Are you familiar with that uncomfortable/uneasy feeling of being counted on to deliver results that are bigger than your training and experience? SMB owners may never be comfortable with these challenges, but we get very familiar with this feeling when our businesses are Xcelerating and growing fast.
Nothing requires more growth from the owner than moving from leader of managers/people/processes, to leading other leaders. Instead of calling plays and directing the team’s tasks, our role becomes coaching and inspiring leaders to build their own strong teams that deliver results. The old toolbox doesn’t work, and we are forced to quickly develop new skills.
Four tools for the Coaching Leaders Toolbox:
- Shoulder to shoulder time: Spend time together looking at the work ahead and the work in-process. Ask great questions, don’t answer many. Watch the team operate, communicate, and perform. Be careful, this is not a license to micromanage.
- Read together: Learning and growing is not optional for leaders on your team. Pick a great book download our list, read 1-2 chapters per week, and build discussion time into your weekly team meetings. This is powerful, inexpensive, and easy-to-reproduce leadership Xceleration.
- Teach and model leadership leverage:
– See a little farther ahead (Vision and Planning)
– Rhythms and routines for getting work done through others (meetings, delegation of work, effective feedback)
– Build Relationship Capital with stakeholders (customers, suppliers, peers in the business) - Weekly 1-1 time: These meetings are face to face, heart to heart, and not about accountability. Xtra Mile leaders have a leadership responsibility for the whole person: professional, personal, spiritual. This may sound crazy but let them control the agenda for this meeting. (Download our 1-pager on getting started with 1-1s)
If you see this list and think ‘Don’t have time’ or ‘Don’t know how’, the ceiling for your business growth has arrived. If you can’t do #3 above, let’s get to work on you first. Small changes can give you an Xtra Mile return. You are probably closer than you imagine.
This is what our clients have said about our leadership development programs for SMB leaders. “I wish I had learned this sh*t 25 years ago, I would have been a lot better at my job.”
New Managers To Leaders Course starts July 13, 2022. Click here to register or for more information email tosha@xmperformance.com.
