Small Business Owners: Your Leadership Style Can Increase ‘Profits’
Covid-19 pandemic has forced a lot of business closures. Government leaders are issuing stay-at-home orders and the government is reopening in phases, which has limited customers sizes to 25%, 50% and 75% for the health safety of our community. How can you lead in constant changing environment? How do you motivate employees and simultaneously look for the next product to keep the doors open? How do you change your management style to be an effective leader in such a uncertain future and ‘doing more with less’ employees.
Leadership
I suggest send out a survey of what qualities they want to see in a CEO (then pledge to do everything you can to live up to these expectations)
Leaders need to provide coaching, because no one ever got to be the best without the constructive feedback, probing questions and active teaching. Be honest and positive in all communication messaging.
Search for opportunities to improve
- What’s new?
- What’s next?
- What’s better? And not just for yourself but also for those around you.
- Find a significant purpose for addressing your challenging and most difficult assignments.
Who you are and what your values are (then you give voice to those values)
Leader must affirm the shared values of the group.
Inspire a shared vision
- Envision the future by imagining, exciting and enabling possibilities
- Enlist others in a common vision by appealing to shared aspirations
- Imagine the possibilities
- Find a common purpose
Leaders who focus on the future attract followers more readily
- Read trends
- Listening to Podcasts
- Watching documentaries
People regard most favorably those leaders who regularly talk about the ‘why’ of work and not just the ‘what’ of work
People who are leaders want to do something significant, accomplish something that no one else has yet to achieved.
Motivating Employees
- Cross Training Employees about each other roles/responsibilities
- Mentoring
- ‘how can I help you?’… walking around 30 minutes a week
- Delegating responsibilities
- Brown Bag lunches (training)
- Praise and Work for work above normal day activities
Sending them to seminars
Have them to do presentations
Quarterly Corporate Town hall Meetings (teleconference)
Weekly recognition of outstanding performers
- Walking around
- Must be based on ‘visible’ performance (daily if outstanding)
- Monthly meeting (recognize your performers)
Social Media interaction with customers
- Do you have a scalable website (WordPress)
- Do you have LinkedIn profiles about employees and products
- Engaging with customer markets about current happenings
- Weibo (china)
Finally, some business owners will make the necessary changes to keep afloat and some will drown. Navigating in rough waters, takes a team effort, innovations and commitment to ride it out!!!!
Your job as a business leader is to communicate, communicate with honesty and positivity to build trust in customers, employees and shareholders.
