Ben Horowitz: Quit being a coward and do the hard thing | Big Think+

"You need to run towards the pain and darkness and not away from it. I think the best leaders always run towards the darkness. They always run towards a problem." Much of the management advice we find in books emphasizes using leadership tactics that may seem reasonably obvious. This advice is often easy to follow — but that’s not where leaders run into issues with their strategy, argues Ben Horowitz, founding partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and author of the best-selling book, "The Hard Thing About Hard Things.”Horowitz says that leaders make blunders when they find themselves in highly emotionally charged situations where the emotion prevents them from doing the thing that they intellectually know they need to do. For example, firing a friend or doing a reorganization that causes a very talented employee to lose power. These things are much more difficult, and people often avoid them. But as a leader, you're much better off running at your fear than running away from your fear because it's going to chase you down, emphasizes Horowitz. ‘Management debt’ is what happens when you don't do what you're supposed to. And accruing a lot of management debt has a cascading effect that can create a total degradation of your organization. Here’s how to lead instead. Chapters For Easier Navigation: 0:00: Complicated emotional challenges 1:19: Management debt 2:42: Wartime conditions 4:43: Choosing courage Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices