Leading Others

Communicate goals – Nothing is more frustrating than not knowing what is going on. Employees who come to work each day and feel ignored – or uniformed about where the company is going and what it is trying to achieve – are like ships without rudders adrift on the ocean. You cannot lead through others if they don’t know where you want to go.

Instead, ensure you have regular ways of communicating with all employees. This involves holding regular group meetings to involve employees in establishing objectives for the company and its various departments. It includes posting these objectives in public places so all can be reminded of them. And it extends to your reinforcing informally through any daily contact with employees the importance of the jobs that they are doing and how they are linked to achieving the company’s goals. In-house newsletters can be an effective communication tool.

Celebrate successes – At the same time you begin to communicate goals more clearly to everyone, you also need to start tracking your progress towards achieving those goals. Otherwise your efforts will be wasted and the energies you have started into motion will wither because staff will not receive feedback on how well they are doing.

Solicit feedback from customers and publicize any praise the company receives. Set profit targets for each area and hand out rewards when they are achieved. Those rewards don’t need to be money – try giving extra days off, promotion and more responsibility or special awards of excellence. Hold celebrations in honour of winning large orders or important contracts or bring in food and refreshments to reward people who have to stay late to meet the deadline. Remember that regular small things you do to encourage people are more important than infrequent large ones.

Learn to delegate – Perhaps the single most important aspect of taking your company to the next level is learning to delegate more of your work to other staff as you hire them. Entrepreneurs are notorious for being self-starters and action-oriented. As their companies grow, they need to become more comfortable doing less of the actual work themselves and directing others instead. The larger their companies grow, the further they become removed from the daily tasks of production, marketing and selling – and the closer they move to organising, coordinating and leading others.

© 2009 "Start Small, Grow Big" Barbara Mowat and Ted James, with the contribution of William Erichson on Chapter 6, "Financing A Growing Business". All rights reserved. Reproduced with permission. No part of this work may be reproduced, distributed, amended, modified, edited, transmitted in any form, or translated in any way without the prior written permission of the copyright owners. www.ImpactCommunicationsLtd.com.

Page 1 | 2