Lead People with Clarity and Discipline
This is the fourth part of running your business successfully. You can read the first part, the second part here, and the third part here.
We will be looking at leadership in this part. Leadership isn’t just about being a leader or owing the business. It is more than that.
Leadership doesn't necessarily mean you should be a motivational speaker.
Leadership is clarity and communicating your points to people under you. It is how you make decisions that affect your business and the people.
Many businesses do not fail due to lack of funds or lack of innovation, they fail due to leadership. Many owners complain that their staff are lazy and do as they wish.
The truth is that it reflects your personality. A weak leadership leads to random work culture and leads to staff acting as they wish.
Clear expectations
Your staff aren’t lazy, most of them don’t know what is expected from them. To avoid situations like this every now and then, you must have a list of set standards that must be followed. You must let your staff know what good work is about and reward them for doing such good work.
When expectations are clear people perform better when the target is visible.
Build a culture of responsibility
You hear culture and wonder if it’s the same culture you know. Culture in business is the behaviour of every individual in your business.
If your business tolerates low quality or lateness, it becomes a culture and people know that with your business. You hear customers saying they sell knock-offs in that company or they don’t attend to customers until 11am. That is the culture we are talking about.
Every business has a culture whether we like it or not and they are things you tolerate knowingly or unknowingly overtime.
You define your company culture by what you reward, ignore, and what you punish.
Hire the right people and keep them
The wrong set of people in your business can drain your energy and that is why you need to employ the right people. You shouldn’t hire based on emotion but attitude, skill, and relatability.
You should train your staff well and correct them if they do anything wrong. You can implement stick and carrot approach by being firm but fair.
Banks have graduate trainee programs where they teach new entrants on the basic and advanced stages in their industry. If anyone doesn’t meet the standard after coaching, then you should replace them and let them go.
Make informed decisions
Numbers don’t lie. Your decisions should be made from the data available not just on guess work. A disciplined leader follows the numbers. You must look at data from
- Sales
- Costs
- Productivity
- Inventory
- Feedback
Data is the truth that protects your business from bad decisions.
Lead by example
There is a saying that your business is what you are. If you are disorganized, your business becomes disorganized because that is what your staff see daily.
Leadership starts with your behavior before it reaches your staff. If you are disciplined, your staff will be in their best behavior.
Final Thoughts
Leadership is a key part in a business, and it can make or mar any business. A bad leader can sink any good company and a good leader can turn the fortunes around.