As the leader of your brand, it is up to you to determine the vision for your business, you are also the business leader. You are mission-control to successfully making that vision materialize. Be responsible for recognizing – and deciding how best to overcome – the barriers to your brand’s success.
One of the most powerful (and responsible) things you can do as a business leader is to get out of your own way.
The business leader and/or business owner holds a tremendous amount of power. You can be your brand’s greatest asset and its biggest backer. Critical to your mission, however, is not to become a barrier yourself.
During a conversation with a business owner and CEO of a $50M+ company, the CEO relayed that his largest client could not implement the programs offered to them because the necessary departments were not communicating with each other.
To overcome this hurdle, the CEO stepped in to facilitate meetings and interactions between his client’s departments. However, he was not getting paid for that time and taking on that role took him away from his own responsibilities.
When asked to provide my advice to this dilemma, my answer was simple: Don’t attend the meetings. If he did not attend the meetings, others would be forced to take on rightful ownership of their responsibilities, freeing the CEO to focus on his own responsibilities.
Here are four things to consider as a business leader in order to get (or stay!) out of your own way:
- Build boundaries and bridges. Don’t put yourself in situations to be the point person when it is not your role. If you consistently play a role not meant for you lines become blurry and you increase your risk of burnout. You also risk not having the time and/or resources you need to be successful. Build a good team – in-house and/or through outsourcing. Then take a step back and let them fulfill their own roles.
- Do it, delegate it or delete it. Does your to-do list continue to have the same thing on it week after week? Yes? Figure out why. If it is something that requires YOUR attention, do it. If it needs to get done but someone can or should complete it, delegate it. Maybe circumstances make completing a task unrealistic, undesirable or unnecessary – then, delete it. Procrastination is a barrier to productivity and to creativity.
- Find your joy. Focus on the good contributions. Perhaps you work with a client who is abrasive. Understanding that he or she has a difficult job can help you avoid taking things personally. Look at the good things you are doing in your own role and the positive things the company is doing. If you focus only on the negative or get upset over the same things on a weekly basis, you prevent yourself from seeing the positives of your own – and others’ – contributions.
- Celebrate success and forget failure. Failure is a necessary part of the process. Expect it. Embrace it. Learn from it. As a leader, failure should be empowering. Don’t let it get you down. Stop and acknowledge when you overcome it.
If you can get out of your own way, you may be your brand’s greatest asset. We have built a strong team and could be a powerful ally. Give us a call.