3 Ways to Stop Managing Your Business and Start Leading It

Imagine you are trapped in the middle of a concrete box. There are 4 walls, 50 feet high, and the only thing you can see is the sky. On each wall there is a rope hanging down for you to climb. You have no idea what’s on the other side of each wall. How do you choose which one to climb?

There are 2 ways to look at this problem and ultimately the difference between being a manager and a leader. The walls are your business or your creative ideas around your business and as a leader you are the rope. You decide how your team will climb the rope and which one they should climb. The climb is the work to be done, or in our case, the manager. As a leader you must be able to tell your people, "Whoops. Hey guys wrong rope!"

If you find yourself getting caught in the minutia of the day to day items inside your business - the "climb"- you are a manager, not a leader. If  you constantly undermine, helicopter, and have your fingers in every aspect of your business inside and out, you are a manager. All the while, you drive your team absolutely crazy. If this is you, news flash, this is not leading. 

In order to have a successful business, you must focus on leading the business NOT managing it. Here are 3 things you can do right now to become a better leader. 

3 Steps Towards Becoming a Better Leader

STEP 1: Establish a Mission for your business. Are you clear on what your business is all about? Who you serve? Why you serve them? And the change you wish to see in the world? If not, you need a mission statement for your business.

• A mission statement serves almost like a road map for what you want to create. When done correctly, you will be able to see where you are now, where you want to go, why you want to go there, and how exactly you will get there.

• It is a process that you will follow to see the dream for your business realized. What makes your business special? How do you deliver your services in a manner that no one else does?

• And most importantly, it holds the keys to rallying your team around a clear direction. Have you ever played a sport? If so, you ultimately know that you need a "game plan" in order to be successful. If you just load the team up (ie your business) and let them run wild and free your chances of success are limited. A mission gives you the game plan and gets the team on the same page of moving towards success.

STEP 2: Trust is Given. The idea of "earning trust" is an old story that needs to be thrown in the garbage. Trust needs to be earned only after it has been lost. Lead your people by delegation and instruction with a heart-centered approach and they will show up powerfully in your business because they will feel like you trust them to do a job.

• You must have clear guidelines for your people to follow. A "way" of doing things. For example, if your business is ABC Orthopedics, what is the "ABC Ortho Way" of doing things?

• Too many leaders hire and give little direction as to how specifically they want their business ran. This is called leading with abdication. You bring someone in with experience, let them run wild in your show and then turn around and say, "When did they start doing that? That's not how we do things here."

• Trust just went out the window and you immediately think to yourself that you're the only one that knows how to run the business correctly. BUT, did you teach them how things are to be done in YOUR business? Did you provide them in great detail the expectation at every turn of the business?

• You must be able to provide your team a road map of how you like each position in YOUR business run. Then let them go and do it without you hovering over them. Teach them your values and your system!

• *Remember* people are paid for their backs, elbow grease, hard work, support, ethics, & determination at work everyday. They volunteer their hearts and minds. You have a duty to serve your people.

STEP 3: Work Backwards. Do you ever feel like you're flying by the seat of your pants everyday - taking care of clients/product management, finding a good marketer to bring in more patients, maintaining customer service excellence, etc - and then at the end of the month looking at your revenue and comparing it to last month? 

Here's the thing - you must stop looking at month to month goals or year over year goals with no end goal in mind. Start with your end goal and work backwards. If you're just working tirelessly hoping you will go somewhere with a month to month goal in mind you will not get very far. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but hope holds zero ambition. Build a plan by starting with the end goal in mind.

• Where do you see your business going?

• How many locations?

• How much revenue?

• How many employees?

• How long will it take to reach your goals?

• When you sell it how much will it be worth?

• When will you sell it?

• When you will you no longer treat?

• Who will take your place?

• Will you have a partner or add another one?

Paint yourself a picture of what your business will look like. What is the end game? From here, you can start breaking down your 10 year, 5 year, 1 year and quarterly goals with that end game in mind. This gives you precise month to month goals you will need to hit and what action items you can put in place in order to paint the perfect picture of your business. Remember, what you don't measure, you can't manage. 

Finally Thought

Running a business requires an entirely different set of skills than the ones we learned about our product or service. Leadership being one of them.

If you truly want the business of your dreams, you must dive deep into what it means to become an entrepreneur, not a manager working tirelessly inside your business. 

Cheers -

Coach Daniel Tribby, ATC, CNP

Co-Founder, The Edgy Entrepreneur

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