No business can expect to achieve its full potential if it doesn’t have someone confidently driving things forward. “There’s no real magic to it – to a large extent it’s just a matter of being clear about where you want your business to go,” says Business Link Business Adviser, Peter Weeks.
“The most important attribute you’ll need to lead your team is a sense of vision. This doesn’t have to be a grand plan for strategic change. It might just be a target to improve sales or profitability by a certain amount in the coming year.” The key thing is to identify an objective you believe in 100 per cent – only then can you expect others to buy into it, too.
The next thing any prospective management leader needs to get right is communication. “Once you know what you want from your business, you have to convey that to your employees – perhaps just to the managers that report to you, maybe to your entire workforce,” Peter argues.
A pitfall to watch out for when trying to develop your leadership skills is over-confidence. “Great business leaders tend to be great listeners, too,” Peter adds. “Be decisive and strong-willed, by all means, but don’t forget that there are usually people around you with a lot of experience and expertise that you can draw on in leading your business forward.”
Read more about developing key leadership skills for directors and owners
It’s surprising how often people try to lead without having a clear vision of what they want to lead people towards. Confidence can set people off in a direction, but it’s not always a sensible one!