How to Develop Leadership For Your Business
A business owner friend of mine recently said to me, “I ran my business like I was following someone else, until one day I woke up and realized that all of my people wanted to follow me.”
Unknown Author: “The world stands aside to let anyone pass who knows where he/she is going.”
WHAT IS LEADERSHIP:
Different meanings:
Company leader
Market leader
Family leader
You manage with your head, you lead with your heart.
A great manager will gain huge amounts of respect in a business, which is a wonderful foundation for leadership.
A true leader must have:
• Vision, A true leader must have Vision, the oldest quote known on vision is from the Old Testament, “No vision and you perish; no ideal and you are lost.” You must have a vision of where you want to go.
o The old saying “Dress for Success” is true in business as well as your personal life. A leader that has a true vision of what they want their company to look like in the future, can begin to “dress” the company to look like what they want it to be and greatly increase the chances of it becoming true.
o A true leader can communicate that vision in such a way to stimulate others.
• The ability to develop trust among their people
• Integrity
• Empathy
• Sense of humor
• Humility: Respect the strong points of others.
• Passion: Father Theodore Hesborg said “You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.”.
• Character
• Confidence: .Do you have the confidence in yourself that will allow you to develop people under you, maybe develop a successor, and then step aside?
o It is hard to imagine that a great manager/owner who has built a business on drive, guts, and sheer will power might not be self-confident, but what was his/her real motivation. Many are driven by fear of failure. Others by ego or acclaim: “Never let your ego get so close to your position that when your position goes your ego goes with it.”
Is it possible that by those standards the drive to succeed may not be leadership?
o True, if you have followers then it is one aspect of leading, but is it true leadership, or just blind followers? How can you develop a leader from such a group of followers to take your place?
o If you ain’t the lead dog, the view never changes. So for your followers how do they get to see all the things that are needed to lead the business every day? You need to let them take the lead from time to time to see how their vision is.
o Leading and allowing others to lead is a problem solving strategy that may be the true test of leadership.
THE ENTREPRENEUR:
A police officer on routine patrol notices a white van stopped at a red light and the driver jump out of the truck and runs around the truck beating on it with a baseball bat. Intrigued he follows the truck and at the next stop light the same thing occurs, as does it at the next light.
Unable to believe what he is seeing he pulls the truck over. “Hey mister, you haven’t done anything illegal but you are just beating the daylights out of your truck, what’s going on.” The driver replies, “It’s really very simple, I’m an entrepreneur and I sell birds, I just got an order for a ton of birds, but I only have a half ton truck, so I have to keep at least one half the birds flying all the time.”
That’s the essence of an entrepreneur, without all the resources to do the job you have to find a way to get the job done. That’s also leadership. Your employees will believe they can accomplish the impossible if you show them it can be done.
IF YOU NEED TO BE A LEADER HOW DO YOU GET THERE?
1. Recognize your leadership responsibility
a. Create and communicate the vision.
b. Set the example
2. Build your confidence, or overcome some of your fear of failure.
a. Build other to lead. Even Frank Sinatra used Ready, Set, Showtime.
3. Mentor leaders
a. Build teamwork 1 horse 8,000 lbs, another 14,000 lbs together 40,000 lbs.
b. Be there to help and guide others, don’t do it all yourself.
c. Delegate
d. Set up open communication to empower others.
e. Don’t build barriers to attracting the best people.
4. Keep looking below surface appearances. Don’t avoid looking just because you might not like what you find.
5. Don’t jump from one business management fad to the next latest and greatest. Manage with a steady hand, hold people accountable.
6. Don’t wait for 100% of the facts, if you have 50% to 70% make a decision. That’s what leaders do, chances are that you will never have 100% of the information, and if you wait too long you will miss an opportunity or look like you are stalling.
a. That’s not to say details are not important, that’s part of a leaders job, but the leader teaches others how to respect details.
“LEADERSHIP IS THE ART OF ACCOMPLISHING MORE THAN THE SCIENCE OF MANAGEMENT SAYS IS POSSIBLE.” Colin Powell
Let brandEXPANSION’s development team help you hone your leadership skills and put the right elements in place to build and expand your franchise. Contact me for more information.
