Leadership tools from Mr. Jack Ma

Hi my name is Vanessa, and I am Being More Human’s Intern Extraordinaire.

Amongst interning with Being More Human, I wear many hats and one of those is that I was an Inaugural Scholar for the Ma & Morley Scholarship program at The University of Newcastle. This program honours a remarkable friendship shared by the late Ken Morley of Newcastle and Mr Jack Ma (co-founder and executive chairman of Alibaba).

As part of this incredible program, the Inaugural students had the opportunity to visit Hangzhou’s Alibaba Campus and hear from Mr Jack Ma. Put simply he talked about leadership and all things change the world. In the lead up to the visit, we had done much research, and shared experiences facilitated through the program to prepare us. Once in China we also visited many of the places Ma is associated with prior to our visit to Alibaba, thus giving context to the different initiatives he supports. What flowed through all of these interactions was complete authenticity and consistency.

At the beginning of 2018, we all received a letter from Ma in which the following quote is from “IQ is important, but know that LQ – or the quotient of love is more important. Be compassionate. Be optimistic. Be humble. Believe in the power of people to change the world.” And up until that moment of meeting one of today’s most prominent and influential thought leaders was the same message being spread throughout all that Ma does.

The standout was that Jack was exactly how I expected him to be. Now that’s obviously a strange reaction, but through every form of communication, to everything he puts his hand to, the message remains the same; put people first and keep in line with the mission, vision and values of the company, at the forefront of everything. This is how to love people in business and by training, leading and picking the right people, innovation will transpire,  success will come and change will be embraced.

I believe these words to be true of being a successful leader, no matter what your definition of success, these attributes; love, compassion, optimism, being humble and the belief in people, all contribute to being more human and bringing out the best possible human potential.

These attributes make up LQ, that is more important that IQ ever could be.