The 8 Leverage Virtues

The last time I’d set out to write our virtues, the value system we want to build at Leverage, we were in today’s terms super super tiny. That we managed to think about survival and soul together back then, is self-laudatory, or so I guess. These virtues over the years helped us recruit the right people for the org, at other times they came handy when taking tough decisions, and sometimes it was just that casual mental recall to keep head in the right direction, knowing that we are different, knowing that we will build differently, telling ourselves that we will not go astray if others have because our playground is very different. For me, personally, these virtues became a principles to life charter, and so it has for a lot of other owners and builders at Leverage too. Over the last five plus years, the organisation evolved and so did its people. Which meant that our virtues needed a little bit of upgrade too.

And so, presenting to you, Leverage Virtues 2.0

Be Customer Centric. This is a bit of an evolution from our core version 1 Student-first outline. Yes, we will continue to have Student-first painted across the walls of our 50+ offices worldwide, but as we practise it hereon, we will do it with empathy across all stakeholders on that equation, while continuing to always uphold what we have promised to the customer, extremely professionally at that, obsessed to make them succeed. Why the evolution? What’s the change? It is actually in line with how Leverage has grown and what Leverage has seen. Today, as we serve over 100,000 customers annually, that does mean that once every while we do come across customers who aren’t right, who don’t choose the right words for our teammates or a partner we might be working with, who choose to not act in the same conduct that we commit ourselves to. Which is ok. They are anxious. They are going through a big change. At that moment though, it’s important for Leverage’s leaders to be fair, and while we continue to act with customer centricity and deliver, in the same moment we also engage with that teammate or partner to say “we got your back, and we aren’t going to definitely point fingers at you, let’s do this together”. The customer’s success is everything to us. Reason of existence. But we are definitely not going to build a lasting organisation if we aren’t fair to every thread of what builds that muscle to serve.

Have Obnoxious Delusional Goals. This one actually is personal, goes far back in life when I was 18 years old, a freshman at undergrad, and a friend gave me feedback to always "underpromise, over-deliver". Didn’t sit with me then. Doesn’t sit with me now. The sentiment started to come back across different layers of the company in last 3-4 years. Both variations. We had senior people quit saying “yaar yeh goal hone vaale hi nahin hain”. We’ve then had middle-management / frontline rockstars come up and say “we got pushed, so we got to 70% of it, can’t believe WE DID”. Over time, Leverage only started to attract leaders (and existing who stayed evolved into this form and fashion too) who understood the madness, they ‘understood’ that dreaming is important, working super hard towards cracking super hard goals is important, if there’s solid impact you want to make in this broken world you definitely don’t have a lifetime. Because. YOLO. And, it’s got us to where we are today. It will take us to where we need to get to. We have taken longer to crack these delusional goals, but we have, so we will keep setting those for ourselves, to make this an insanely ambitious place to work at.

Always Be Hustling. Retained. This was a core virtue for ourselves when I first set out to define who we are. At that point of time, we were < 40 people, things were still getting moulded, there were no defined roles, lot of people did a lot of things, organisation first role later, everybody was just. always. hustling. And while we might have become a structured organisation over the last few years, that individual hustle is retained in every bit of the company, in every individual rocking their role, in every small team, in every new never-thought-before initiative. That’s us. We don’t just say it but we literally create new paths. That, requires some unadulterated hustle! Our culture is intentional. We want to win, and we are going to work hard for that. That doesn’t really mean sacrificing family, not taking time off et al - that’s a sob story we tell ourselves to shirk productivity at times. You can have a good life outside work, be super intentional about every hour you spend at work, do your life’s best work, and that sets you up to do the same at home with everyone you love too. Makes you a superior being. That’s what I want for every Leveragian. To live like a superstar!

Do Good: By Our People. By Our Customers. By anybody we see, everywhere, any living being, including a plant. Compassion. Empathy. Love. We play with that every single day of our existence at Leverage. The biggest quality we look for when hiring a new person at Leverage, is their heart. You got to be a good person to be at our shop. Simple. This is a zero politics place, high on merit, high on mission, high on always doing what is right. If a teammate or peer will win ahead of you, but it’s right, do that. If you will lose some business but that would be the right thing for the customer, please always do that. If it’s important to stay at home to look after a family member, just say as is and prioritise your loved ones - if you are the Manager of this person, show compassion - wherever whoever you be in the org, always lead with love. That’s the company we are all together going to build. Do good, do the right thing, and always be kind, everyday.

Be Vulnerable. Unfortunately being vulnerable isn't celebrated as much as it should. Which is why we will do so at Leverage. From the beginning of this company’s roots to today, at its highest and lowest points, we have won because of honest vulnerable conversations at every level. Hence at Leverage, we will detest fake pride, we will smile back wider at every smile we see, and whenever things get a little tough, just sit down and have that vulnerable chat. While figuring what to do. In the middle of reviews. As we execute. When we win and lose. Keep it honest, open. Most people get sucked into some dark cylinder of negative turmoil because they don’t share, give up on things / systems, and don’t think of solutions or how to make it better from wherever things may be. We aren’t going to let that happen at Leverage. To anyone. If somebody is going to call us toxic, let that be for the number of hours we work and the size of our ambition, but never for how an individual feels or ‘can feel’ in any moment while here.

Driving Real Outcomes First, Else Later. Leverage cares very deeply about innovation. We want to apply all the latest AI, figure how we can break down existing processes, circumvent new structures, whenever humanoids come through we’re a hundred percent going to be one of the first orgs in the world giving them a rightful place in the workplace (yes!), and yet, Leverage understands, very deeply, that everything we do has to result towards that common ambition, of ensuring our customers win - get that degree or certification they want, live in the city they only dreamed about, start a career that meant everything to them through growing years, etc etc etc. It’s easy. In the pursuit of how we do, we are to never lose what we do and why we do. Lots of companies lose their way on this one, we don’t have to. The mission to serve has to be above all. Let’s remember this every morning when we show up for work. Get hands dirty, solve the most complex challenges, create new parallel worlds, all focused in the direction of making that young individual and their family win. Leverage began because we wanted equality of opportunity in the world, and as long as we keep getting closer to that goal, we are on the right side of this game.

Ensuring Over Corporate Governance. We live in very interesting times, and as an Indian startup building on the global stage, we have a lot to prove, and to disprove. In comes my reiteration, this time coded as a permanent value, to always put ethics first. If you aren’t sure about something, err on the side of caution. Means simple things. That lunch or dinner was with a friend and not a client, then don’t expense it. You used a bike and not a car, or a car and not a train, then expense only what’s right. You are now a Manager in the company, been trusted with a budget, have the ability to select and onboard vendors who will be paid out of company pocket; so what do you do? You can guess the answer. Lot of times, when these things don’t end up right, the person committing what’s not right holds up a certain need they had which went beyond them. Trust me, that’s not cool. What’s cool, is that if you are that person who needs an additional cash injection for anything, just write to me directly with a copy to my office, and we take care of it, right away. Since the existence of this company, we have helped over two dozen teammates at critical health and otherwise junctures. What we have not done, is have even the remotest sympathy for someone trying to cheat. That means immediate termination. One overarching advice, will be to not play the short games in life, focus on the truly long exceptional goals, and trust me, just trust me on this, everything else will be taken care of! At Leverage, we are going to self govern ourselves, and conduct every single bit of our actions super ethically. That’s us. No exceptions, not even for a moment, ever.

Have an Extreme Ownership Mindset. Retained, and then some. This is my favourite one. Everyone who has been at Leverage for a while knows that. It reads and sounds easy, but is not. When things get tough, it becomes inhumanely difficult to let every other emotion pass through and yet display nothing but absolute thoroughbred ownership. Often, for those same reasons, that separates the best. Eight years out, those who have won at Leverage are all beasts at this one. You ensure that start to end you lead the charge. You have a bias for action. You don’t sit back and wait as an excuse to not close things but be incredibly proactive, seek dialogue, seek solid execution, drive it, and inspire others around yourselves to play to perfection too! When one practices extreme ownership, they by design more than over-deliver, create much more than what was envisioned or expected at start. Much of what has happened at Leverage in last few years, is about a hundred odd extreme owners taking charge, and then making everything they touched totally phenomenal.

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Okay, so there we go!

Last time we had 7 virtues. This time, in version 2.0, a full 5 years later, we have 8 virtues that we will swear and live and breathe by! If you’ve read thus far, and if you have spent that much time at Leverage (or are on the outside, followed our story), then you will see a few variations. The first one, Student-first, has now become Customer Centric, as Leverage learned and grew, as our “who are customers” lens started to go beyond just the immediate consumer of the product, and as we started to think about more sustainable and fair systems. Then, over time, a lot of what we had set out as core virtues are now ingrained deeply in our DNA, hence get subsumed in larger call-outs. Having an 'Extreme Ownership' mindset means people by default are over-communicating, have a bias for action, and are always over-delivering, often more than what was expected or envisioned as I have explained in the main text. In another scenario, things have been made more explicit, so in place of Supreme Work Ethic, we have a direct call out to ensure strict corporate governance and then the ‘honesty in work’ well covered within the evergreen Always be hustling.

As we approach our 10 year mark in the next 18 months, and get closer to what once seemed delusional but now within-reach goals, these virtues are going to help us play right, play well, and yet play with that same raw passion and ambition and go-hard philosophy that defines Leverage. With that ...

Lot to do,
Only begun

Signing off,
Akshay Chaturvedi


Read About Our Previous Virtues