Leadership Skills – Do YOU Have Them?

When you get down to it, your business is all about meeting the needs of people. Customers, employees, vendors, lenders, investors and members of the community are all people with very human needs. The best businesses understand this, and do their best to meet those needs. In order to do this, a business has to satisfy its own needs. It needs to attract customers. It needs to satisfy those customers. It needs to recruit, hire and train employees. It needs a way to keep track of the money.

And to make all of that happen, a business needs leadership. The qualities of leadership drive the ability of the business to meet its own needs and the needs of the people who depend on it for convenience, security and in some cases, their very lives.

So the real work of the business owner is rising to the constant challenge of developing the leader within you. If you don’t develop the skills and attributes of a leader, your business will stagnate. It’s only a matter of time before you sell it or close the doors for good. And in that time, it will slowly drain the life out of the people who come into contact with it, including you!

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Even a stagnant business can be brought back to life with effective leadership.

Are Leaders Born or Made?

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.

John F. Kennedy

Some people say that leadership is something that’s innate—you’re either born with it, or you aren’t. While it is true that some individuals are born with leadership traits, there is more to being a true leader than genetics! The truth is that leadership is a combination of skills that can be learned, practiced, and perfected by anyone willing to put in the time and effort.

Simply being the owner is not enough to create a world-class company. You must also be able to direct your energy and passion—and that requires leadership. Leadership is what turns your entrepreneurial vision into reality. In a small business, the owner, the entrepreneur, and the leader are one person. Most likely, you are the founder, the majority shareholder, and CEO. Therefore, it is imperative for you to cultivate effective leadership skills in order to build and manage a successful small business.

Leadership – What is it Really?

At first glance, business leadership looks like it’s simply a matter of style. But when you get to the core of it, leadership isn’t about style at all. It’s about substance. Vision, action, and spirit — these comprise the essence of leadership. They have nothing to do with style and everything to do with substance. The substance of leadership consists of knowing what to do, knowing how to do it, and influencing others to achieve it.

The style of leadership is largely a matter of personality. There are quiet, low-key leaders as well as aggressive, charismatic leaders, and an infinite variety in between. How effective they are depends on how well they carry out the substance of leadership. Don’t mistake style for spirit. Style is superficial. Style doesn’t create any vision, doesn’t get anything done… it just looks good — or bad. The substance of leadership, however, can be acquired and learned.

3 ‘Must Do’ Steps to Quickly Shed the Recession Blues

The recession that we’ve witnessed in the past year or so has been the main topic of discussion almost everywhere.   Every news outlet of both local and national origin, advertisements, all over the internet on blogs, websites, social media, the coffee shop, networking events, family gatherings…the list goes on. We’ve been inundated with an endless barrage of recession stories from every angle to the point that even the most optimistic people I know are being affected. Not good.  The fact is that all this negative input can affect our general outlook on life as well as the way we run our businesses.  However, some very simple steps can be taken to break free of the grip of the ‘Recession Blues’:

Blues issue #1 – The economy is my biggest challenge.  Yup- heard that from almost everyone I’ve talked to in the last year.  Notice I said almost everyone.  Why is it that some businesses seem to be doing fine? Here’s a fascinating thing I’ve noticed: some business owners took advantage of the recession. They took time to look at how their business was being impacted and took steps to counter the attack.  It calls for some pretty creative thinking, but it’s doable.   

Must Do #1 – Stop saying ‘the economy is my biggest challenge’ and start asking ‘what can we do differently?’

Blues issue #2 – I can’t afford marketing right now.  Yup- heard that from almost everyone I’ve talked to in the last year (I’m seeing a trend here…).  The ironic thing is that marketing can be one of the most simple and least expensive things to do for your business.  Have you heard of a little thing called social media?  Well, most of it is free.  Hmmm.  Free.

Must Do #2 – Look at every new option to promote your business regardless of how much your internal resistance fights you.  It doesn’t hurt (or cost $$) to explore options and educate yourself.

Blues issue #3 – I know what I need to do but … Most business owners know their business very well.  They know what they ‘should’ be doing to build their businesses…but.  Check yourself in the next few days to see if you have fallen victim and stop ‘should’ing all over yourself.

Must Do #3 – Take action!  In the words of hockey great Wayne Gretsky “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

In summary:

Must Do #1 – Change your mindset

Must Do #2 – Try something different  new

Must Do #3 – Take action! Three very simple somewhat obvious steps -that can be incredibly hard to accomplish.  It’s terrific to have an accountability partner to help you make changes and build new habits.   A coach is the best accountability partner you could use because as I like to tell my clients – I’m not here to be your best friend, I’m here to help you get results.  Commit to making 2011 a year of solid results for your business.

I would like to thank my friend and AdviCoach colleague Mr Mike Burn for allowing me to repurpose this article!

You Own A Job Not A Business!

How many times have you sat back and thought “I would love to take a few days off, decompress or just be lazy” but know you cant because if you leave, the business stops!  Well guess what, you are in the same position as the vast majority of small business owners that ‘believe’ they own a business but in reality, actually own a job!!

Most if not all business owners dream of owning and running a business to escape from the control and constraints of the Corporate world, and yet, after a short time, find themselves being controlled by the business and constrained because they are the only ones in place doing the work! The question is “How do you break the cycle”? There are no short cuts and there are no silver bullets, there is however a set of actions you can take to get back control of your life and have the business work for you rather than the other way around.

1. Create a Vision for your Life

You will notice I said life NOT business! Take that as being the first in a long line of differences between what you are doing now, and what you will do from the point on! If have no vision for what you want your life to be then how will you ever be able to build a business model to support that life!!!

2. Create a Set of Annual Goals

Seems simple enough right? Wrong, this where you have to be both visionary and tactician. You will want to create no more than 4 or 5 Key Initiatives for the year. These are absolutes that you are going to dedicate time to. Under no circumstances will you allow yourself to be seduced by “other” shiny objects that may come your way. Your level of commitment to these initiatives must be at its highest!!

3. Commit To Your Plan

More plans are made and never implemented than made and executed! Filing drawers are full of “Business Plans”……YOU will keep your goals in plain sight for you to see everyday and execute an action aligned with those goals..everyday! Like I said there are no short cuts or silver bullets.

4. Build Your Org Chart

Really! Even a 1 person organization needs an org chart. How else will you know what functions need to be filled in order for you to begin to extricate yourself from the day to day functional responsibility of the business.  I am not talking about abdication of accountability here, I am talking about developing a gameplan for either hiring or outsourcing much of the work you are doing that adds little or no value to the business.

Figuring out HOW to move from job owner to business owner can be difficult, however, in my experience, getting your business to be less reliant on you is more about following a few simple actions, creating your life vision and commitment to execution than anything else. Most people just cannot get out of their own way ( which is why they engage coaches and advisory councils etc).

A great book to read on this subject is The E-myth Revisited (Why most small business fail and what to do about it) I would encourage you to read it!!!

James Lawson is President of The Capital Coaching Group Inc based in Fairfax, Va and spends his time speaking and writing articles on business strategy and helping business owners get out of their own way!