Follow These Tips To Lead Your Business To Success

There are many good business leaders and managers in the world, but how many of them are great? Because it’s the great leaders that ultimately motivate their teams towards success.

Quite a few words come to mind when you think of successful small business owners and entrepreneurs: creative, successful, enthusiastic, risk taker, and many more.

However for more than half of all new small business owners, it doesn’t end well. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 60% of entrepreneurs who start businesses in Australia will fail within their first three years. This statistic is quiet alarming and you may ask ‘what does it take to lead your small business to success’?

It comes down to the type of leader you are. Here are 11 elements of a great leader that might come in useful to your small business success.

1. Be Part Of The Conversation

A leader doesn’t necessarily get into the position because they know everything about everything. If that were the case, a team of employees wouldn’t be necessary. This is because a leader is capable of bringing people together and leading the conversation down a productive road. Whether it’s just asking important questions, a leader needs to participate.

2. Be Creative

Leaders are natural problem solvers. It’s their job to look at their workforce and come up with solutions. This means if you want to prove why you are in the driver seat, you need to have positive ideas that drive the office in a productive direction.

3. Don’t Entertain Negative Energy

While it might be tempting to talk about other people while they are not in the room, especially when it’s something negative, it’s not something a leader does. Instead, a leader remains objective towards employees. This means they don’t entertain negative energy in the workplace by sharing negative personal opinions about others. Besides, it won’t increase the level of respect employees have for you, but you might just lose it if you can’t keep things professional.

4. Be Enthusiastic

Be an enthusiastic leader and remain positive – set the tone from the top

Employees and team members look to their business leader for motivation. For example, when the leader is negative about a project, everyone else is likely to follow the outlook. But when a leader shows enthusiasm and confidence about ideas and the work being done, it will naturally rally his or her team to feel the same.

5. Give Credit Where Credit Is Due – Learn To Listen

As much as a leader needs to be able to communicate their ideas and directions, they also need to be able to listen. In other words, when team members provide suggestions or ideas, acknowledge them and take them into consideration. And if the idea is good, give them the rightful credit.

This approach won’t just encourage an increase in morale and make employees feel more valuable. But it will also motivate them to go the extra mile and become more efficient.

6. Don’t Get Comfortable

It is very tempting to sit back and relax after working to get where you are. But a great leader will constantly be trying to better his or herself. So, instead of sitting back and relaxing, find ways to improve your work.

7. Replace Critique With Support

Simply put, being a professional critic all day long is not going to score points for you as a leader. However, it can make you a target for resentment. If you want to keep employees productive, provide a solution after pointing out what’s wrong. There’s no need to make a scene about something.

8. Keep Your Eye On The Target

Stay focused and keep your eyes on the long road ahead

Being in a leadership position might cause you to lose focus. In other words, you might get focused on promoting yourself instead of solving the problems you are responsible for fixing. It’s in your best interest to do your job as best you can if you want to see another promotion or want to land future clients.

9. Show Some Gratitude

It takes all of three seconds to thank somebody for their work, even if it’s something they are supposed to do every day. And show your gratitude in front of other employees in order to boost their confidence and morale. You’ll be amazed at how much a simple thank you can mean. This is central to transitional leadership and if you want to know more about this then read this piece titled ‘what is transformational leadership?‘

10. Always Be Prepared

Even if you haven’t yet developed your business into a thriving success, visualise yourself in that situation right now. Act like you need to know everything about what it would take to transform your business, then go ahead and learn it. Set specific goals and do everything you can to align your daily activities so that everything you do is directed towards realising your goals. Always be prepared.

11. Delegate to Experts

Successful business leaders recognise when someone can do a task better then they can. By recognising when you should delegate responsibility, you free up more of your time. As you know, time is your most valuable asset. Stop wasting your time and delegate responsibility to those who can do the job better than you.

For example, you don’t need to design a website, write all of your content and try to optimise it for search. You can get expert small business marketers, like Orion Marketing, to take care of these tasks while you focus on ensuring your business is successful.

Business Leader Wrap Up

Being aware of these 11 elements that make leaders great might come in useful for your own business success. From creative problem solving to maintaining positive energy, from setting targets and meeting them to delegating tasks where you need to, being a business leader can be tough, but ultimately rewarding and positively life changing.

Marshall Thurlow

Marshall Thurlow is Director and Founder of Orion Marketing Pty Ltd. He is a digital marketer with expertise in SEO, website design, content marketing and project management. With over 15 years of experience spanning government, not-for-profit and the private sector, he is well equipped to lead teams to success. He is a big proponent of environmental sustainability, critical thinking and progressive issues.