Leading Your Business
As can be readily observed in business, sport and education, leadership is the essential ingredient to motivate your staff for top performance.
Leadership is different to management (although both are equally important). Leadership is about setting direction and motivating and inspiring your staff to move in that direction. Management is about organizing resources and problem solving. If you are in a small business, often you have the task of being both a leader and manager.
What are the key elements of good leadership in business?
Promoting Shared Goals and Values
Your staff cannot give their best if you keep them in the dark, or they don’t know or understand how you’re trying to grow the business or the behaviors you expect. Let your staff know why they are doing something – if your staff’s goals (what they are to achieve) become the same as yours, they will hard to achieve them. And if they share your values (how you want work to be done, for example – a commitment to quality, loyalty, taking risks, being ‘green’), they will be clear about what is expected of them to achieve those goals.
Involving And Supporting Others
You do not work in isolation. It’s important that your staff stay informed and know what’s going on. Enlist the support and assistance of all who are going to make your business work – your staff, customers, suppliers, advisers and others will be willing and able to help you. At the same time, give support to others, particularly your staff. Staff respond to a leader who provides support for them – explaining, showing, encouraging and acknowledging contribution, providing resources and smoothing the way.
Foster Communication
It is essential to keep the communication channels open if you want new ideas for improved products, processes and services. Customers are the obvious source of information for better products and services. Staff – those doing the work – will be an excellent source of information for improving the way you do business.
Provide opportunities for your staff, customers and suppliers to associate and interact both in a work and social sense. Lead by walking around – see what your staff are doing and listen to what they have to say. Give your staff an opportunity to offer their opinions and suggestions without fear of ridicule or reprisal.
Setting The Example
How you act – whether you are the first to arrive to work, the last to leave, your positive attitude, how you react to stress, reward achievement, keep your promises, provide feedback – sets the standard in your business. You must demonstrate enthusiasm and commitment through your leadership to everyone else in the business. If your behavior is not consistent with the values you promote and the goals you want to achieve, your staff and customers will lose respect for them.
Your business will not survive unless you have the sills to lead…
Assess your leadership ability, motivation, communication and the adaptability to change. Strengthen any area in which you lack expertise through retraining, buying in expertise, or by having a mentor or person with whom you can discuss your business challenges.
