In continuation last week’s blog about “5 Startups That Are Loved By Their Employees”, I took a further dive into the players who are shaping (or reshaping if you like) how employees are engaged and motivated. These inspirational leaders surely aren’t following what traditional management styles have advocated in the past. They’re a new breed of leaders, a young group who search for spark in their teams. Much like the spark they themselves possess and that’s steered them to create multi-billion dollar companies.

Ambition has listed some of the inspirational leaders of 2016. Here are my pick of the lot.

Jack Dorsey, Co-Founder & CEO of Twitter

Soon after being confirmed as Twitter’s CEO last year, Jack Dorsey announced a restructuring initiative that would make the company leaner by 8% fewer employees. Obviously this can be unnerving for employees. The new leader’s vision to create stronger teams could have seriously been jeopardized by this move in the form of demotivated employees if he hadn’t done this next move. A week later, Dorsey announced that he was giving a third of his own shares (valued at $214m) into the employee equity. That’s putting a lot of trust and belief in your employees! A brave and bold move that’s truly a mark of a strong and confident leader.

Lisa Falzone, Co-Founder & CEO of Revel Systems

In a matter of a year Lisa Falzone grew her iPad point of sales company, Revel Systems, from 30 people to 100. Such a rapid growth would have been overwhelming for one person to manage alone. Hence, she hired managers who had over 30 years experience of leading and building teams. But that didn’t work well as she found out that they weren’t cultural fits. The solution: find future leaders from within the organization. She believes that “it’s all about people, and it’s about putting the structures in place. Work ethic is really important to us, as are humility and respect, sense of urgency, entrepreneurial thinking, and teamwork.” At the age of 33, she’s figured out what most leaders take a lifetime to realize.

Ryan Hoover, Founder & CEO of Product Hunt

Only two and half years old but Product Hunt is more addictive and news worthy than Hacker News, according to Forbes. And if that’s not enough, it’s 29 year old founder and CEO is attracting attention of leaders world over. He has an infectious philosophy about words and phrases that make him cringe. And he’s offered alternatives.

• “Employees” replaced with “Teammates”
• “Work for me” transformed to “Work with me”
• “My team” should be “Our team”

Need I say more?

Daniel Ek, Co-Founder & CEO of Spotify

When it comes to building a culture that strongly reflects the products or services the company offers, none other come close than Spotify. While most startups boast about vibrant environments, not many can say they have musical jam sessions during office hours or that they organize hackathons where employees make new musical instruments. And that’s because the world’s largest music streaming platform hires dozens of musicians – most of whom aren’t even performing duties that require musicianship! Have to give it to Daniel Ek for creating a music empire that’s teamed with people who share the same passion.

Can you think of other young, inspirational leaders who have creatively redesigned how we management talent? I’d love to hear about them.

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