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There is no doubt that a lot of the best leaders have a strong ‘first position’. This becomes apparent almost as soon as you initially meet them: they start most of their sentences with the word ‘I’.I have worked with several of these leaders recently and it is quite common to find that ‘I position’ leaders reach, sooner or later, a glass ceiling with their business growth. Often they cannot understand this. After all, ‘first position’ although they almost certainly don’t recognise it as such, is how they built the business for the last 20 or 30 years. They say “Well it’s always worked before, so why shouldn’t it work now.”
And the answer is that charismatic ‘first position’ leaders are great at starting businesses; their strong, hands on approach works. It works until the number of people they have to manage suddenly becomes too large. What is that number? It could be six or sixty; it all depends on the leader and on the type of business.
When this is explained, they say “Well, what do I do?” The answer is always the same. “If you want to grow your business you will need to grow a management team. To do that you will need to change how you think, change what you do and change how you behave.”
These leaders then fall into two camps. The first are those that cannot do this. They may lack the self esteem necessary to make the changes, they may never have trusted others sufficiently or they may simply feel safer staying exactly where they are.
The second group change in a split second. It is as if they have seen the light; suddenly it is all about openness, honesty and transparency. Staff are often amazed, staggered even, at this transition.
How do I know when it’s working? These leaders start most of their sentences with the word ‘we’.
Labels: Leaders that grow their businesses and those that don't
posted by Tim @ 3:02 AM
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