Summary: This episode is the story of how Kristen Hadeed, author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Permission-Screw-Up-Learned-Everything-ebook/dp/B06VXGMCZD/&tag=authorhour-20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Permission to Screw Up</a>, went from being an almost comically inept leader to a sought after CEO who teaches others how to lead. Kristen is the founder of Student Maid. A cleaning company where people are happy, loyal, productive and empowered. Even while they’re scrubbing toilets and mopping floors.<br> In this episode, Kristen talks about how she got it wrong almost as often as she got it right. Her willingness to admit and learn from her mistakes actually helped her team and gave them the chance to learn from their own screw-ups too.<br> Kristen dismisses the idea that leaders in organizations should try to be perfect. Instead, she encourages people of all ages to go for it and learn to lead by acting rather than waiting or thinking. If you’ve ever wondered, what would happen to you if you actually embrace your failure? How would that affect you as the leader or an employee? By the end of this episode, you’ll know.<br> <br> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Permission-Screw-Up-Learned-Everything-ebook/dp/B06VXGMCZD/&tag=authorhour-20" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"></a>Get Kristen’s new book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Permission-Screw-Up-Learned-Everything-ebook/dp/B06VXGMCZD/&tag=authorhour-20" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Permission to Screw Up</a> on Amazon.<br> Find out more at <a href="https://www.kristenhadeed.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">KristenHadeed.com</a>.<br> <br> <br> Kristen Hadeed: I was 19, so this was 11 years ago, when I started my company and my first major contract that I got, it’s a cleaning company, so I got this big cleaning contract to clean hundreds of empty apartments.<br> I think we had 800-something apartments to clean, and we had 21 days to do the work. I know nothing about business, I don’t know anything about leadership. I was just a lost college student.<br> <br> I started this company really just to save money.<br> <br> I thought I was moving to New York to be an investment banker. So this was not in my mind, this was not my career. I didn’t really take it seriously. I hired 60 students and there was no – I mean, the selection process was like, if you had a pulse, you were hired for the job.<br> A disaster from the beginning. We get to this complex, and I don’t know what my role is as leader. I give everyone their assignments, and I decide to sit in this air-conditioned clubhouse, just kind of like the office in the apartment complex, and I’m sitting there for eight hours.<br> <br> My feet are propped up, I’m on social media, I’m ordering lunch and I remember thinking to myself, this is easy.<br> Maybe I should not go to Wall Street and be an entrepreneur. This is so easy.<br> This went on for a couple of days, and the work as you could probably imagine was awful, these are empty, filthy college apartments, it’s so hot outside, these people have a leader that does not seem to care about them at all. I didn’t even know their names.<br> I think it was the third day, 45 of them walked into that clubhouse where I was sitting, completely unannounced, and they quit.<br> Stepping out of the Clubhouse<br> Charlie Hoehn: They unionized really fast.<br> Kristen Hadeed: Yeah they did and I don’t know what the other 15 were doing, they didn’t get the memo, but the 45 people, I call them The 45, they walked in, they quit.<br> It was so awkward and uncomfortable. I was eating lunch and they walked in and no one was making eye contact with me. I was saying, “Hey guys, how’s it going?” No one acknowledged me.<br> <br> I could hear them whispering. I heard someone say, “Do it.”<br> <br> And then they got a little closer to me and one person stood forward and she did not look at me and ...
