For many years I worked under the guidance of an IT manager who both inspired me and empowered me. Although he was my manager, he was never my ‘boss’ – what we had was more of a partnership than a 'boss-subordinate relationship’.

That relationship professionally, was on unequal footing that matched Kevin’s technical vision with my planning implementation skills.

Kevins's other key attribute was leadership.

The Business Of Fear

The number of small businesses increases each year at an exponential rate. Many of these business owners are technical experts rather than leaders.

Most of these owners I speak with have three things in common: -

1) They want to deliver an exceptional service to their audience

In their minds, as they started the business and are the experts, all decisions and all sales conversations have to be run through them. Unwittingly they are creating a bottleneck.

2) They identify as an expert rather than a leader.

They believe their purpose is to deliver the technical aspects of their service; they are the brand and hold the IP behind the business. "How could anyone replace them?"

3) They fear what will happen if they let go

This is the biggest fear. In letting go of the technical delivery, they fear they will be redundant. Part of this fear is driven by not knowing what their purpose in life is and how to lead the expert business.

The feeling of fear is palpable and will spread through the business and clients alike.

What Makes a Great Business

Businesses are made great by the product they deliver and by the service they provide to deliver the service.

What goes unattended in many SMEs is leadership. The leadership to grow the business beyond that of the expert founder.

Leadership isn't always about leading your troops into battle; it's about what you enable your troops to do. That's what Kevin did well; he empowered me and others to achieve results beyond expectations.

Empowerment

'Empowerment' is a little overstated and overused term in business, due to misunderstanding the real meaning.

In this case, empowerment is simply that your team are able to make decisions without you having to be in the room, without every decision having to be routed through you.

True empowerment means that your team know your vision, mission and purpose, and they live it and breathe it – it's the way you do.

There are many ways that you can achieve this, and one of the best ways to get started is to discover what level of the Purpose-Led Leadership Maturity Model you are in your business.

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The first step is the Purpose Led Leadership assessment, it's free. Take the test and book a discovery call with me, and I'll personally feedback the results to you.