As the owner of the business it is your responsibility to develop, manage and run the enterprise and while you will not, and should not, do every task that is required you are accountable for them; as President Harry S Truman was heard to say on many occasions “the buck stops here”, and this applies to you as the business owner.
Arguably the most important thing for any business owner is to realise the importance of leadership, and what does leadership mean: a leader not only keeps themselves and everyone else focused on the game they also determine what the game is. It is a leader’s job to develop a vision for what is to be accomplished in the business and then create the environment in which everyone can share responsibility as well as the rewards that go with succeeding.
There are three components to leadership – leaders, followers and goals; the skill is keeping them in balance and by this I mean that the leader is a mentor who keeps the team on track and creates an environment for success towards goals which are mutually committed to by all participants.
The leader who gets the best out of all the team including themselves must remain motivated and focused at all times on the outcomes needed to achieve the results they want. Indeed in many schools, in the early phase of development, the owner may not have a team and will need to constantly keep themselves on track. To do this may require a paradigm shift for many owners as they move from teaching to running a business and all that entails. But running a business does not mean that you sacrifice teaching or martial arts quality because the product (teaching students) is still the centre of the business. But it is not the only area that must have focus if you are to have a successful enterprise – getting and keeping students is vital as well as managing performance against all your key objectives.
Both Dale Carnegie and Dr Stephen Covey have referred to a triangle of success in getting the best out of ourselves and others; I believe that they gave a great insight into management and leadership when we get everyone to apply consistently all of the following characteristics in unison:
- Knowledge
- Skill
- Attitude (the “will” to do what you need to do)
Only when all three of the attributes come together can success really flow. Many people will have both the “knowledge” and the “skill” but without the “will” to do the tasks and to follow through – success will elude them. Others will have both the “knowledge” and a “will” but without the training to get the “skill” again success will not come. Only when all three are there within the leader, and those leaders have helped their team to acquire all three, will success ultimately be achieved.
If you would like to discuss the above in more detail just call the NEST team on 0115 945 5030.
Quote of the week:
“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader success is all about growing others.”
Jack Welch, American business executive (Chairman and CEO of General Electric between 1981 & 2001), author and chemical engineer.
