Small businesses often start with a business owner or a group of business owners with amazing business ideas that they bring to life. As the business grows, business owners recruit people into their businesses to help them to grow. One of the key challenges that owner-run and small business leaders face is delegating responsibilities to their teams and trusting them to perform their roles. There may be a tendency to micro-manage your team. The intent is mostly to ensure that they are doing a great job. This can be time-consuming and exhausting for the business leader.
Coaching will help you as a small business leader or entrepreneur achieve your goals. It will help you grow your business faster, and gain clarity and focus. A coach will bring an independent perspective to help you overcome the challenges that you are facing. As a result, this in turn helps you and your business to develop and grow and become successful. Your coach will hold you to account. Accountability tends to be one of the most challenging issues for business leaders and entrepreneurs.
The Challenge for Business Leaders to Delegate
Business leaders and entrepreneurs tend to wear many hats. Prioritisation is often an issue as a result. An executive coach will help you to prioritise what is important to your business. They will support you to focus on what your business needs. Thus, helping you to increase efficiency and productivity.
As your business grows, it may be challenging for you to delegate some responsibilities to others. The notion that no one can represent your business better than you can. You know your customers best, your products inside out and your team very well. You have built a thriving business and your business is growing because of the time and investment you have put in. However, to scale up your business, you will need to relinquish some of your responsibilities to others. This can be extremely hard for some business executives. Especially, for those who operate in niche markets and require technical expertise.
Business Leaders Need to Trust their Team
You will need to trust your staff and trust the team you have built. By trusting them, you will be able to provide them with the space they need to succeed. Hence, this will empower your team and you will be able to effectively delegate to others. You will have to enable them to grow, innovate and be creative. This can be scary. What if they make mistakes? Or what if your customers are unhappy with their service as a result? What if it all goes wrong? All these are justifiable questions that can be mitigated through building the right team, training and supporting them but more importantly, empowering them.
Communication
Small business leaders and entrepreneurs need to carve time to communicate with their teams. Setting clear goals and objectives will help you to communicate to your team what you are hoping to achieve. Because your team will understand your aims and objectives, your products, customers and business goals, they will be in a better position to support you.
Business leaders like yourself will have to ensure that your team are able to communicate effectively with you and with each other. Open, honest and direct communication, combined with a respectable company culture will help create a great working environment. Due to a good working environment, issues will be identified very quickly, and solutions can be agreed upon and implemented swiftly.
Change Management
Change can be daunting but if managed properly yields remarkable results. Growing a business involves constant change. This may impact what you do on a day-to-day basis. However, the recognition that you can’t do it all is important. And that it will not be sustainable long term if you do. An executive coach can help you to identify your strengths and help you to focus on what you are good at. They will help you in the transitioning process to ensure that you have the relevant people with the right skillset, structures and processes in place. Subsequently, this will help you to develop your growth mindset. Doing what you are good at and enabling the people around you to do what they are good at. What you hired them to do.
As your business grows, you may have to change your roles and responsibilities. For example, you may need to spend more time working on your business. You may also have to do this with your teams. You’ll have to look at what you do in your business and critically evaluate if they are still fit for purpose for your organisation moving forward. On top of those, you will also have to develop and organise your organisation to support your vision.
Self-Awareness and Self-Confidence
Executive coaching can help you as a small business leader or entrepreneur to become more self-aware and to grow in confidence. Times can be difficult sometimes, especially when things don’t go to plan. Your coach can help you regain your confidence or to remain positive. A great reminder of what you have achieved and how far you have come will help you. Self-awareness will increase your knowledge of your strengths and weaknesses. It will also make you more aware of how your emotions and behaviours as a leader impact your business, team and customers. As a result, you will become a more empathetic and a better leader with great self-awareness.
Self-confidence will give you the boost you need to believe in your goals. A key ingredient to achieving your goals. You become better at learning from your mistakes. And you will know when to ask for help and when to offer help to others.
Your Wellbeing as Business Leaders
When you are in control of your time and don’t need to be accountable to anyone, it is difficult to find time for your physical, mental, emotional and psychological wellbeing. You are therefore at risk of operating at burn-out. After all, you will do what it takes and what is necessary for your business to succeed.
You are at risk of working extremely long hours, 7 days a week. Your holidays tend to be working holidays and you rarely switch off. You see the need to check in all the time to ensure that everything is running smoothly. In your mind, you feel you will run a risk of coming back to huge workloads after your time off, even if it was just for one day.
Your wellbeing as a business leader or entrepreneur is especially important. It is important to make time and look after your wellbeing. Working with an executive coach will help you to create the space and time that you need to look after yourself.
Executive coaching can help you to develop your mindset and grow as an individual. It will help business leaders like you to achieve business growth, increase profitability and build a sustainable business. Read more on the benefits of executive coaching.