No matter how many times I hear it, I will never believe in natural-born leaders.
John F. Kennedy was one of the greatest presidents of all time. He left behind a legacy sewn so deep into the fabric of America that his name will never be forgotten. What most people don’t know is that before he was a politician he had a life not much different than ours, he had a normal 9 to 5 as a writer for the Hearst Newspaper. He spent his days writing the stories his boss wanted to read, but, during this time, he saw the beast the world was and decided to do something more with his life. Fast-forward a few years, and he became the leader of the free world.
Leadership is not a skill that is taught, leadership is learned, earned, and practiced for a lifetime.
I think that we are discouraged from becoming shepherds and taught to be sheep. From the time we enter Kindergarten, we are told how to think. We’re fed answers to questions we never asked. We’re told, “This will be on the test,” and we spend the entire year prepping for that final exam.
As adults, the final exam is the performance review at the end of every fiscal quarter, and if you haven’t done a proper job of falling in line, well, you better hope someone else did worse than you.
Leaders are born from desire, not from nature.
When I started my business, I was leaving my job as a sales director in the same industry. Don’t get me wrong, I learned a lot from that job and loved it, but towards the end, I realized that I wasn’t feeling as fulfilled. So, I set out on my own.
I knew the industry inside and out. I had traveled the country winning over store owners at trade shows and went from being a timid college student to a phone call wizard.
Not only that, but I thought all of those accomplishments meant something, but the first several years in business humbled me. I realized that no matter how many skills I had acquired, there was one thing that held me back. I had no idea how to be a leader.
Why?
I tried to run my business as if I were still an employee. I tackled every major project on my own and left my team feeling underutilized, unmotivated, and completely in the dark.
Finally, after entering sobriety, and reading every book I could find, it finally hit me. I couldn’t grow my business because I wasn’t willing to give up my insatiable hunger for control.
If you want to be your own boss, you must learn to be a leader.
Every Leader Knows These Three Things
- A leader’s job is to steer the ship and trust the crew to man the sails. When I take charge and point us where I want to go, my team knows what they must do to help all of us get there. When a leader tries to do everything themselves, the ship crashes into the rocks and sinks.
- A leader expects the unexpected. Panicking every time you’re faced with a problem leads to inaction. You can let the current carry you wherever it wants, or you can keep your hands on the wheel and find the path to safety.
- A leader understands the difference between being nice and being passive. You should never try to micromanage, but every so often you have to give people a push in the right direction. Unfortunately, most of us fear hurting someone’s feelings, but if someone on your team is pointing the sails in the wrong direction, it’s your job to remind them that you’re the one holding the compass.
With these traits in mind, how do you go from being a sheep to a shepherd?
Leadership Principle 1: Learn to Delegate
One of the most popular titles in the world of business is, “How to build a 4-hour workday.” Well, to do that, you have to learn to delegate. The issue is that almost no one does this correctly.
The first thing to understand is that you have to let go of some control. You can’t be on top of everything, you can’t do everything on your own, and attempting to maintain that control means running the risk of your business remaining stagnant.
When I started my company, I didn’t understand this at all. I felt like if I wasn’t doing every job I wasn’t working hard enough myself, and for a reason I can’t put into words, I felt bad about asking my team to work hard themselves.
My business started growing when I realized one thing. People like being given responsibility. It makes them feel appreciated, and when people feel appreciated they show up to put in their best effort.
The second thing to learn about delegation is figuring out what should be delegated in the first place. Doing this is simple.
- Write down a list of the things you hate doing. This could be replying to emails, managing your social media, or doing your taxes. I hate taxes.
- Look at everything you’re doing and figure out what takes up too much of your time, even if you enjoy it. This could be video editing. If you have the budget to hire those things out, do it. It frees up more of your time to focus on the big picture.
- Find people who are better at specific jobs than you. Again, if you make video content, understand that there are better video editors than you and they love doing it.
Once you’ve hired out those time-consuming jobs, trust the people you’ve hired to do them. Don’t micromanage. Micromanaging makes people sarcastically ask, “Do you just want to do it?” If someone asks you that question, you’re making them feel undervalued. Never let people feel unappreciated, that’s when they start showing up just to collect their paycheck.
The third part of delegation is knowing that some things cannot be delegated.
You can hire a ghostwriter for your social media, but you’re the one responsible for coming up with ideas. It’s their job to handle the execution.
Your job is to see the big picture.
Leadership Principle 2: Stop Looking For The Perfect Solution
Problems show up every day, but if you refuse to act until you find the perfect solution, they will never get solved.
People respect someone who solves problems, they don’t respect someone who lets the problem get so big that the ship starts sinking. Unfortunately, most people are so scared of making the wrong decision that they just do nothing.
It’s easy to run and hide when problems show up. It’s also important to see if the problem will work itself out, but, if it doesn’t, don’t let mounds turn into mountains.
Napoleon is one of the most genius military minds in the history of mankind, and he had a method of solving problems that led to his empire expanding until his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon had an interesting method for solving problems. Any piece of correspondence that arrived at his office was withheld for three weeks. When he finally opened the mail, he was able to see if the problem had resolved itself, usually it had; however, if the problem was still there, he took action almost immediately. Sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands. If your general lacks discipline, it’s your job to help them find it.
One of the best examples of problem-solving is knowing what to do when unacceptable behavior threatens your workplace culture. Eventually, someone will act in a manner that drags the morale of the entire team down. When this happens, you must act quickly.
Sit the team down, be direct, and say, “This is not acceptable, this needs to change, I need you to remember what we stand for and why we are here.”
Be empathetic with your team, let them speak, and learn what you could do better in the future, but don’t confuse empathy and kindness with passiveness. Good leaders aren’t always nice. You may be afraid of hurting someone’s feelings, but the truth is that people respect someone who is direct.
When problems appear, it’s your job to give your team direction. Don’t look for the perfect solution, look for a solution that will get things back on track.
Leadership Principle 3: Never Slack
After years of building my business, I felt like I deserved to relax. If you’ve put in the 80-hour workweeks, properly delegated, and learned to focus on the big picture, you have earned the right to cut back, but there’s a difference between delegation and negligence.
When I believed that delegation meant I could step back from my business, it created a major crack in the foundation. I’m responsible for that, why would my team put in maximum effort if they saw me scrolling through social media at my desk all day? A leader always takes responsibility for the success of their business and keeps the main thing the main thing. Just because you’ve delegated a task to someone else doesn’t mean you get to waste that time.
If you want to be successful, take charge of the most important things. Your job is to see where you’re going, that means spending your time finding new ideas. Always show up ready to put in the work and strive to be better every day.
We’re the sum of the people we spend the most time with, that doesn’t just mean other people influence us, that also means we influence other people. Lead your team by doing, not by telling.