didn’t meet user expectations, the team takes ownership, analyzes feedback, and implements changes swiftly. This results in improved user satisfaction and a stronger product.
3. Deliver every day
Leadership, at its core, is about delivering outcomes—a combination of quality, quantity, and timeliness. We expect our team to focus on daily outcomes, which in turn power weekly, monthly, and yearly results for the business.
That way, each day is a productive end-to-end sprint, with goals and outcomes. “I did,” not “I was doing” principle cultivates ownership and accountability at every level.
This principle has reshaped how we approach tasks: breaking them into smaller, manageable parts to accelerate delivery and validate hypotheses sooner. Companies like Microsoft adopt similar principles of micro productivity. Speed, combined with precision, becomes the ultimate differentiator.
4. Default to action
Keeping up with the previous three cornerstones of our culture needs an action-focused attitude. “Always default to action” guiding principle ensures that we do the work, even if the team works asynchronously.
There would be times when decision-makers are not immediately available. In these times, we encourage team members to take initiative and act based on common sense, then refactor and adapt later. Or, if it’s a very specific task hitting a dead end, to use the “waiting” time for something useful—like going for a walk or exercising. A study from Gallup reveals that personally accountable employees are 2.5 times likely to be engaged in their jobs. By instilling the action-driven culture, we’ve built a team that doesn’t wait for permission to succeed.
5. Know where to draw the line
Finally, leadership is about balance, which means knowing when to ask for help and when to step up. For us, this means differentiating a request for help (“Which of two color options would work?”) from dumping the responsibility (“I don’t know what colors would work”). It also means resolving issues rather than making excuses, and taking calculated risks rather than resorting to inaction in the face of ambiguity.
Building a culture of trust, accountability, and innovation required to develop a team of self-starters is definitely not an overnight project and needs commitment. However, it fosters a team where leadership isn’t confined to titles but is a shared responsibility.
Looking ahead, I envision a corporate culture where radical ownership becomes the norm. By empowering individuals to lead from where they are, we can unlock extraordinary potential and redefine what’s possible, both in business and beyond.
