Small businesses represent the lifeblood of a nation’s economy, but they often concentrate in certain geographic areas. Of the United States’ approximately 33.2 million small businesses, around 5.3 million are on the West Coast.
That also means denser concentrations of business leaders in those areas. Of course, there is a big difference between successful business leaders and those who are just struggling to get by.
Not sure what separates those groups or wishing to join the ranks of successful business leaders? Keep reading and we’ll cover some of the core qualities and skills that make the difference.
Long-Term Planning
Startups thrive on innovative ideas as the focus of their business. Yet, successful business leaders don’t depend on a novel idea to drive the business forward over time. They know that a successful business depends on having a long-term plan.
The best business leaders possess a vision of where they see the business in five, ten, or twenty years. They set business goals and define a clear sense of what steps they must take to get the business to that vision.
Emotional Intelligence
Business leaders don’t operate in a vacuum. They have subordinates and employees that they must manage and even cajole into better performance. Doing that well requires fairly keen emotional intelligence.
That means leaders recognize their own emotions and manage them toward productive ends. Just as importantly, they can do the same thing with others.
Productive Feedback
All too often, business owners or leaders react to mistakes by others with the understandable, but generally unproductive dressing down. Yes, it communicates that the leader is angry, but it doesn’t do much in terms of improving future performance.
Successful business leaders may show that they’re not happy, but they temper that with productive feedback that will help a subordinate make better choices in the future.
Adaptive Leadership
During times of crisis, successful leaders embrace adaptive leadership. They’ll embrace changes, innovative solutions, and even experiments.
This approach often lets them solve problems that hold the business back or even threaten its survival. It’s not always a popular approach because it can mean abandoning established goals.
Business Leaders Seek Help
Business leadership is often a lonely affair. Leaders can’t express doubt to their subordinates and have limited options for seeking advice from their peers.
Yet, smart leaders understand their own fallibility. They can help themselves by seeking out executive coaching. These kinds of services offer them a sounding board and an impartial, experienced business peer with whom they can discuss doubts.
Becoming a Successful Business Leader
Becoming a successful business leader is often a matter of modeling your own behaviors on those of other successful business leaders. To that end, you must embrace long-term planning, develop your emotional intelligence, and offer productive feedback.
Successful business leaders also recognize their limits. They embrace adaptive leadership when necessary. They also look for help, as a sanity check on their ideas if nothing else.
Sage & Summit Consulting provides leadership training and executive coaching services. For more information, contact Sage & Summit today.
