Leaders Wanted

 Someone once told me that you will either be just like or the opposite of your parents in different elements of life based on if you liked or did not like what you observed in your childhood. For instance, my mom never sorted laundry.  As a result, I had a lot of pink socks that were originally white and today I sort every load. My mother put service close to the top of her priority list. I continue that and have developed a firm personal testimony of service.

I am learning that my leadership style has also been influenced by the leaders and managers that I have had. I either really liked their style and try to incorporative it or I hated their leadership style and I try to be the opposite.

This first element of leadership in my opinion is trust. Often to establish trust, you have to be the first person to extend trust. As you do this, ideally, this will inspire trust in others. Communication is also a key to leadership, but honest communication needs a foundation of trust. For instance, if I am going to share my business process improvement ideas with my manager, I need to trust that he will listen, that he will care, and that he will give me honest feedback. I trust that we can work together to find solutions. I regularly rely on the mutual rust between my manager and I when I summon courage to give feedback back to my boss about an issue or I offer to take on a new assignment.

With this foundation of trust, leaders I admire provide all the resources they are capable of offering and then they allow me room to create. They then create time for me to return and report on how I am doing and what I need. They offer suggestions and mentors. They provide me with feedback that helps me to see how my project connects with others and clearly explain the needs I need to meet.

As entrepreneurs we need to be leaders. We need to find ways to establish trust. One of those ways is to share your idea! Give it to the universe. Everyone you meet is a potential customer, mentor, or investor. Trust them with your idea and ask for their feedback. Organize those ideas and have the courage to take action on them. Just as in a manager/employee setting, report back find a way of reporting back to the people that are interested in your idea. Report on your progress and gather more feedback. Let them know how valuable they are to you. You are building trust!

Allow yourself room to create. Mistakes are a necessary part of creation. Allow them to come and learn from them just as a good manager would do for their employees.

You cannot do everything for yourself. You need to find mentors or partners that can help to fill your gaps. A leader is not a one-person show. It takes a team. Doesn't that take a weight off? You do not need to carry it all. You can hire a consultant to do the accounting, or contract with a tech team to build your app. You are free to focus on what you were born to do and find others to do the rest and if you are creative, you can do this without losing equity in your company.

A good entrepreneur leader is a planner. It is fun to dream, but put your dream on paper or into Excel. Follow each business flow and find the gaps in your plan. If you find a gap, take courage, seek mentors and customers to help you understand the best way to fill those gaps.

If you truly have found a pain point that you can fill, you have limitless resources. You are the leader that will organize the resources of the universe to meet that need.