Every company starts somewhere, typically with one or a few people deciding to execute on an idea. After that, that “leadership team” is tasked with building and fostering the right crew of people to carry the business toward growth and sustainability.
That job never truly ends, though. The decision-makers will nearly always be charged with working to further your company’s growth. This makes the right leadership team crucial, because those at the top need to inspire employees and fellow managers alike.
There are some tools or skills that you must have in your toolbox as a company leader to facilitate ongoing success. Here’s what you need to know about eight of the most important and impactful.
One of the best leadership analogies is the game of chess. Good players know they must out-strategize their opponents by thinking ahead – sometimes several steps. Great players excel at anticipating the direction in which their opponent is going to move and make their own plans accordingly.
It’s the same in business. As a leader, strategic thinking is one of the most important skills required for success. You need the ability to plan ahead and decide your team’s response to scenarios before they even arise. These include the entry of a competitor into the market, team members walking away, and the evolution of technology.
Each person’s daily life involves a series of seemingly infinite decisions, but business leaders have even more choices to make. Unlike the average person, however, a leader’s company-related decisions impact their business as well as the lives of their employees.
As a leader, you must keep your mind sharp. You can do this by handing off tasks that do not require your input to professionals who are trained to handle them on your behalf. This prevents your mind from getting tired before the end of the day, which will allow you to focus more of your brainpower on crucial, business-impacting issues. Exercise can also assist in ensuring your mind stays healthy. Physical exertion helps to improve blood flow and brain power, for example, and there are brain training apps you can download to help you flex those mental muscles.
Teamwork makes the dream work, and your capacity to ensure your team collaborates effectively will directly impact your abilities as a leader – and the success or failure of any project. A high share – 86% – of surveyed employees and executives cited a lack of collaboration and poor communication as reasons for the failure at the office, for example. The best leaders recognize the indispensable need for strong teams and invest in activities that forge bonds.
Where there are people, there are disagreements. Fortunately, conflict resolution can be learned and refined through self-study and attending informational workshops. These workshops take place in controlled environments, but are effective at preparing you for when things go wrong between employees in the real world. You will learn how to defuse tense situations and lead both parties toward positive, peaceful outcomes.
There are only so many things one person can do in a day. Delegation involves being able to pass the to-do items you cannot – or should not – do to someone with the time and energy to handle them, and it’s key to effective leadership. This gives you more time to focus on bigger picture matters, but it doesn’t just benefit you. Delegating also gives your team a chance to grow their skills and confidence as they take up new responsibilities, which only serves to make them better and more effective workers.
A huge part of effective leadership revolves around catering to the growth of the people you lead. Employees are much more likely to be loyal to an organization that cares about their personal and professional development, after all. Many companies are waking up to this fact and instituting mentorship programs to groom and support employees for greater responsibilities like management. This makes team members feel valued and helps boost their job performance.
A company’s long-term survival and competitiveness is tied to its ability to innovate processes and products. The best leaders understand this fact and are comfortable with it. They embrace change and are always looking for better, faster ways to do what they do to gain a competitive edge or break into new markets. There are many routes to innovation, too: It requires discipline and creativity, but can be engineered through brainstorming, collaboration, or trial and error. Ensure your team has the right processes in place to test and implement innovations as needed.
There are a host of mental, psychological, and emotional aspects that make a great leader, and understanding your strengths and weaknesses here is important. Several tests exist to assess your leadership ability, bias, strategic thinking, personality type, and more in terms of being an effective leader. Your entire team can take these assessments to identify strengths as well as areas for improvement, which will keep everyone working toward bettering themselves – and your company.
The right tools will make you a more effective leader and an all-round better human being, as they keep you organized, focused, and constantly in a state of growth and personal development. As a leader or founder, you want your company to see the growth and success you’ve always dreamed of. You’re in business to help others by offering a product or service, after all, and you want to get that solution out to the world.
It can be difficult to bring that vision to reality if your sales personnel lack the knowledge to be top sellers, but the right strategic partnerships can help. MetaGrowth Ventures provides founders the tools necessary to build a sales team that is primed and ready to exceed expectations. Our consulting services help you create and lead a world-class sales team, bridging the gap to help you achieve all your business goals.
Contact us to see how we can help today.