Jun

Simple Systems To Help You Be A Better Leader In Your Business

To get your business to where you want it to be you simply must be a good leader. You can’t be caught up in all of the day to day activities when you need to be driving your business forward, building it, strengthening it and creating solid foundations that will eventually allow you to extract yourself from it altogether, or to sell it for a handsome profit. Over the years I have seen some great examples of leadership, as well as some not so great examples that left employees directionless, deflated, and without any desire to even see the business succeed. They were there for one reason only – to do their time and get their money.

But this is not enough by a long way. A business will certainly fail if this is all there is. At the core of every great business there is great leadership. So in this article, I’m going to share with you three simple small business leadership systems I've used over the years that I believe work really well to engage employees in the bigger picture, to make them feel that they are part of something and that they matter – that their work makes a difference.

Small Business Leadership System One:

Ensure that each employee has a position description that contains key performance indicators so that they know what they are responsible for achieving and what they are responsible for in your business. Your employees will be much more engaged in what they are doing if they know what they are trying to achieve. For example, are they responsible for achieving a certain number of sales within a certain timeframe, are they responsible for ensuring every new customer receives a welcome pack within the first week, are they responsible for making sure all quotes are followed up within 24 hours. Whatever the key performance indicators are, there should always be a corresponding procedure so that the employee knows precisely what to do and is then held accountable for making sure it happens.

Small Business Leadership System Two:

Have a fortnightly performance meeting with each of the team members that report to you. These meetings allow an employee to feel valued and important and allow you to stay in touch with what is going on in your business without necessarily getting to hands on. This meeting is twofold. Firstly for your employee to give you an update of what they have been doing, what has gone well, what is outstanding and to discuss any issues and challenges.

This is also the opportunity for you to give feedback on how you think the employee has performed, and to share any comments from customers you have received. This meeting should be a positive experience and if there are serious performance issues these should be addressed more formally through a written warning.

Small Business Leadership System Three:

My third simple system is about rewarding a job well done, and about paying it forward. So, once a month or even once every two months, reward those employees who do a great job and who exceed your expectations. You could even have it tied into their position description, in that if they meet a certain requirement, they will receive a certain reward.

For example, if you operate predominantly online and have a virtual team, each month if they perform to a certain standard, each team member receives one hour of coaching from you to assist with their professional development.

Or if you operate a physical business and have employees on site, it could be that they get to go home early one afternoon, or they get a gift voucher to spend at their favourite store.

Whatever system you implement to reward employees, make sure that they must meet a certain expectation to receive it. To encourage above average performance, there needs to be something to strive for and this simple reward system gives employees the incentive to do more than just the basics.

Key Takeaway:

Create a position description for each employee and ensure that key performance indicators are included. Make sure that a procedure exists for each key performance indicator so employees know what is required.
Hold fortnightly meetings with each of your key team members to discuss the previous fortnight and what has gone well, what hasn’t, and what the issues and challenges were.
Implement a simple reward system to encourage employees to strive to be better that just average.

With simple systems in place you will be leading your team and your business to more profits and a more successful and happy business.