Leadership: Essential for Your Small Business

Successful small businesses have many requirements. They require good products, services, employees; the list is endless. However, one tenet of a successful small business is quite possibly the most important, leadership. Great leadership will support almost everything that makes up a small business. Great leaders choose effective products. They ensure the best service. Leaders motivate employees to maximize potential and productivity. Leadership is the foundation that every small business should have for it to have success.

I recently attended the “Get Motivated” seminar held at the Qwest Center in Omaha. There were many great speakers in attendance to share their stories and to advise the audience on how to be successful in today’s world. All of the speakers were very effective and inspirational; however, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani shared his vision of leadership. For me Mayor Giuliani was the most profound and effective speaker of the day. His vision of leadership is the best way that I have ever had it explained to me and I will attempt to utilize that vision in my life. The following are six principles that Mayor Giuliani said are essential to effective leadership:

• Leaders know their Beliefs
• Leaders are Optimists
• Leaders have Courage
• Leaders constantly Prepare
• Leaders know the value of Teamwork
• Leaders are great Communicators

To be an effective leader you must know what you believe in order to make good decisions. What is more, decision making is a key component to running any business. And you must have some set of core values that give you direction. Beliefs set up your ethical, moral, and judgmental base which is vital to your ability to make decisions for your small business. And the more you believe in what you are doing the more you will instill those beliefs in those who work for you. Your small business will have morale and your employees will share your vision and purpose.

If you do not know what you believe in, how is it possible to lead anyone? It isn’t. The lack of core beliefs leads to poor decision making, wasted time, and lack of faith from employees. Lack of faith from those who work for you is detrimental to your operations and can close your small business in a hurry. It is far better to disagree with someone than to employ a person who does not know what you are in business for. Persons who are led by someone who is also lost are not being led at all. They will never reach their goals. Someone who points them in a direction because they believe, wrong or not, that it is the best way, is leading. This does not mean that those who follow cannot disagree with your leadership. People will disagree with you. This is a fact of life. You would hope that they agree with some of what you believe in. But in the very least, your dissenters will know what you stand for and how you think. This gives them some idea of how you make decisions. Oftentimes this opens the possibility for discussion and compromise which can be very helpful to your business in the long run.

You need to be an optimist to run your small business. In fact, optimism is probably most important when times are not so good for you. Looking forward towards better business is far better than thinking that all is lost. How can you run your business if you think that it won’t lead to anywhere? What is the point? You have to look at what you do right and utilize those things to make your business better. Business is not about survival. It is about constantly trying to do better at what you do. Breaking even does not earn a better living for you or your employees. If you are optimistic that you will increase sales and you follow what you do best, you will do better. Even if you are only breaking even, you have two choices. You can be pessimistic and believe that you won’t ever turn a profit and decide to close up. Or you can see a better future and build upon what you already have and make a better life for yourself and others. Leaders are optimists because they take the hard times and make them opportunities for future success.

Courage is part of every leader. As mentioned above, every leader must also have beliefs. But those beliefs are ineffective without the courage to carry them out. Many leaders are faced with hard decisions on a daily basis. They know that the decisions they make affect many people. Many people will disagree with what decisions are made by those leaders. That decision may also not be the most popular. The courage that leaders have allows them to make the hardest of decisions. In owning a small business you will be faced with many decisions too. Having the courage to make those decisions is widely important to the success of your business. Avoiding decisions is not courageous and will eventually do harm to you and your business. This does not mean that you cannot be fearful, however. Mayor Giuliani pointed out that courage is not devoid of fear. In fact fear is a major part of courageous acts. And just because one feels fear does not mean he or she is destined to fail. Failure occurs when you succumb to fear and make no decision at all. At times you may make the wrong decision. But to take that wrong decision and not make it again requires not only knowledge but courage to correct past mistakes. Courage is a decision in the presence of fear and making that decision regardless.

In order for leaders to be effective, they are continually preparing. This means that leaders do everything they can to prepare for what is to come. Leaders have plans. Whether it is through research, training, or gaining knowledge; leaders must always become better prepared for the future. This is especially true in crisis management. Many leaders are able to get through many rough times because they have a plan of action in the case of emergency. Mayor Giuliani pointed out that, at first, when the events of September 11 th were occurring, he felt that he had little plan of action. Though his initial feelings were that he had not prepared, he took action anyway and realized that he had indeed prepared for the attacks, but on a much smaller scale. Every agency, fire department, business, etc. had a plan, and had partaken in drills in case of emergency. It just so happened that all of the crisis management had to be done all at once. So even though it seemed that the Mayor had no plan, all of his smaller plans came together and worked for the benefit of his city. Therefore on a much smaller scale business owners must also prepare for what eventually may come. Leaders don’t stand idle and go with the flow of what happens to them. They prepare for every scenario that they feel is relevant and specify a course of action. Preparation is also not limited to crisis. Many small business owners plan for future sales and set goals for their companies. This way they can evaluated their performance and find out ways that they can become better. Planning allows leaders to forecast where they want to be as well as what they need to do to get there. It is very easy to look at what happened but it is extremely difficult to foretell what will happen. Good preparation is the first step.

Teamwork is essential for leaders. Those in leadership positions do not always have all of the answers. Often they are not trained or skilled in specific areas. Though they may have general knowledge on many subjects, effective leaders know what their weaknesses and strengths are. Because of this, effective leaders choose people who have expertise where leaders don’t and work closely with them in a team environment. This way the leader knows he has the very best team to do the very best work.

In your small business you too may not have all of the answers. You may be very good at manufacturing your product, yet you lack the real know-how of bookkeeping. Would you attempt to keep the books yourself? Of course not! You would hire a bookkeeper to keep all of your financial data in line. You would see that you could run your business better by hiring someone onto your team to keep it running smoothly. Without teamwork, small business owners often get bogged down because they take on too much at once. Effective small business owners are the ones who can pinpoint what they don’t do so well and find persons who do. This balances out their business and makes it run to full potential.

Good communication is probably the most important skill that a leader can have. Without communication, the leader’s message, purpose, vision, and ideas are lost. A good communicator is one who can purvey his or her ideas clearly and concisely. Effective communicators also don’t bog others down with big words and jargon. This kind of person is only confusing his audience. Good leaders and communicators never confuse anyone. They are able to communicate their messages so that every person in the room can understand what he or she is talking about. Communication is so important that it supports every other principle in effective leadership. How can anyone practice teamwork, continuously plan, show courage, practice optimism, or share beliefs if he or she cannot communicate those principles to others. It is impossible. This whole article would be worthless if it were not for understandable communication. Therefore, for your small business to be successful you must be able to communicate with your employees and customers. You must be able to let your workers know clearly what you want done.
And you must also communicate to your customers what you offer in the most understandable way possible.

Communication also does not stop with clarity either. Good communicators are those who see problems and make sure they address them directly with those involved. Communicators do not lay idle waiting for someone else to notice that a problem has arisen. Yet they take the appropriate action and speak up when a problem arises.

Hopefully by now you have some idea of what it takes to be a great leader for your small business. Mayor Giuliani practices these six principals and has made a very positive impact on the country. Strong leadership in your small business will also make a positive impact. You will see that your employees are behind you. You will see your sales growing. And you will see that your overall business is growing as your leadership becomes stronger.