Leadership style plays an overriding role in setting the tone of a company. Smart business leaders are adept in leadership as they adapt their leadership styles to achieve results. However, when you don’t take the leadership aspect of your business seriously, there can be far-reaching consequences, including low employee engagement, job dissatisfaction, and a high employee turnover rate. In today’s podcast, Andrew Bryant from Self Leadership International and Stephen Halasnik from Solutions discuss the new leadership playbook: being human while successfully delivering.
Summary
The New Leadership Playbook: Being Human Whilst Successfully Delivering
The need for effective leadership in small businesses has become more important than ever. In recent times, there’s no doubt that the world has become highly unstable due to the increasing disruption largely caused by digital technology and the covid 19 pandemic, making running a company even more daunting and complex. Therefore, as a small business owner, you should strive to rise beyond management, authority, and control and acquire leadership skills that sync with modern reality.
This rapidly changing world demands that you become innovative in the way you do things by leveraging human-centered leadership that allows you to navigate the rollercoaster inherent in running a company.
What Is Business Leadership
Business leadership is a process of influencing team members in a manner that enables them to achieve group goals. Leadership is an indispensable aspect of running a successful company. A business with effective leadership tends to be more productive as it can easily engage its employees and brings out the best in them.
Business leadership helps a company to build and secure a competitive edge. In addition, it allows business owners to make decisions, set goals and provide for their company.
Why Leadership Is Important for Small Businesses
Leadership is critical to the growth and development of every small business. Effective leaders strive to mobilize both human and material resources and channel them in the areas where they will generate the maximum result.
Without leadership, every element of your business will lie dormant, leading to low productivity. Conversely, smart business leaders help their organizations maximize productivity and achieve their business goals. Below are the benefits of small business leadership:
Provide Guidance To Your Employees
No business can thrive without direction, no matter the size. A good business leader provides impactful guidance and advice for employees. In other words, you should be able to show your team members how they can perform their varying tasks for optimal results. In addition, you should provide a workplace that encourages your employees to grow and develop.
Then again, you should lead by example by modeling the behavior you want to see in your employees. Experience has shown that leaders who lead by example foster a high level of engagement and buy-in because they demonstrate they’re committed to their team members’ programs.
Motivates Your Teams
Good leaders inspire and motivate their employees to work towards reaching their organizational goals. When you inspire your employees, they become committed to their tasks which in turn optimizes productivity.
Set your business goals and ensure your employees clearly understand your vision. This will enable them to know your ultimate business objective and work towards achieving it.
Builds Relationship With Your Team Members
Good leaders ensure that their team members enjoy working for their companies. When you build a strong relationship without your employees, they become more productive and contribute to the success of your business, as they’ll also share a sense of belonging.
Take a real interest in your team member and be open to feedback. Seek their opinion on specific issues and schedule an occasional informal meeting with your workgroup to connect more with them.
Improves Employees’ Morale and Satisfaction
Morale and satisfaction are critical to getting the most out of your employees. Savvy small business owners know how to build confidence in their team members to enhance productivity. You should be able to create an environment that’s conducive for your employees to use their skills.
When your employees are frustrated, burnout, stressed, or distracted, they become dissatisfied, and their productivity level will plummet. On the contrary, building morale will help improve retention and increase job satisfaction which will invariably affect your bottom line.
What Are Leadership Skills in Small Business?
Highlighted below are the necessary skills a small business leader should have for effective performance.
Communication
A good leader should have a mastery of communication skills, both verbal and written. In other words, you must know how to convey information so that the recipient makes sense of it without being confused.
Your ability to communicate effectively with your employees has a strong impact on their performance.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Intelligence is an indispensable aspect of leadership, and every small business owner that craves success should strive to develop their emotional Intelligence.
Emotional Intelligence allows you to recognize and manage your emotions and that of others. Leaders with emotional Intelligence are calm even when pressured and avoid the risk of making rash decisions that might negatively impact their companies.
Self-Awareness
‘Man know thyself,’ so says Socrates thousands of years ago. To be successful in small business leadership, you must, first and foremost, find out what you know and what you don’t know. Self-assessment allows you to identify your strength and areas of your life you need to improve.
It’s essential because it helps you figure out how to align your skills, perspectives, attitudes, and more with your employees.
Empowerment
A good leader knows how to bring out the best in their team members through mentorship, coaching, leadership development, and training. If you empower your employees, you will have a highly engaged workforce.
In addition, an empowered team can easily take on leadership roles and perform specific tasks when you take a step back to consider the bigger picture of your whole company.
Resilience
The ups and downs of running a business demand that you become resilient to navigate the business landscape successfully. Even when your business decision didn’t go as planned, you should recover quickly, both mentally and physically.
In a nutshell, great leaders are made, and for you to become one of the successful business leaders, you must invest time and energy to acquire the skills that will enable you to take your small business to the next level. You can consider reading Andrew Bryant’s masterpiece on leadership: ‘The New Leadership Playbook – Being Human whist Successfully Delivering Accelerated Results,’ to get valuable insights on effective leadership.
Learn About Our Guest
Andrew Bryant, the founder of Self Leadership International, is a Global Leadership Speaker, a C-Suite Advisor, an Award-Winning Coach, and Author, including, Self Leadership – How to become a more Successful, Efficient, and Effective Leader, from the Inside Out, and The New Leadership Playbook – Being Human whilst Successfully Delivering Accelerated Results.
Andrew is on a mission to ‘wake people up’ to their best possible selves and has been doing this for nearly 25 years through his Books, Speeches, and Executive Coaching.
https://www.selfleadership.com/ or https://thenewleadershipplaybook.com/
Learn About Financing Solutions
Financing Solutions provides an easy-to-setup unsecured small business line of credit to small businesses. The small business financing product is a great cash backup plan that costs nothing to set up, nothing until used, and is inexpensive when needed. Financing Solutions is rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and 5 stars by the BBB/Google Reviews.
Unlike a traditional business bank loan, our business credit line requires no collateral or personal guarantee (except in fraud cases), making it an excellent alternative business financing option. Small businesses often use their line of credit for short-term expenses, working capital, to make payroll, or for business investment, especially when business cash flow is temporarily down.
Get a free, no-obligation business line of credit quote by filling out our simple 2- minute business line of credit application here.
Remember: The time to set up a credit line is when you don’t need it.