How to be an effective leader for business owners

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Becoming an effective leader to your team or company can be one of the most fruitful ways for success for your business.

People (employees) are a very important part of any organisation and their contribution to your company can drive success and growth.

As most business owners know, it can be very difficult to be an effective leader. Below, we outline a few ways in which you can be a more effective leader.

Share your vision

Being an effective leader means that you lead your team to do the tasks that will lead to success.

In order for this to happen, your team needs to be aware of the exact vision and goals.

If there are no clear visions or goals for your team to follow, it may be difficult for them to work in a way that leads to that goal.

The first step to lead effectively is to share your vision and goals with your team right at the beginning.

What is it that you are looking to achieve? Specify the details. Your team will then know what they need to do and put into place the procedures that will lead them towards that goal.

Lead by example

Most times as a business owner, you may be in a position whereby you delegate tasks and get on with the more important work.

However, sometimes it helps to show your team or employees how work must be done.

Seeing someone in a more superior position making an effort to speak to customers or do tasks that they don’t need to do will motivate your team and they will want to do better.

Furthermore, as a business owner, doing a certain task that will contribute towards the business means that you’ll perform the task in the best way possible.

When your employees view how you have carried out a task, they are more likely to follow a similar pattern instead of taking shortcuts.

Ask for their input

When putting into place a new task or goal, ask for your employees’ input.

Ask for their opinions on the task, how it should be organised, what would be the most effective way to do it.

Asking for your employees’ opinions on important tasks or decisions makes them feel that their opinions matter and they feel proud to be part of the organisation’s journey.

This will increase their motivation making them want to work harder and in turn lead to faster growth.

Additionally, as your employees are doing the day to day work for the organisation, they would have good insight into matters that could help you put into place a well thought out task/decision.

It’s a win win situation.

Invest in them

One of the most important things for being an effective leader is to have the ability to retain your staff.

Caring about your staff, investing in their professional growth will ensure that you are an effective leader.

Have an employee who has potential? Get their loyalty by paying them well and sending them to training workshops or improving their skills.

They will respect you as a leader and are likely to be more loyal to the company, hence driving business success.

Respect your team and connect with them

Being an effective leader means that you understand your team and employees.

Being completely professional may create a wall that may demotivate your team.

Talk to your team, get to know them (not too close though) and be personable. Learn to balance professionalism and getting personal.

Your employees should feel that they can talk to you if there’s something that’s not quite ok with the job.

This openness will enable you to fix problems faster and be a more effective leader.

Reward your employees

When there’s a win, reward your employees.

Show them that their hard work is appreciated.

Compliment them, give them a bonus, take them out – show that they matter.

This will motivate your team to work harder. It isn’t about winning and rewards, what matters more to employees is that they know that their leader is proud of the work that they are doing and appreciates it.

Be positive

One of the best ways to be an effective leader is to be positive and hopeful.

As a business owner, you’ll know that there may be ups and downs.

It is how you handle the downs that will matter.

Employees will naturally feel low when the business is not doing well, they’ll feel demotivated and as an effective leader, it is your role to motivate your team, to keep them working effectively and productively.

Having a positive hopeful attitude will instil in your employees a positive can do attitude that will help you overcome many business obstacles.

Delegate tasks effectively

As an effective leader and business owner, you need to delegate tasks.

Delegating tasks to the right people with the right abilities means that the work will get done faster and you’ll move towards your goals more effectively.

Try not to micro-manage everything which will de-motivate staff and slow down the process.

As a business owner, there’s a tendency to want to do everything right and get involved in all the processes but sometimes you need to learn to trust your employees.

Teach your staff instead of bossing them around

On the other side of delegating tasks is teaching your staff.

When you delegate tasks, you are trusting that your staff will carry out your instructions well.

Incase they are unable to or they make mistakes, teach them. This shows that as a leader, you care about your staff and you are willing to teach them so that they do not make the same mistake again.

When working with new staff, instead of ordering them to do certain things, first teach them and then work with them as they learn how to do that task at hand.