Small business owners and managers may not have the six-figure incomes, paneled offices and private jets of corporate executives but they have the same responsibility—leadership.
Top managers do not spring into existence out of nowhere.
They are selected because they are suited for the job, and they are carefully groomed through extensive training and a highly structured career path. They don’t just wake up one morning and find themselves in charge.
Small business owners, on the other hand, often do, and many of them are ill-equipped for it.
It is critical that a person who is thinking about starting a business find out how well she fits the leadership role she will have to assume. Corporations use tools to evaluate candidates for management, and small business owners should do the same.
You can play to your strengths and compensate for your weaknesses, but only if you understand them. To do so you must be willing to make the professional development of your senior management team—that is, you—as high a priority as it would be in any large corporation.
If you are unsure how well-suited you are for management you may want to try one of the self-report assessment tools such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®, the Strong Interest Inventory® or the Self-Directed Search®.
These instruments can be of great value in helping you to understand how your temperament and interests align with the “entrepreneurial profile”.
If you have a low tolerance for uncertainty the erratic income a small business provides could be a source of discomfort, but if you know this about yourself going in, you can be creative at finding ways to cope with it.
If you are the sort of person who is energized by the adventure of starting up a new business but balks at mundane activities such as establishing policies and procedures, you run the risk of finding yourself without the infrastructure you need to sustain growth. Again, if you are aware of this, you can bring in someone to help you with the details.
You can play to your strengths and compensate for your weaknesses, but only if you understand them. To do so you must be willing to make the professional development of your senior management team—that is, you—as high a priority as it would be in any large corporation.
Management development training is critical to the long-term growth of your business, and the most important skill you as the Chief Executive Office can acquire is understanding how best to invest your time.
It is common for small business owners to think they have to do everything themselves. Yet when you do something you are not good at just to save a few dollars, you end up losing twice. First, you lose the time it takes you to do the task—remember that time is money. Second, you lose the revenue your business could have brought in if you had spent that time doing what you are best at and what only you can do.
An example of this is the business owner who does her own bookkeeping when she should be meeting with potential customers or developing new products.
The future of your business depends on knowing how to put the right person in the right place at the right time.
Sometimes this means hiring a consultant who has expertise that you don’t.
Sometimes it means learning a new skill. Sometimes it means getting out of the way and allowing one of your employees a freer hand. In every case, it means reaching for a new level in your own professional development. When the owner of a business doesn’t grow, the business doesn’t either. The cost of professional stagnation is too high. You can’t afford it.
The way to make your small business “fail-safe” is to utilize the best practices of large businesses: due diligence, market research, identity communication, and leadership development, to know your market, your business and yourself.