Dear Alison

Following on from our exploration of moving from ‘doing’ to ‘directing’ last month, this month we uncover the critical mindset shifts which make the difference between working ‘in’ your business (as an employee of it!) and working ‘on’ your business, as its leader.

Please forward this issue to anyone else you think will enjoy reading it and find it useful. They can subscribe to receive their own free monthly copy by clicking the link.

Best wishes,

Kate


Are You a Leader – or Just ‘the Boss’?

Here are five fundamental concepts to take on board if you want to be a leader of your business or indeed any other enterprise in life, not ‘just another member of staff’, or an ‘administrator with a lot of pips on my shoulder’ – complaints we regularly hear from business owner-managers!

Shine Consulting’s 5 Laws of Business Leadership(!)

1. There’s much more to running an outstanding business than doing the ‘nuts and bolts-y’ stuff, like planning, scheduling, the finances, recruitment and so on. There’s also the crucial skill of developing a culture, a brand, a ‘way we do things round here’ that sets you apart from the competition and ultimately makes your organisation independent of you as its founder. There are any number of reasons why you might want to do this, from, at one end of the spectrum, simply creating an asset to sell one day, through the pleasure of empowering others and seeing them grow, to the pride and satisfaction of having created an entity with a life all its own at the other. Here’s a link to an article on how to do this.
2. Your job as a leader is to rise above the day to day detail and impose structure on the chaos of ‘business as usual’. Form a clear picture of where your business is going and communicate it to your staff – not just once, or annually, but every single day! If they don’t know where you are going, they can’t stay with you on the journey. Show them the way, role model it, and keep reiterating it every time someone gets bogged down or stuck. Find out more…
3. People are not machines and need different styles of leadership depending on the circumstances, their level of ability and their confidence and willingness to do the job. It’s self-indulgent to adopt a style of leadership that’s the same for everyone just because you like it and it suits your personality. Change your style of leadership to suit the individual you’re working with, and the circumstances prevailing at that precise moment.
4. Your perceptions aren’t ‘the truth’ and neither are anyone else’s! Learn to listen and to resist the knee-jerk temptation to argue and say ‘yes, but’. You might find something out that changes everything you do for the better – and more than that, you’ll gain the respect of the people you work with. More reading on perceptions and how they create reality…
5. Being ‘one big happy family’ is not the way to run a business that is durable, that provides a satisfying environment for people to work in and that is financially stable and sound. Too many business owners recruit people on the basis that they like them, or even worse, that they are like them! A really great business, and a really great team, develop a life of their own, beyond the traits, skills and vision of the business leader alone – and professional people develop and negotiate ways of working that go beyond ‘getting on well’ together (though that can be a bonus). Don’t have your attention on ‘will we get on well together’ but on ‘is this person and their skills right for the business’. Read more…

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You can find out more about us and the work we do on our website where you can also find previous issues of this newsletter.

Please forward this issue to anyone else you think will enjoy reading it and find it useful. They can subscribe to receive their own free monthly copy by clicking the link.