19 July 2018

The vision thing: becoming a successful leader

The best business managers and leaders create a vision of the future that is compelling and motivates employees to want to achieve it. Great leaders help members of their team to connect what they do with the business’ overall strategy and its impact on customers. In our latest article, we look at what makes a successful business leader.

Keeping in touch

Communication is an essential leadership skill for any business owner or entrepreneur.  It is important to communicate with your people often and in a variety of different ways; whether in one-to-one conversations, team meetings, email or phone calls - communication is key. 

Regular communication not only helps to build relationships across the business, but also engenders trust. As a manager, you should lead by example and communicate regularly with your team members, management team, customers, suppliers, others in the industry and the wider community. 

The stronger the relationships you can build, the better you will be able to lead people.

Integrity 

In order to be a successful business leader, you need to be honest, transparent and have a high degree of integrity. The key is to do what you say you are going to do. Some people might be happy to sit back and watch from the sidelines, but great leaders like to get involved in making things happen. In order to become a successful leader, you need to persevere, drive your people forward and be accountable. If the buck stops with you, then own it.

Strategic problem solving

Ultimately, leaders are recruited, trained and chosen to solve problems and to take advantage of new strategic opportunities in the market. Often, this is the very reason why a business has been set up in the first place. Strategic problem solving requires good analytical abilities and excellent people skills. At times it is necessary to focus on being tactical, however the best leaders don’t lose sight of the bigger picture.

Innovation

In order to succeed in business, it is important to focus on innovation. 

If you stand still, your competitors will overtake you. Innovation can take many forms - perhaps you wish to focus on hiring people with a different skill-set or you want to utilise technology to drive efficiency across the business. The best business leaders are innovative people who come up with new and better solutions to problems. 

As a manager, it is therefore important to continuously develop your technical and professional expertise, stay up to date on new trends in different markets and consider how new concepts can be adopted to improve your business.

Lead the way with RWB

RWB’s experienced business advice team has the knowledge to help make your vision a reality, at a fraction of the cost of a business consultant. We share your goal of making your business the very best it can be. Contact us on 0115 964 8888 or email enquiries@rwbca.co.uk to chat through your options.

The views provided in this article are for general information purposes only. Nothing in this article represents advice of any nature whatsoever. Accordingly, RWB CA Limited does not accept any liability or responsibility for the information contained in this article or any decision or other action that may be taken in reliance upon the information contained within it. RWB CA Limited accepts no responsibility for any errors of fact or opinion and assumes no obligation to provide you with any changes to its assumptions.