Why every business owner must know themselves
Why every business owner must know themselves
If we make the assumption that in a small business scenario most times the boss is the business owner. If we follow that assumption then it would lead us to believe that the boss must be a leader right? Well if only that were the case.
There are 2 types of leaders, those who lead by ‘telling’ and those who lead by ‘inspiring’. Both will get results, one through fear the other through empowering. Not sure about you but I know I would rather be the inspiring leader as opposed to the telling leader.
One of the fundamental keys to being inspiring is understanding yourself and understanding others. What I mean by that is to truly inspire and lead others we must have a strong appreciation for others, in how others communicate and behave. That way we will be far more likely to communicate and connect our message to so many more people.
I’ll give you an example, I am naturally a quick decision maker, I base my decisions on pre-determined criteria, I like to chat a lot and I speak pretty quickly. How would I get my message across to those people who like to think about their decisions, have some time to go over it, that get overwhelmed by fast talking quick decision makers? Chances are I would loose them and loose them very quickly.
I believe that when we know ourselves – warts and all – 3 positive outcomes will occur:
- You identify areas to ‘build the muscle in’. For example I am big picture, I don’t do detail very well, but to run a successful business I have built my detail muscle so I can step into it when I need to.
- You also identify complete blind spots you may have been living with. Shedding light on areas that had never crossed your mind before. For example I didn’t realize I was competitive. I thought competitive was ruthless and to do with competing against others. Well I am competitive – against myself. I was blind to this, I now use it to my advantage to continually do better and be better.
- You will connect with a lot more people!!! You will have an appreciation for all the different types of people in this world that we interact with on a daily basis. No longer will you say that someone was strange, or rude, or slow, or quick….. You will appreciate we are all different and have insight into why people are the way they are.
