The Part of Leadership No One Tells You About

Many people who start or run a business can often hyper-fixate on making money. 

Firstly, let’s be clear that making money to afford a better quality of life and financial security is not a bad thing! This is to particularly address those that hyperfixate on profits, sales and dividends they receive every quarter and who also completely overlook the importance of strong leadership.

There are plenty of reputable reports and well-researched studies that prove that strong leadership provides clarity and encourages teams to be more productive which in turn makes the businesses more profitable. So why don’t more business leaders, founders and entrepreneurs adopt this in their leadership styles?

The short answer is, it’s not convenient to them personally because true leadership involves sacrifice. Not literal sacrifice like something out of Apocolypto (2007), but sacrificing your own comforts, personal goals and insecurities to ensure the teams you lead and the people you work with are empowered to drive your business forward. Many people want to be in positions of leadership (because of the big paycheck) but they don’t want to sacrifice their time, headspace, and egos. You can’t have your cake and eat it too! Taking on a leadership role comes with massive responsibilities that many overlook or ignore.

Growing and managing a business is no small feat despite what you see on social media. The bit that you don’t see of extremely successful entrepreneurs, especially at the beginning stages of their journey, is that they had to sacrifice certain things in the short-term to get their venture into a multi-million or mulit-billion figure business. They may have had to sacrifice time with loved ones, their down-time, working to a typical 9-5 schedule, holidays and even pay. Because they were visionaries, they understood that short-term sacrifice leads to long-term wins.

One of the questions we ask our clients is, “Are you prepared to increase your capacity and availability to ensure the success of the project?” Their answer is very telling of their leadership style and whether a partnership between us is realistically going to work and produce the results they’re after. Leadership is a very important part of what we do and offer our clients.

Whatever new ventures you start, whether your business is in the infant stages or have been established for a while, there is always going to be something you need to be willing to sacrifice to get it to a profitable stage. Remember, financial success is a byproduct of incredible leadership.

Here’s an example of terrible leadership and how it impacts the business. A founder decides to go on holiday for a few months. Although it’s important to take time for self-care, there were no structures set in place to take on the responsibilities of the founder while he was away. Projects couldn’t be signed off and planning couldn't take place because it required the presence and input of the founder. After a few months have gone by, the founder comes back and there’s an extreme pressure on teams to make up for the time that was lost. This massively impacts morale, creativity and even profits as everyone’s playing catch up and teams are under unnecessary stress.

What should have happened is that the founder should have foreseen what could or couldn’t happen in their absence. They should have considered hiring someone to take on the founder’s responsibilities in the interim (financial sacrifice), take a shorter holiday (personal sacrifice) or putting systems in place to provide input remotely (time sacrifice).

True leadership is about empowering your team, regular communication and providing support where necessary. This fosters a sense of trust among your employees and external service providers, boosts morale and encourages innovation, positively impacting both the company's culture and its bottom line.

Does your company need leadership training?

If you believe your senior management team and company would benefit from leadership training, get in touch with us.

We offer customised workshops designed to enhance leadership skills, improve team dynamics, and drive organisational success. These programmes are designed for companies who are dedicated to fostering growth and inspiring change, ensuring that your leaders are prepared to become effective in their roles and equipped with the tools they and their teams need to excel.