SCORE's Top Leadership Tips Reach your full leadership potential with these ideas.
5 Tips for Hands-On Leadership
- Be there. Entrepreneurs warn that a successful business can slip when an owner isn't there at least part of every day, keeping in touch with how things are going.
- Set an example for working hard. One wholesale bakery owner sometimes sleeps on the couch in his office so he can be there when the early shift comes in at 4 a.m.
- Don't confuse "hands on" managing with micro-management. Set objectives and offer guidance, but don't make employees do every little thing your way. Gauge what they do by the results.
- Understand your business down to the last detail. The founder of a toy-store chain visits the stores and spends time doing each job (selling, clerking, etc.) and observing customers' reactions.
- Stay in touch with "stakeholders"--including customers, employees and suppliers.
5 Tips for Renewing Yourself as a Leader
- Take a time-out each day. Put a "Gone Thinking" sign on your door and don't let anyone disturb you.
- Pursue hobbies and interests outside your business. They'll provide relaxation and may inspire creative ideas you can feed back into the business.
- Take a vacation or a sabbatical. (But first, make sure you leave the company in good hands!)
- Spend time with your family. Kids provide a refreshing perspective.
- Do something you've always wanted to do but never did--learn to build a house, or take a course in acting.
5 Tips on Cultivating Confident Employees
- Ask them to be responsible for progressively larger projects.
- Use them as examples (in their presence) when describing to others how to do something.
- Give them feedback at various times during a project--not just at its completion.
- Send a note of praise to them or better still, to their direct boss.
- Ask for their opinions and advice on matters not necessarily related to their normal duties.
5 Tips on Effective Leadership
- Communicate clearly and routinely. Lay out your company goals and principles in a mission statement and keep sharing your vision with your employees.
- Involve employees in setting objectives. Give them feedback on how they're progressing toward meeting those targets.
- Give your people authority, then hold them accountable. But don't go after them personally when things go wrong. Find out first if the process is at fault.
- Be accountable yourself. Install an advisory board or executive team to help you make good strategic decisions and give you feedback on your own performance.
- Be trustworthy and extend trust to your employees. That'll help you earn their loyalty and strengthen your company.
5 Tips on Exemplary Leadership
- Give employees their freedom. Communicate the goals and let them figure out how to reach those goals. They want control over their working lives.
- Create an environment that encourages energy and spirit. That leads to happy customers.
- Strive to help employees feel that when they have accomplished the business's goals, they have also accomplished their own personal goals.
- Create a sense of meaningful purpose. Most workers want to feel they're engaged in something "larger than themselves."
- Recognize that leadership means responsibility and stewardship. "Leadership isn't rank, privileges, titles or money," says management thinker Peter F. Drucker.
5 Tips on Creating an Innovative Environment
- Show your employees you think of innovation as an ongoing process. Some ideas will work and many won't. Keep experimenting.
- Listen, listen, listen. Innovation is a collaborative process.
- Be open to "accidents," the unexpected connections that spark new ideas. Inspiration comes from everywhere--often from outside your own field.
- Draw on your own employees--they know the company's problems and goals best. This is probably one time you don't need outside consultants.
- Be patient. Creativity can't be hurried.
5 Tips on Empowering Your Employees
- Organize an orientation session; answer the most frequently asked questions and walk employees through solving problems common to your business.
- Provide employees with the history behind procedures and policies. Background is essential for good decision making.
- Furnish the necessary resources. Whether it's a list of your contacts or where to find appropriate forms, give your employees the opportunity to succeed.
- Teach employees where to turn when they can't solve a problem; always going to the president shouldn't be the solution.
- Learn to delegate. Delegating tasks will build confidence and teach employees the necessary steps to follow in your business.
5 Tips on Knowing When You're Getting Stale
- If you've been running your business 10 years or more, it's probably time for fresh leadership. Consider bumping yourself up to chairman and getting a new CEO.
- Recognize that fatigue and boredom are signs you've been at the helm too long.
- Answer honestly: Are you resistant to new ideas and risks? It so, you may be impeding your company's progress.
- Ask yourself if you're still growing and learning. If not, that's another sign of personal stagnation as a leader.
- If you think you're becoming too set in your views, surround yourself with people who challenge your thinking.
- Recognize when you've outrun your abilities. When one entrepreneur saw that her skills weren't adequate to manage her company, she hired a president to handle day-to-day operations.
- Get a CEO coach. Skilled consultants can help you learn how to take your company to the next level. SCORE can help.
- Open yourself to being transformed. Listen, really listen, to employees. Let go of old notions of leadership (managing by fear, for example).
- Be self-aware. Many business owners say self-awareness is essential to understanding what leadership style works for you.
- Be a servant leader. Consider it your responsibility to serve employees and customers.
5 Tips on Teaching Employees to "Own" Their Work
- Include them in long- and short-term planning efforts.
- Ask for their input on projects for which they're held responsible.
- Include them on top-level discussions, conferences and meetings when appropriate.
- Allow them to byline the work they wrote or to speak at the presentation they helped prepare.
- Help them to become more vested in the work by asking for their opinion. Ask what, if anything, should be done to make the next project easier.
5 Tips on What Employees Want from You as a Leader
- Employees want to trust you and you to trust them. Begin by being trustworthy and extending trust.
- Employees want good two-way communication. Begin by being a good listener.
- Employees want to be challenged. Set forth your vision and goals clearly and then let your workers exercise their creativity and authority in meeting your goals.
- Employees want accountability. Not only should you hold them accountable for their own performance but you should measure your own performance as well.
- Employees want recognition. Offer praise and express appreciation at every opportunity.
Brought to you by SCORE , "Counselors to America's Small Business."