Be a leader, not a business owner!

Leadership I believe is one of the critical links to business success, yet often as small business owners we can struggle to see ourselves as a leader. We see ourselves as a business owner, as a doer in our business, as a motivator of staff (if we have any). It is something that needs to be focused on.

Leadership is about developing a vision, about developing your personal vision of success for you both professionally and personally.

I want to share with you four questions that I have used frequently over the past 10 years with my clients. These are very simple questions that I heard from a keynote speaker at a conference I attended years ago. These questions will help you to build your personal framework around being a leader.

1 . How do you see yourself as a leader?

Ask yourself: What is your leadership point of view?
How would you describe your leadership style?
What matters to you in terms of your leadership?
Do you see yourself as a leader?

2. How do others see you?

Ask yourself: Do you know?
Do you care?
Are you right? (i.e. is your information accurate?)
How do you assess this every day of the week?

Note: Some of the best leaders are extremely conscious of how people see them. They ask for feedback frequently and evaluate it. They think about it daily and ask themselves:
“Is what I mean being perceived the way I intended”? “ If not, how do I need to change my message?”

3. How do you want to be seen?

This involves needs and values. If we don’t know the needs and values we are driven by, they can wreak havoc in our environment. The best leaders are in pursuit of respect first and popularity second.

4. How must and should you be seen to be effective?

If you don’t know this, then working with a mentor can help you look at the gaps and help you to see what you need to do tomorrow to be seen as more effective.

Once you've answered the questions above, and if you're ready for it, I'd like to share with you an exercise that I do each year around December time.

It's an exercise that one of my Lecturer's recommended we do, when I was studying for my Masters Degree, and it's again a tool that has always stuck with me.

It's interesting because it's an exercise I would always use with my corporate clients, and these where in some cases jaded Senior Executives and CEO's who didn't feel as if they had much control over their lives. At times they would resist this exercise, but the ones who took the time out and completed it, always feed back how profound they found it.

When I moved my focus back to small business owners for some reason I stopped asking my clients to look at this exercise. I'm not sure why? But after my recent realisation that I had stopped leading my business, I looked at my current letter to the future, and it helped me regain my balance, and now I would like you to try it out...

Here's how it works:

Writing Your Letter To The Future

Find a quiet space to begin, and have your journal (or a piece of paper) in hand.

- Write the date that is into the future. I normally do 31st December, speaking about what has happened in the year.
- Write a salutation (greeting) to yourself.
- Start of with your first paragraph explaining the reason you are writing the letter to yourself.
- Then go into what has happened for you in the past twelve months - be specific! For each part of your life, create a new paragraph. The more specific you are, the more real it is. Take time to develop this letter. Once you feel that your letter is complete...
- Sign off on your letter.

Place your letter in a safe place, ready to be read at that time in the future.

As always, please feel free to share with me your experience in writing your letter to the future.

Author's Bio: 

With nearly two decades of business building experience, Deb has worked with senior business leaders and entrepreneurs all over the world.

Due to the results Deb achieves with women entrepreneurs, she has now specifically redesigned her business to support woman in small business.

Deb is the trust authority to women in business, and it is through the work that they do together that these women are able to take their business from ordinary to extraordinary.

She does this by taking her clients through a step-by-step process that is specific to their individual goals. This systematic process teaches them how they can consistently grow their business, whilst creating the lifestyle they want. This all starts with knowing that: your clients are your business!

Prior to founding DebPilgrim.com, Deb worked with executives at some of Australia's largest corporations. In these roles she provided coaching, training and development to senior managers through important leadership and business development challenges across a range of industries.

Deb was a lecturer in the Faculty of Business at the University of Technology, Sydney and prior to this was a serving member of the Royal Australian Air Force.

She is a highly sought-after business mentor, public speaker and consultant. She is regularly featured in Dynamic Business Magazine, NZ Small Business Magazine and on NineMSN. She has also been awarded a Masters of Coaching Psychology and Human Resource Management from The University of Sydney.

Deb currently resides in Sydney, Australia with Michael, her husband, and their two beautiful girls, Laura and Giaan.