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Small businesses have always been, and they will continue to be, the engine for the success of the U.S. economy.
Owner-entrepreneurs have passion about their ideas and a willingness to take the risk to prove that their product or service is better than anyone else's.
Unfortunately, only 80 percent of start-ups survive the first five years.
Owners of businesses in the early years of operation are comfortable with the tasks of creating, producing and promoting their product or service.
However, with growth and success the tasks become more extensive and more complicated, outside influences start to take greater effect, competition becomes more intense, more staffing is required, the financial aspects of the business become more critical.
The owner grows as a manager by being involved in all of these tasks ... and the owner tends to stay within this comfort zone of learning by experience.
With rare exceptions, the difficulty these owners face is moving outside their comfort zone of completing tasks and manager orientation to a mode of personal leadership to take their business to a new level of success.
As a broad generalization, managers concern themselves with tasks while leaders concern themselves with people. The difference lies in the leader realizing that the achievement of the task comes about through the goodwill and support of others, while the manager tends not to understand this difference.
Leadership involves power by influence of people.
A leader has the role of causing others to follow a path he has laid out or a vision he has articulated in order to achieve a task. People often see the task as subordinate to the vision.
For instance, an organization might have the overall task of generating profits, whereas a leader will see profits as a by-product that flows from whatever aspect of their business vision differentiates their company from the competition.
Leadership is not a single-person activity, it is critical at every level of the business. Leadership begins at the top, at the owner's level, but it must permeate through every level of the business as part of the culture.
Every employee must be encouraged to move outside his or her own comfort zone to participate in contributing to the growing success of the organization.
What are the principles of leadership that will support building this culture of leadership throughout the organization?
John Brock, who teaches leadership classes at the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University, has compiled thirteen principles of leadership that he adapted from the United States Military Academy as follows:
- Know yourself and seek self improvement.
- Be technically and tactically proficient.
- Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions.
- Make sound and timely decisions.
- Set the example.
- Know your employees and look out for their well-being.
- Keep your employees well informed.
- Develop a sense of responsibility in your subordinates.
- Insure that the task is understood, supervised and accomplished.
- Train your employees as a team.
- Employ your team in accordance with its capabilities.
- Set your priorities.
- Take the initiative.
There is nothing complicated in these principles of leadership, and they apply to any size organization. Following these principles is not rocket science and will allow you to move outside your comfort zone of management of tasks into leadership of people. And people throughout the organization can be trained to follow the same principles and provide leadership at their own level within the organization.
The more the owner and the staff apply these principles, the more they will find themselves dragging difficult challenges into their comfort zone.
Reprinted from Capital Region Business Journal, Madison, Wisconsin, March 2007 issue.
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