The ABC of leadership in startups - with Daphna Horowitz

Jun 25, 2024

Daphna Horowitz is a leadership coach with decades of experience and success stories. She is also the author of two books on leadership (excerpts from her books can be read here).

Daphna was our guest at the Meet.Capital Startup Podcast and shared her ABC framework for leadership - Awareness, Bold moves, Communication, Connection, and Curiosity. Here is a quick breakdown of this framework, or Daphna’s 5 keys for successful startup leadership:

Awareness: Spend time on self-awareness, reflection, meditation, analyzing, and getting feedback. Grow yourself as you grow your business, because that will be your unique leverage to success.
Bold Moves: Make bold moves. Think about what bold move you could take today that would substantially grow your business. If you knew you couldn't fail, what would that move be? And why aren't you doing it already?
Communication: Embrace openness and transparency. There’s no such thing as too much communication. People need to hear messages over and over to feel secure and connected. Ask yourself, what do you need to communicate today that you haven't in a while?
Connected Relationships: Challenge yourself to reach out to someone you've been hesitant to connect with. Whether it's for a meeting, advice, or another purpose, take the step to create that initial connection and see what unfolds.
Curiosity and Learning: Seek advice from others about something you think you already know well. Stretch yourself further by asking three different people to get varied perspectives. Speak to someone with a different viewpoint and listen. You can always learn something new, often from surprising sources.