Leadership in small business management
By Rich Spy on Jun 22, 2009 with Comments 0
When my friend saw I wrote down this title “Leadership in small business management”, she laughed, “Are you joking?” she said, ” Small business, what can ‘leadership’ mean when there is no one to lead? Except maybe a few family members and a handful of employees who work so closely with you that they can almost read your mind? “. I know you may also have this question, does a Small Business Need Leadership Management? Read on, you will find why and how.
Have you ever heard the expression “too many generals and not enough soldiers” ? Well it works both ways. Too many soldiers without a strong general will surely find themselves fighting the wrong battles. Meantime, experience has shown us that businesses with too many leaders inevitably fail from their inability to manage and implement day-to-day business issues. Likewise companies with excellent managers fail because they didn’t innovate, motivate change or watch for strategic threats.
No matter how small a business is, even there are nobody but you are working for your business, leadship management is necessary, leadership means the capacity to establish direction and to influence and align others toward a common goal, motivating and committing them to action and making them responsible for their performance. That, in a nutshell, is “manage things and lead people”, including your own small business and yourself, now you see, the leadership business is necessary in any business, no matter small or big.
Then we are coming to the question: How to build leadership in small business management? Here are some tips.
“Management is getting people to do what needs to be done. Leadership is getting people to want to do what needs to be done. Managers push. Leaders pull. Managers command. Leaders communicate.” – Warren Bennis
Understand your team’s and customers’ wants
As the business owner you’re responsible for leading your business to success and getting your people excited about your vision.
Too often leadership is seen as defining a step-by-step business strategy and expecting people to follow the steps or suffer the consequences.
Coming up with a strategy and relying on your position as business owner is not enough. This model fails you, your team and your business. People will learn to do just what they have to so that they can meet expectations and not lose their job.
True leadership is the art of understanding and rewarding your team’s and your customers’ needs so that they’re motivated to make your business a success.
Stay focused on your business growth
Imagine if Bill Gates workday looked like this: Arrival at 8 clock, walk into the Microsoft and answer phone in the lobby, interview each candidate for each position available, write the copy for the website, answer all Customer Demands for Windows development, package design product, write the documentation and empty all trash cans. At noon, he would be exhausted. And in 6 months, there will be no Microsoft.
Too often small businesses are suffering from leaders who also closely involved in the daily operations of the company.
Sure, leaders are good in crises – but that doesn’t mean they sit around letting crises develop. Leadership involves identifying potential problems and solving them before they reach crisis proportions – and the ability to identify and reap potential windfalls. So good leaders analyze and plan and adapt their plans to new circumstances and opportunities.
Work on your business, not in it
Their role as an small business owner is to make the eyes constantly on the direction you want your business to go. That is vision. Vision is essential to good leadership. Vision provides direction and without direction, there’s not much point to all that planning; your small business will still flail about. So if you don’t have one already, take your first step towards leadership by creating a Vision Statement for your business. Because it embodies your dreams and your passions, a vision statement will also serve as a leadership vision. Further more, you should share your vision, sharing your leadership vision helps your vision grow and your leadership develop. As you tell your leadership vision to others, you will strengthen your own belief in your vision and strengthen your determination to make your leadership vision become reality. And other people will start to see you as a person who’s “going places”. Your leadership skills will grow as you and other people recognize you as a person with leadership potential.
Owners have their eyes too focused on accounts receivables, purchase orders and time cards and become blinded to impending competition, threats to their businesses and the potential for growth.
Build a strong team
Business is really a team sport. You can’t possibly know everything, and it would be a foolish use of your time trying to do the things in your business that you are not qualified to do alone. That’s where you need to consider building a strong business team.
There is no easy way to get people to like each other nor should you try. It is also OK to agree to disagree in a small business, but the team must work together instead of sabotaging each other’s work. The goal must be to provide great service to the customer and to make money. If one person on the team falls down other people need to pick up the ball and run with it and make sure it does not cause a conflict in the workplace or with the customer.
Filed Under: Small Business
