Intentionally Becoming a Great Leader - Pramod Raheja - The Impactful Leadership Show - Episode #040

Today’s guest is an entrepreneur of 25+ years and a longtime member and past President of EO DC. He is also a commercial pilot with over 14,000 flight hours in more than 30 types of aircraft. Pramod Raheja is the CEO & Co-Founder of Airgility, Inc. Pramod shares why you need to build up your leadership skills, how to get the most from professional networks, and whether you should execute your idea or seek funding for it first. 

 

Takeaways:

• As you build your team, you won’t be a great leader just because you founded the company, you need to spend a significant amount of time honing your leadership skills. It takes intentional effort to learn how to be a great leader.
• There are so many great resources for leaders to learn from on the internet, but what provides the most impact is connecting with other Founder CEOs and taking part in experience shares.
• There are lots of professional networks available for new entrepreneurs to join in order to meet fellow entrepreneurs and grow their peer network. As the relationships with other members grow, people share deeper experiences and greater knowledge. 
• If you have a great culture, that can be what set you apart for potential employees when competing in the hiring process with larger companies that can offer more attractive compensation packages.
• Raising capital is hard but you need to be able to take objections well, learn from them, and keep moving. Handling the rejection is made easier when you truly believe in what you’re doing.
• Avoid waiting until you have funding to start executing on your idea. It’s much more effective if you build a prototype that you can use with test customers to prove the demand and product market fit and then look for financing. 
• Early on, it can be very helpful to hire lots of freelancers for help on certain projects, however, they should not be your answer to everything because there are definitely some roles that you should keep in-house.

 

Quote of the Show:

• “It's not enough to just say, I'm a founder and I started this company, and by default I'm a good leader.” - Pramod Raheja

 

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pramodraheja/ 
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/pramodraheja 
• Company website: https://www.airgility.co/ 

 

Shout Outs:

• Entrepreneurs’ Organization
• Gary Vaynerchuck

 

Ways to Tune In:

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• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-impactful-leadership-show/id1608566236
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• iHeartRadio: https://iheart.com/podcast/95281596
• PlayerFM: https://player.fm/series/3352055
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/hcOBhD63l7c 

 

The Impactful Leadership Show is sponsored by the DC Chapter of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization. Learn more at https://www.eodcnetwork.org/home 

The Impactful Leadership Show is produced by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through B2B podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/