Are You An Emotionally Intelligent Leader?
Entrepreneurs like you, are ideas people; big picture, go getters who have the guts and work ethic to bring their idea to fruition. When starting out, you may obsess about the details and take responsibility for a variety of roles. After all, you are the business. It’s your baby. But what happens when your business begins to grow and you don’t have the time or capacity to have the same hands on approach?
Sound familiar? It’s a common trait for a healthy business: you will grow, you will expand, and you will need to turn to others for help. Thus, you have reached the delegation stage and trust is an utmost issue! You may feel like other people aren’t getting the job done the way you would want or your new hire was a bad choice. But really you are feeling like you can’t trust anyone to take on the responsibility of running your pride and treasure.
The transition from entrepreneur to leader is a critical part of any small business owners growth and vital for continued success. Yet it is rare for any entrepreneur to be prepared to do so. You have to go from a hands-on, do-it-yourself approach to a trusting manager and leader. It seems unnatural to delegate, but the more successful your business becomes, the more you’ll need to adapt. It is a developmental process that requires thoughtfulness, organization and emotional intelligence.
Starting your business is just the beginning.
As you grow and reach new revenue levels, you constantly have to upgrade, bring in new hires, and trust more people. You reach a point where you can no longer control everything and your job begins to be more about people management than task management.
To assess your own level of emotional intelligence as a manager, take a step back and ask yourself these questions:
- How well do you communicate with your employees?
- How much do you know about each of your managers and the best ways to motivate them?
- Are you able to hand off projects to employees, knowing you have prepared them well?
How you answer these questions will determine where you are in your ability to delegate and pass the baton. Like other development challenges, it is a process and will take time.
The good news is that it will directly impact how successful your business can be and the level of a healthy work life you can have. Trust, delegate, motivate, and follow through.