Step Up Your Leadership - Guiding Your Team as an Online Service Business Owner

As you journey along the 2022 business superhighway what steps will you take to enhance your leadership skill set? What does leadership mean to you?

Whether you are a team of one (just you), or a team of two or more, thinking about your leadership proposition will help you strengthen and grow personally and in your business. 

Look to the Past to Determine your Leadership Path Forward. 

Leadership is one of those terms that means different things to different people.  The term leadership can take on different definitions if you are leading or being led, it can be defined by characteristics, or it can unfold through action or inaction. 

Being in a leadership role has its challenges.  If you are a leader, you’ve naturally developed many of the skills you need to lead.  Others have instinctively looked to you for direction, guidance, problem solving, information or resources. Yet, as a leader, you are constantly striving to improve. One way to do this is to think about situations where you have been led.  What characteristics, actions or inactions have been most meaningful to you?  What draws you to a leader?  What repels you?  

Leadership is Earned

One misstep I see many leaders take is to assume that leadership is synonymous with a title.  Quite the opposite is true, as leadership is earned. Leaders are respected because they possess certain qualities or behave in specific ways. Having an important sounding title will not ensure leadership credibility. Instead, it is actions and communications that inspire confidence. You may have experienced leaders that confidently express their opinions, yet concede when they don’t know the answer or need more information. The ability to express when you don’t know an answer lends credibility. When people in leadership positions try to position themselves as knowing all the answers, those they lead will see through this facade immediately and the leader will lose credibility. We often experience intense pressure in leadership situations, feeling like we need to have the answers. Instead of bowing to the pressure of the moment, consider taking a breath, then a step back, acknowledging the open issue, and making a commitment to find the answer and return with it.  

Leaders are Listeners

Have you ever been in a meeting or on a committee, and the meeting organizer monopolizes the agenda, hearing only their own voice? They may solicit input, but only as filler between topics and not with a view to actually listen or process what others are contributing.  An essential characteristic of strong leaders is listening as much as or more than they speak.  By listening to their constituents or participants, effective leaders are in a much better position to advance their agenda.  And meeting participants have much more respect for the leader because they are not only heard, but their opinions are respected and contribute to solving the problems at hand. 

Action and Inaction Enhance Your Role as a Leader

One of the best definitions I’ve heard for leadership, and unfortunately I don’t have a source, is a leader is someone who does the right thing for the right reasons all the time, even when no one is watching.  At its core, this means finding your true north as a leader and using it as your guidepost. This may mean making hard decisions, likely unpopular, and following through with them.  And many of these decisions will be made in the absence of anyone who notices at the moment.  But at some point the hard decision you make today will show you a return in the future. Although it is almost always easier to kick the can down the road, it will almost always be harder to deal with the issue or situation later.   

Even harder than taking action on something, is taking no action at all.  Leading by inaction can be important to help your followers solve problems on their own with you as a nearby resource, or it can be the best decision at the time.  It’s important, though, to appreciate the difference between intentional inaction and choosing not to act.  Ignoring a problem because it’s uncomfortable, unpleasant, time-consuming or unpopular isn’t choosing to take no action, it’s choosing not to act or kicking that proverbial can down the road for a later date or perhaps until those who may be impacted have forgotten or given up on having their problems addressed.  True inaction is about choosing not to do something because you are guiding someone else to take the action, you know that further discussion may be needed before the best decision can be made, or there is a sequence of events that must occur before your issue is ripe for specific action by you. Ultimately the decision or action will come; you are intentionally choosing to defer it. 

Your Leadership Challenge

Over the next week keep some notes about leadership styles.  Observe people in leadership roles.  How do they act?  How do they present themselves physically?  Do they make eye contact, do they engage others around them as part of the process? Do they always have an answer, or take time to consider difficult decisions or research unknown answers? Are they listeners, or do they only fill all of the time and space with their own voice? After you have some notes, think about your own leadership style and how you might like to improve. Identify a single trait that you admire and would like to exhibit more of, and commit to finding opportunities to work on that skill.  Once you feel you have some mastery and comfort around that skill, look at your list or repeat the exercise.  Over time you’ll find your confidence as a leader increasing exponentially.