5 Essential Leadership Skills for Small Business Owners ...

Running a small business in no easy task and requires the entrepreneur to wear many hats. One of the hats is that of leadership. The topic of leadership can mean many different things to the individual entrepreneur.? Below are five items that are looked at through the lens of an entrepreneur leading in today?s challenging times, and what one might focus on as a basic list of leadership survival tools.

1. Focus on growth. To grow you business usually requires the recognition of barriers to growth and how you overcome them. In the world of small business, size is not near as important as growth. The ability to innovate and grow is a key to longevity. If you?re not growing you are falling behind in today?s competitive environment. Look for ways to grow your business this year.? Six Keys to Boost Your Business in 2012: ?http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/223187

2. Agree on a mission for your business. Every business, even small ones, needs a mission statement. The statement doesn?t have to be complicated.? It just needs to create buy in and commitment from your team, and be easy to understand and focus on daily. If you get it right, it will help describe, encourage, and support your goals. See this short video by entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki on creating a short meaningful mission statement you can use: http://www.entrepreneur.com/video/219952

3. Keep track of your businesses position in the market. It?s important to know how your business is fairing in the market, and how it stacks up to the competition. You should already have your own internal system in place to monitor the health of your financial patterns and growth. If you don?t, check out Prepare Your Business Finances: http://1.usa.gov/H8ROmE After obtaining a good handle on your own growth and financial patterns it?s time to see what the competition is up to. There are many tools available to keep daily tabs on the competition. Start simple with the free and easy to use functionality of Google Alerts. http://www.google.com/alerts

4. Establish accountability. Establishing accountability in a small business is hard to do with the wide variety of functions served by the staff. The first step is in establishing accountability at the top. This may be for the partners or for an owner who needs to define areas of focus. The next step is to evaluate your employees. Take some simple steps and determine their strengths and weaknesses through some individual analysis. Then, assign agreed upon goals and objectives that will lead to improved business initiatives, and a new performance based culture.

5. Motivate. The ability to motivate and engage employees in the pursuit of your mission and achievement of goals may be the largest difference between success and failure.? By learning how to create an engaging relationship in your small business, you can optimize the chances of reaching the goals you set forth in the mission and growth outlines set for your business. ?The key to success is motivating your team to execute on a daily basis. The number one factor is to stay engaged on the ground level for top performance.? How to engage your team? 10 Steps for Engaging Your Team http://bit.ly/HcRTmF

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