Creating An Effective Business Through Leadership ~ Team Pure Intent

The business tip of the week prompts us to be diligent in our communication with our team to yield the most success in our businesses. You may start out in your business venture as a singular entity but eventually you add others that make up a team to duplicate your ideals and vision to make your business soar and thrive. So how do you create an effective business through leadership? Is being trustworthy overrated and should we manage a team versus leading one?

CAUSE and EFFECT of your business
Are you the cause or the effect of your business? Do you CAUSE your team to go above and beyond the vision you have set before them to make that business thrive or do you CAUSE them to wait on every direction and micro-manage every step to building that business? Are you EFFECTING the team in a positive or negative way? So how can you be an EFFECTIVE leader? For the most part, trust is key to effective working relationships; yet, is trust harder to earn or easier to lose? Leadership is an intensely personal sport for you, the leader as well as the team you are leading. Although every leader is different, every leader must make sure they are articulating their leadership philosophy on a consistent basis.

TRUST? Are you worthy?
Trust is about an ability to rely upon or expect a predictable outcome. If you can clearly lay out how your people can expect you to behave in a variety of situations, they'll have a basic expectation upon which to build a foundation of trust. The root of all your trust issues lies in not clearly setting expectations of your behavior in the first place. So, are you trustworthy? Take a trust test and see how you can leverage your strengths and identify your weaknesses.

Manage or Lead?
What’s the difference between management and leadership? Well it boils down to meaning that you manage THINGS but you lead PEOPLE. Budgets, materials, programs, projects, etc. all get managed. These are tasks that can easily be managed by establishing a checklist. But how do you lead people?

You gotta know that people are funny, unpredictable, ambitious, can be complex, irrational, and/or emotional beings. Understanding all these aspects (and so much more) and somehow get them to do difficult things because they want to do them. Leadership is the ability to point the way and inspire. You can’t do that with a checklist. If you can create some principles for how you’ll lead, it can help you guide your team and keep consistency on a daily basis. With consistency you, the leader, becomes more predictable and more trustworthy.

Here are four things to keep in mind with developing your leadership skills:

Learn to Lead yourself by finding out what motivates you.
Get a grasp on where you’d like to take your business and define what your standards are so you can communicate that thoroughly to the team.
Once you figure out the goals and vision for your business and have communicated them to the team, begin to lead by example meaning do the tasks that most may deem as low-end or petty.
At the end of the work day, remember leading is not just for the workplace. Continue to lead a balanced life by adding time into your schedule for downtime and relaxation.