Name: Michael McGuire

Title: Founder/CEO – Ivy Entrepreneurs

Organisation: Ivy Entrepreneurs

Michael McGuire is the Founder/CEO of Ivy Entrepreneurs and has been an Adjunct Lecturer of Entrepreneurship at Columbia University for the past 8 years. His mission with Ivy Entrepreneurs is to empower F-1 / OPT eligible graduates and career shifters to navigate the startup landscape successfully, culminating in persuasive investor pitches and robust funding rounds.

Thank you to the 2,000 leaders who’ve generously done the 7 Questions on Leadership!

We’ve gone through the interviews and asked the best of the best to come back and answer 7 MORE Questions on Leadership.

I hope Michael's answers will encourage you in your leadership journey. Enjoy!

Cheers,

Jonno White

1. As a leader, how do you build trust with employees, customers and other stakeholders?

I build trust through showing my human side to those I work with. I’m not afraid to be myself to those who work at all levels of an organization, especially to those who work at companies that I have helped create. Through this earnestness and genuineness, I am able to build trust by showing all of the sides of myself and not wearing a facade.

I also like to foster a personal connection with everyone that I work with, and get to know them on a personal level. Knowing more about those that you work with can give you more context on how best you can work together, so I strongly believe in making a real connection with others.

2. What do 'VISION' and 'MISSION' mean to you? And what does it actually look like to use them in real-world business?

A vision is an ideal and a dream for your business. In my own business, I have a vision to expand my offerings to student entrepreneurs from all across the globe and to help them with their challenges. A mission is much closer to execution than a vision is. A mission is what your business will do to reach its vision, and how it runs its daily operations toward that end.

In my own business, my mission is to expand our marketing so we can empower more students to start their own businesses, which would help their social mobility and financial freedom. We are constantly marketing, engaging, and networking with prospective participants for Ivy Entrepreneurs, helping us reach more students who would benefit from our programs.

3. How can a leader empower the people they're leading?

A leader can empower the people they are leading by praising their hard work and their effort, encouraging them through any setbacks, and working together to ensure that they are able to complete whatever tasks lie ahead. It is also important to give people the ability to be creative and add value in ways that they are uniquely capable of. They are capable of executing on our goals, so I like to let people take the ball and run with it.

4. Who are some of the coaches or mentors in your life who have had a positive influence on your leadership? Can you please tell a meaningful story about one of them?

The first boss that I ever worked for at my first real job taught me how to work in a corporate environment. He also told me that the only passing grade in proofreading is 100%, and I have taken that with me all these years later. This translated to me that I should try to accomplish things with the highest accuracy possible, and always try to do things right.

5. Leadership is often more about what you DON'T do. How do you maintain focus in your role?

I maintain focus by constantly reminding myself that the company’s vision is entirely possible through proper execution and through leading my team. I can’t accomplish my business’s goals without my team, so I make sure to center the focus of my leadership on ensuring that I lead my team properly towards our goals, and not getting sidetracked.

6. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Everyone plans differently. How do you plan for the week, month and years ahead in your role?

In my own personal role in my business, I keep a document that serves as a makeshift personal business plan that runs alongside my own business plan. It details what I need to do in the short term, medium term, and long term to make sure that I am doing what I need to do specifically to make the business succeed.

On a more short-term basis, I keep a daily to-do list that details what I need to complete every day, and I keep a weekly to-do list that helps me create my daily to-do lists. I create my daily to-do lists the night before, so I can get right to work when I wake up. The weekly to-do list is usually made by looking at my personal business plan and breaking down what I need to do in the current week to accomplish the long-term goals that I have, in addition to any pressing and timely tasks that need to be done in the current week.

7. What advice would you give to a young leader who is struggling to delegate effectively?

Even though delegating responsibilities and tasks takes time, and sometimes you feel like you should just do something yourself because it's quicker, it takes much longer for you in the long run because you should be focusing on other, more important tasks. Delegating tasks to other team members will help free up your time to focus more on higher-level concepts that other team members may not be versed in.

Delegate the tasks that others can do, so you can do the things they can’t. Focus on creating higher-value deliverables that will push the business forward instead of just focusing on the tasks that keep the business running today.