You don’t have to manage a big team to be a great leader—you just have to lead purposefully. Leadership is essential at every stage of entrepreneurship, so it’s important to know the various areas of improvement for leaders. This post will break down key leadership skills every business owner should develop to grow sustainably. Find the resources to improve leadership skills and watch your business transform!
Areas of Improvement for Leaders #1: Vision Casting – Know Where You’re Going
Vision casting is the act of clearly outlining where your business is going and articulating the direction in a way that inspires belief and action. It’s not only about lofty ambitions or majestic dreams. Instead, it’s about crafting an image of the future that is so vivid and motivating that it guides your everyday decisions.
Whether leading a team or going the path alone, vision casting matters; a clear vision gives your business a defined purpose and focal point. Without that point, it is easy to become distracted by unrelated opportunities and every little setback. With a vision, you can filter your to-do list through a different lens, one that has a long-term view. That lens ensures your actions move you closer to your primary mission daily.
When you have a team, even a small one, a compelling vision keeps everyone moving in the same direction. The vision helps your employees understand not only what to do but also why they are doing it. Vision casting builds trust among employees and customers, too. People are far more likely to develop loyalty to a business if they know who they are and where they’re headed.
Practical Tip: Write it in your calendar to write or revisit your vision statement twice yearly. An unchecked vision statement is just a good idea you had once. Ask yourself: Does this still reflect where I’m headed? Am I building the business I envisioned, or just staying busy? A strong, updated vision can realign your strategy and reignite your motivation.
Areas of Improvement for Leaders # 2: Effective Communication – Say it so it Sticks
One of the most common areas of improvement for leaders is learning how to communicate properly. Most people overestimate their ability to communicate clearly, concisely, and compassionately. What they say doesn’t always land how it’s meant. However, communicating effectively is vital to outstanding leadership. After all, you can’t expect team members to accomplish what you expect if they don’t understand your request.
How do you make your communication more effective? First of all, you have to practice. Not only practice, but also study communication. Some exceptional communication coaches make their content available for free on YouTube (Personally, I love Vinh Giang!) Learning to communicate well and putting it into practice is essential to developing effective communication.
Ensure you practice your improved communication effectiveness by giving feedback regularly, sharing updates with customers, talking with vendors, or spending quality time with team members. Effective communication makes you more likely to be a leader people will understand and follow.
Pro Tip: Use various tools for improvement, including active listening, visuals, and checking for understanding. Even when you think your communication is top-notch, you should ensure that your message comes across as you meant.
Areas of Improvement for Leaders #3: Decision-Making – Confidence Over Perfection
Perfection is not your friend. I know that might seem counterintuitive, but I think it’s true. So often, entrepreneurs waste their most important resource – their time – to achieve perfection. It’s a nice sentiment, but it isn’t worth the cost. It’s especially impactful on your time because perfection is so rarely achieved. So, how long have you been striving for perfection while not making a dime?
Perfection is a cost that isn’t worth it! So, instead of perfection and indecision, it’s time to use a framework designed to make smarter decisions. Frameworks for decision-making confidence can serve as valuable resources for smarter decisions, plus resources to improve leadership skills. The three frameworks I suggest you use for improved decision-making include the 80/20 rule, a pros and cons list, and a simple gut check.
The 80/20 Rule
If you’ve read any personal or professional development books, chances are you’ve heard of the 80/20 rule. This rule states that 80% of decisions are made using 20% of the information. The rule applies to more than this, as it can also be that 80% of the success you experience is the result of 20% of the effort. It’s true in a variety of scenarios. By applying this rule to your decision-making process, you can remember that you don’t need 100% of the information. You need 20% for a chance to make a good decision 80% of the time.
The Pros/ Cons List
Second, list the pros and cons of a decision. While tradition suggests that the list with the most items wins, I think some items carry more weight than others.
Imagine a list of pros and cons of taking a family trip to Italy. On the pros list, you have making family memories, having fun, eating fantastic food, experiencing ancestral traditions, and learning about Italian history. On the cons list, you’ve listed that we won’t be able to pay the mortgage for three months, we may lose our home, and we will need to get groceries from the food bank for the following year.
Of course, the pros list has more items than the cons list, but does that mean the trip to Italy should go on? Of course not! This is an extreme example, but the point stands. Be sure to consider the weight of your list items before choosing with a pros and cons list.
The Gut Check
The final framework in making confident decisions is a gut check. I know it seems trivial, but there is actual science behind it! In truth, the media has conflated the data somewhat and made the gut seem more reliable than it is, but it isn’t necessarily wrong. Researcher Peter Holzer states, “Feelings or emotions do not originate in the gut but are generated in the brain, and the term ‘gut feelings’ is a scientifically ill-defined and misleading expression.”
However, despite Holzer’s statement, he says later, “The gut-brain-gut communication network is part of the interoceptive circuits which enable the brain to sense and interpret the physiological condition in the body and regulate its autonomic and mental activity accordingly.” What does this mean?
When your gut sends signals (like during digestion), your brain listens and can respond, influencing how you feel or think. This interaction might explain why we sometimes have “gut feelings” about situations. However, while the idea is fascinating, scientists are still unraveling the exact details of this relationship.
So, I think you should trust your gut when it makes sense. Don’t fly off the handle on a whim. A few factors, not just your feelings, should influence your decisions.
Pro Tip: Practice small, fast decisions to build your decision-making confidence.
Areas of Improvement for Leaders #4 Emotional Intelligence (EQ) – Lead With Awareness
Emotional intelligence (EQ) is not just a buzzword. It feels like one because it’s gotten so much attention lately, but it does matter in leadership. But what is EQ? It is “the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one’s emotions and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically.” Exploring emotional intelligence (EQ) requires examining self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and relationship skills.
Self-Awareness
What is self-awareness? In short, it is precisely what it sounds like: being aware of oneself. This means understanding your strengths and weaknesses, thoughts, behaviors, feelings, and other characteristics that make up who you are. As many as 95% of people believe themselves to be self-aware. In truth, the number is closer to 10%.
Does this mean you can’t be self-aware? No! But it does mean you need to work on improving your self-awareness. You know it’s unlikely that you are one of the 10% self-aware people. It’s far more likely that you believe incorrectly. Also, note that I think that self-awareness is on a scale. Can anyone be 100% self-aware? (I am not fully self-aware – but I’m working on it.)
Perhaps the data should be more precise about what determines a self-aware person. I think it’s best to strive for improvement in self-awareness, regardless of your current level.
Self-Regulation
What is self-regulation? It’s the ability to control your behavior, thoughts, and emotions in a way that agrees with your expressed values. As a parent, I’ve heard a lot about self-regulation in toddlers. Doctors and parenting professionals talk about self-soothing, self-entertaining, and similar topics to discuss how well your child can manage their feelings. But how often do we talk about it in adults?
When you lose your temper, you aren’t self-regulating. When you focus on intrusive thoughts, you aren’t self-regulating. When you get down in the dumps and binge-watch Netflix after a failure, you aren’t self-regulating.
Adults need to work on self-regulation, too! I know I do. How many times can my kids argue with one another before I blow up? How often can I teach the same task over and over before I get agitated?
Self-regulation requires practice, just like any other skill. Without it, your EQ will not be as high as it should be.
Empathy
Empathy is a leadership skill that is becoming increasingly valuable. In the past, empathy was not typically a part of the business world. People showed up to work, did their jobs, and went home. In the modern world, people expect to be treated well. If they aren’t, they can find another job rather easily. It’s the way of the world today, and leaders must be empathetic to retain top talent.
Fortunately, even if empathy isn’t one of your top skills, it can be learned. It isn’t something that can be learned in a classroom, however. While some empathetic actions can be taught this way, genuine empathy must be sincerely felt. That can only be learned with experience and facilitation. It might mean listening to people and imagining yourself in their shoes. Or, you might be exposed to an empathetic person regularly and start to develop it yourself.
Becoming more empathetic will change you for the better! There is no such thing as “too empathetic.”
Relationship Skills
If you aren’t good at building relationships, it’s time to start learning. Relationships are crucial to a great leader because leadership isn’t about you. It’s about them. Building relationships involves building trust, so be sure you always aim to be trustworthy. Lying, scheming, or manipulating to get the win will result in a temporary win. If you want the long-term win, you must be on the up and up.
Remember to always be honest and have integrity. Share about yourself, but ask about others more. Get to know people. Developing relationships in this way will improve your leadership and the quality of your life, too.
EQ Trumps IQ in Leadership Success
Twenty-five years ago, an organization would choose an individual with a high IQ over someone with a high EQ every day of the week. Today, if you want to be a leader who succeeds, EQ has to be your priority. Where IQ is just about how smart you are, EQ encapsulates several leadership skills vital to success in business and other areas of life.
Good news: you can improve your EQ with training and learning.
Pro Tip: Start a training regime including self-awareness journaling, self-regulation meditation, empathetic practices, and weekly relationship-building sessions.
Areas of Improvement for Leaders #5 Delegation – Doing Less to Grow More
Solopreneurs are entrepreneurs who do it all by themselves. But if you’re an entrepreneur with a team and you’re still trying to do it all by yourself, you’ve got a problem. Entrepreneurs don’t have to do it all. Your business would be better if you let the experts do the things they’re experts at. Or, even better, if you taught someone how to do it and they improved your process.
If you do it all alone, you’re missing out on value. Why? Because your one brain cannot compete with a team’s brain. So, delegate! If you’re struggling with letting go of control, consider starting small.
Blog posts and newsletters, website design, or social media are great places to start with delegating. Or, if there is a task that you don’t love or aren’t great at, give it to someone else. Maybe you need help with your bookkeeping. There are freelancers for that. Think how much of your valuable time you might gain back if you could just pass the task along to someone else!
As an Amazon associate, I earn a commission from your qualifying purchases. However, as always, I suggest you try to find the book mentioned below from your local bookstore!
Pro Tip: Train once, trust often. This simple phrase reminds you to implement a system for delegation. In his book SYSTEMology, David Jenyns suggests filming your task so that you can pass it along to someone else without the need to teach them repeatedly.
Areas of Improvement for Leaders #6 Conflict Resolution – Facing It, Not Fearing It
For a long time, I was someone who avoided conflict like the plague. I hated it. There was a time in college when I left one of my roommates to the task of telling our other roommate that we didn’t want to live with her the following year, all by herself. I would have rather lived miserably with that roommate who slept all day and partied all night than to be involved in that conversation. Now, more than 13 years later, I can have hard conversations.
You see, conflict is inevitable. We’re all humans with our own ideas, feelings, emotions, and lives. We can’t ignore that. As leaders, we must address conflict head-on with calm and clarity. Whether it’s a staff disagreement, negative reviews, or vendor delays, conflict should be resolved, not left to its own devices.
Pro Tip: Don’t take it personally. It’s business. Easier said than done, I know. So, focus on the solution. Go back to the basics: I statements. “I understand how that might feel alienating. What can I do to improve the situation?”
Areas of Improvement for Leaders #7 Resilience – Bouncing Back (and Forward)
When it comes to entrepreneurship, you’ll have failures and successes. Sometimes in equal measure, other times one will outweigh the other. On the journey of highs and lows, resilience keeps you moving forward. How can you develop resilience?
Three primary ways to develop your resilience are mindset work, support systems, and healthy routines. By creating a growth mindset, you can ensure that you learn from failures and keep striving for successes. A support system requires a team of people who will push you to keep going. Finally, healthy routines make continuing your work just another part of the day.
If you make these things a habit, you won’t even have to think about what to do when a failure strikes. You won’t have to worry about what to do next when you have a major success. It will be part of your routine, part of the journey.
Pro Tip: Eric Greitens said, “No one escapes pain, fear, and suffering. Yet from pain can come wisdom, from fear can come courage, from suffering can come strength – if we have the virtue of resilience.” Know the truth – hardship happens. You can only benefit from it if you keep moving forward.
Areas of Improvement for Leaders #8 Accountability – Holding Yourself (and Others) to the Standard
Who are you accountable to? When you set a goal for yourself, do you put forth real effort in meeting it, or does it go on the back burner? Your striving for personal goals says a lot about your personal accountability. Self-leadership is the foundation of effective leadership. If you can’t be accountable to yourself, can you truly say you lead yourself?
Self-leadership is all about personal growth. If you can grow yourself, you can help others grow, which is a central component of leadership. So, how do you become accountable to yourself? Start by setting personal goals! You can’t be accountable if you aren’t working toward something.
What does your future look like? How are you going to get there? Those are your goals. Break them down and establish them as personal KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). For example, if you want to be healthier and fit in the future, you may need to cut back on your sugar intake. Start by tracking your sugar intake and gradually cut it out over the next few months. Tracking your intake each day can help you stay on track.
There is no one to be accountable to but yourself with this kind of goal. Of course, you could tell someone what you’re doing so they might ask you about your progress in the near future. You might even post on social media so people know you’re trying. But ultimately, the accountability is your own. That personal accountability makes you a better leader!
Pro Tip: Just because you’re accountable to yourself doesn’t mean you can’t use tools! Try a habit tracker to establish a new routine or habit. You can see mine in the photo below.
Wrap Up: Common Areas of Improvement for Leaders
Let’s recap all that we’ve learned from this post! Leadership isn’t about the title. It’s a skillset that every entrepreneur can develop. Remember, use vision casting, develop effective communication, have confidence in your decision-making, and focus on bettering your EQ. Other areas of improvement for leaders include learning to let go through delegation, becoming a conflict-resolver, and making your resilience flourish. Finally, be accountable to yourself.
Which of these leadership skills will you work on this month? If you need an accountability partner, schedule a FREE call with me!