Leadership - Are You Recognised As The Leader

Hello, I’m Peter Towers, Managing Director of ESS Small Business and ESS BIZTOOLS.  Welcome to Empowering SMEs.

Good leadership is needed in every type of business, whether it’s a sole trader, partnership, trust or company, with a turnover of any level, or your entity is a not-for-profit, charity or sporting organisation.

Leadership is required irrespective of the type or size of the organisation.  It doesn’t matter whether you have a Board of Advice, Board of Directors or Management Committee; leadership skills are still required.  Where do you start in understanding leadership?

Firstly, distinguishing between management and leadership is very important.

They’re both different, but interdependent and must be closely related to be fully effective.

• Management is essentially about the establishment of organisations, structures, processes and procedures, including:
• staffing
• management of costs
• implementation of ideas
• team training

• Leadership is about creating the environment in which people work willingly together to achieve commonly agreed ideas and goals.

Leadership skills are required in every segment of a business or organisation, not just at the board or management committee level, but at every level throughout the organisation.

Most people are not “born leaders” – most need to develop leadership skills by training and real-life experience.

The key components of developing your leadership skills are centred on an understanding of:

• teams and teamwork – an understanding of what is fundamental to good leadership
• coaching and counselling of members of the team
• solving problems in making decisions
• morale of the team to which the leader is responsible
• motivation of the team – developing ideas/strategies and “selling” these ideas and strategies to the team
• developing relationships – so that the leader has an understanding of the “challenges” that the team member is facing
• trust and delegation – leaders cannot do it all themselves – they have to inspire the team to go forth and implement – this is delegation.

All types of commercial businesses, not-for-profits, charities and sporting organisations are facing significant challenges relating to developments that are occurring in the marketplace including:

• digital disruption
• competition
• diversification of activities
• attraction and retention of outstanding team members
• media exposure that might not be welcome