Lacking Leadership Stalls Business Growth

Your company can have all the makings of a successful business, but it won’t help much without the backing of strong leadership skills. Here’s how to improve them.

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There’s a specific starting point if you’re looking to grow your business. Skip it and any growth efforts will be minimized, or even end in failure. But if you do this one step, you’ll give your company the foundation to allow it to grow as big and as profitably as you want.

It’s a simpler concept than you might think: It’s leadership.

Your ability to lead is what drives your company forward, but it’s also the limit to which your company can grow. Some companies don’t fully realize this and they find external problems and situations to place the blame on, from competitors to customers to employees to a challenging business environment. But the truth is that it’s your leadership that will either overcome these barriers or succumb to them.

Every cleaner who wants to grow their business first needs to look inward at their own leadership abilities and focus on them. And as you become a stronger leader, the other pieces of the puzzle will fall into place, transforming problems into opportunities and challenges into benefits — sometimes in surprising ways.

You’ll Lead Your Employees

The most obvious component of leadership is your ability to lead your employees. Employees may sometimes seem like they want to do their own thing, but the reality is that if they’re doing this, it’s because you are not a strong enough leader. As a strong leader, you set the standard for what you expect from your employees and you set the pace for how you want them to do business. Employees will surprisingly step up or get out of the way.

You’ll Lead Your Leads And Customers

A less-obvious area of leadership is how you lead both your potential customers and existing customers. Customers have difficulty making decisions about their home and plumbing needs, usually because they don’t have your expertise plus they are reluctant to spend money. As a leader, you can step up and show them what they need to do and lead them to make the best choices for their family. They’ll be glad to have a strong leader to follow who gives them confidence that they are making the right decision.

You’ll Lead Your Industry And Competitors

When you step up as a strong leader, you’ll create a business that succeeds. A business that others look to as an example. You’ll stand apart from your competitors in your industry as an innovative, hard-working thought-leader who becomes the go-to person for their leadership and expertise. You’ll create more opportunities for yourself thanks to the strength of your leadership abilities.

Tips To Become A Stronger Leader

If you want to become a stronger leader, here’s how to do it:

  • Study leadership. Learn the skills and adopt the characteristics of strong leaders. Embed them in your brain and your actions.
  • Set a vision and communicate that vision to others. Inspire other people with your vision. Don’t forget to make your vision bigger than yourself so that others can see how they can be part of that vision too.
  • Get courageous. Being a leader means being bold and confident, and moving forward, even when the way to move forward doesn’t necessarily seem clear or easy. It takes courage, but that courage will inspire others to follow and they’ll help to make the way easier.
  • Model other leaders. Find leaders who are setting the standard in their lives and businesses, whose methods and strategies you can model. They have proven the effectiveness of their leadership and you can borrow those same skills and apply them in your business.
  • Be persistent. Leaders start. And they never stop. A strong leader pushes forward no matter what.

Maybe your business is just starting out. Maybe it’s struggling. Or maybe it’s already growing, but you want it to grow further and faster. The only way to create any transformation and to elevate the success of your company is by first looking inward and becoming a stronger leader. Leadership is a skill. It’s one that can be learned. And when you learn it, you take the first steps to growing your business.

About the Author

Mike Agugliaro is the “Business Warrior” and founder of CEO Warrior, a business consulting, training and mentoring firm, providing tested and proven methods to defeat the roadblocks that prevent small to mid-sized businesses from achieving their ultimate success. He has played a key role in building Gold Medal Services’ success, as co-owner of the company. For more information about CEO Warrior, visit www.CEOWARRIOR.com.



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