On her website, life coach Lisa Haisha talks about leadership. She says, “Great leaders don’t set out to be leaders. They set out to make a difference. It’s never about the role – always about the goal.” I think that summarizes what I’ve been trying to teach you about leadership. By this point in my mini-series, you’re probably like, “Dude, I get that we need to have leaders. But how does leadership add value to my small business?” Well, this article is for you.
00:25 – Using Leadership to drive the value of Your Company
01:11 – How does Leadership drive the company’s value?
02:32 – Managers vs. Leaders
07:14 – Leadership & Planning
07:51 – Where does Leadership bring the value to Your Company?
10:40 – Summary
If you’ve read my other articles about leadership, you realize the importance of having leadership, not just management, in your small business. You have to invest in leadership in order to raise the value of your company. But how does raising up leaders (and becoming an effective leader yourself) help your organization?
First and foremost, leadership provides clarity and focus amongst the entire organization. You cannot have good sales processes without leadership in sales just as you can’t have a good human resources department or finance department without leadership in HR and finance. Having leaders within your business departments helps all team members stay hyper-focused on accomplishing the business’s vision and goals.
Next, with multi-directional leadership in your business, your company runs more efficiently, and your processes are more effective. Just as a rising tide lifts all ships, having leaders across every division of your company helps all team members work together toward a common goal. With all team members working together, your processes and procedures become more efficient and effective.
Additionally, good leadership within your business creates consistent expectations for your team members. If all leaders are on the same page and all leaders participate in strategic planning, then all know what to expect of team members. Thus, there will not be a variance in employee accountability. All team members will know what behaviors and what type of production are expected of them at all times.
As you build leaders across your organization and as your company grows, you can use your existing team members to fill new roles as they arise. Then, you can hire new entry-level employees and train them organically to fill the next roles that your business needs. That makes your business scalable, which exponentially increases the value of your company.
And finally, increasing the effectiveness of leadership within your business creates leverage. In other words, since your leaders understand your company’s vision, they can utilize team members’ intellectual property. Leaders can place team members in positions that will maximize their effectiveness and efficiency. That puts your company at an advantage over other companies that do not utilize good leadership skills.
So friends, I wrap up my mini-series on leadership by saying this: effective leadership drives up the value of your company. Leadership adds value to your small business. It is the supporting pillar to strategic planning. Planning and leadership, then, support the other fundamental areas of your business – sales, marketing, personnel, operations, finance, and legal.
Be sure to join me in my next article as I start a mini-series on the third fundamental area of your business – sales!