A great entrepreneur should be a competent manager and an effective corporate leader, in addition to having a holistic entrepreneurial personality. The thoughtful incorporation of these three roles into an entrepreneur’s overall persona will greatly assist them in effectively and efficiently managing their business enterprise/project(s).
As managers, they will be able to mobilise all necessary physical, financial, human, and informational resources to create value in the enterprise operations. An effective leader will be able to shape an excellent organisational structure with competent and skilled people all around who can discharge their functions in accordance with the slated enterprise objectives. As a corporate leader, the entrepreneur will also play an important role in developing a leadership pipeline through which they will be able to develop the skills of many middle managers to become future corporate leaders.
What can an entrepreneur do to facilitate the growth of future leaders to take the work forward?
To create a leadership pipeline, the entrepreneur should concentrate on development and integrate succession planning with leadership development to ensure the skills future leaders will need. This process should be fairly transparent and regularly monitored. To further develop this leadership pipeline, the entrepreneur should teach managers the power of storytelling, give them challenging assignments, launch a mentorship programme, provide skill development and cross-training opportunities, and, last but not least, assist them in embracing change.
I can confidently lay out certain suggestions for young entrepreneurs to prepare their future trajectories for becoming effective corporate leaders based on my own experience over the last four decades. I have dealt with many managers and corporate leaders involved in the operations of business enterprises or in the execution of medium and large-sized projects. I have included some of these suggestions below for my readers:
BE OPEN TO LEARN
The most important success mantra is to approach learning with an open mind. You must cultivate a strong learning orientation and be willing to learn from your own experiences and mistakes, as well as the experiences and mistakes of others. To improve learning, you can establish libraries in your organisation, assign appropriate mentors, host master classes led by experts in their respective fields, and do a variety of other things that come to mind. The basic idea is to work on developing a knowledge management and learning management system within your organisation.
FAIL FORWARD
Making mistakes and experiencing small and significant failures while running a business or working on a project is quite common and natural. I always advocate for ‘failing forward,’ which means celebrating your failures, learning from them, and moving on. This is an excellent habit in all successful entrepreneurs – they always hold the attitude, “I did not fail, my project failed”. Someone correctly stated that failure is simply postponed success.
CELEBRATE MILESTONES
Banish self-doubts by acknowledging your accomplishments. Post your daily successes and celebrate these with your colleagues. This habit will keep your confidence level always high. Cultivate generosity all around your organization. Make gratitude a part of your company culture.
At an organizational level, one could think of customer retention as a priority. Customer retention is critical because acquiring new customers is much more expensive than retaining existing customers. Customers who have returned are also more likely to engage in word-of-mouth marketing or become brand ambassadors.
COMMUNICATE WELL
Constantly and regularly hold short and long meetings with your team members to effectively communicate with them. Create enthusiasm and empower your people so that you can engage them in meaningful activities. Instil confidence in your team members and inspire your people.
At an organizational level, all critical information about the company’s operations and growth should be disseminated throughout the organisation so that every employee at every level has access to it.
An entrepreneur will do well to use such “applied wisdom” to generate and improve fantastic results throughout the organisation. Top-down, bottom-up, diagonal, and lateral communication should be promoted throughout the organisation (particularly about the enterprise’s vision, mission, goals, and objectives) so that every employee/member understands his/her exact role in the larger picture. Improving communication in the manner described here will also aid in the promotion of inter-departmental coordination, employee engagement, cooperation, and synergy.
IMPROVE
Always keep improving on your processes and systems – what we also refer to as ‘Kaizen’ means continuous improvement. Break your current mould (if you feel that is required) and think independently once again. Always go for out-of-the-box thinking (also known as lateral thinking) as and when you confront problems and are required to engage in troubleshooting.
At an organizational level, employees at all levels should be provided leadership training so that an effective leadership pipeline develops from top to bottom at all levels. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the entire enterprise and Key Result Areas (KRAs) for key executives should be determined through a structured process and monitored on a regular basis to optimise enterprise operations.
Companies or enterprises may differ outwardly by their products/services or their line of business but essentially they all have certain common core characteristics. I hope this article helped you to think about your own project better! Let me know in the comments what idea resonated with you!