Growing a small business is hard. As a business owner and leader, you are expected to wear multiple hats, think on the fly and make dozens of decisions every day.
As the business grows, leadership becomes one of the biggest drivers of long-term success, even though many business owners don't start their careers as managers. While every leader develops their own management style, a recent study from Gallup found that effective leadership consistently comes back to a handful of core competencies, including developing people, building relationships and communicating clearly.
For small business owners, those principles can be put into practice in three ways: Continue developing your management skills, create an environment where employees can succeed and build operational systems that support your team.
1. Continue developing your management skills
No one wakes up knowing exactly how to manage people. Like any skill, leadership skills develop over time through experience, feedback and the willingness to keep learning.
As a company gets bigger, so do the responsibilities of leaders. Learning how to give and receive feedback, communicate clearly, and most importantly, adapt management styles to individual employees are all skills that improve over time.
Reading books on management and leadership, attending training sessions or simply learning from leaders you admire are all practical ways to continue developing your management skills. Even setting aside time to reflect on what's working, where you're struggling and how you can improve can make a meaningful difference. Experts at Harvard University also recommend seeking feedback and creating a plan for continued development.
2. Create an environment where employees can succeed
Employees do their best work when they know what's expected of them, feel supported and know their contributions matter.
Creating that kind of environment doesn't require grand gestures and comes from setting clear expectations, recognizing strong performance, communicating consistently and making time for regular conversations with employees.
According to a Gallup study, employees who receive meaningful recognition are nine times more likely to be engaged at work. The same research found employees who receive high-quality recognition are 45% more likely to remain with their organization over time.
3. Support good leadership with good systems
After a great working environment is established, creating an operational system to support it is just as important.
Reliable payroll, an organized and robust onboarding program and consistent processes help remove unnecessary issues for both employees and managers. They also free leaders to spend less time on administrative work and more time developing their teams. Technology plays an important role in making that possible. According to a Saleforce study on small and medium-sized businesses, 76% of SMBs invest more in technology today than they did a year ago. The report also found that businesses that prioritize improving their existing technology and implementing new tools are growing.
Strong systems aren't limited to payroll, onboarding or HR needs. They also include consistent one-on-one meetings, clear processes and consistent communication, all of which give employees the support they need to do their jobs well.
Building a successful business takes more than a great product or service. It takes leaders who are willing to continue learning, create an environment where employees can do their best work and lay the right foundation in place to support growth.
Those investments don't have to happen all at once. And for many SMBs, they simply can’t.
But implementing a mindset of continuous improvement and setting aside time and earmarking capital toward reliable systems will help shape your culture, strengthen your team and build a business that's prepared for whatever comes next.
