Does Your Business Need You to Change Your Leadership Style?

Leadership tends to be overlooked and not prioritised. It’s something which is usually pushed down the list as more pressing things are prioritised. 

It’s not because you want to overlook it. Most likely it’s because you’re too busy or other things are more important in the short term.

Many business owners we work with are looking for more bottom-line growth, more fulfilment and freedom. We’ve found that many of them tend to overlook or underestimate the critical link between their level and style of leadership and getting what they truly want out of their business.

Your Leadership Style

Your leadership style and ability to lead makes more of a difference than you might think. We know this because we see it play out first-hand. We advise on it and when the penny drops for business owners in terms of embracing the importance of ongoing leadership development, not just pennies, but dollars tend to follow. When you elevate your leadership style through personal and professional development, it reflects positively on your business’ top and bottom line, and positivity shines through in your people. A 1-degree shift in your inner world as a leader, over time, can equate to miles in your outer world or better put, millions in your business.

How would you describe your current leadership style? How might it be affecting the performance of your business? It’s important to note that your leadership is not just about you. It’s about understanding what stage your business is at. What does your business require from you? How developed are your leaders and teams? Adjusting your leadership style to be able to influence your people is critical. There are many styles of leadership and models that we draw from, such as John Maxwell’s 5 Levels of Leadership, the Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Model, and the Transformational Leadership Model by Richard Bass to name a few. 

Another way to look at your leadership style can be through a psycho-analysis lens where we look at your leadership character traits and attributes such as: 

• upfront and overt 
• passive and covert 
• collaborative or controlling 
• firm or flexible 
• leading from the front, middle or back 

When you think about your current leadership style and where you’re at as a leader in terms of your behavioural range, strengths, weaknesses and so on, think critically for a moment. Not only about the inherent upsides, but the subtle or perhaps even obvious downsides of your current leadership style. 

Personal development within leadership teams

A key weak point in businesses that we come across too often, tends to relate to the stagnation and lack of professional and personal development within leadership teams. As a business owner and leader, it takes sheer discipline and discernment to continuously self-manage and course-correct. Self-analysis is critical to ensure you don’t become ‘stuck in the weeds’ of the day to day. Can you relate to this leadership dilemma? 

How you spend your time, energy and focus in your business as a leader is incredibly important. If you feel like you’ve exhausted many, if not all options to grow your business, there’s a high chance you’re wrong, by a long shot. You need to remain elevated in your thinking and be ‘at cause’ instead of ‘at effect’. One way is by making time working on your business instead of being stuck in it. Making this time to think is very important. Your business journey should be appreciated by you. You need to stop majoring in the minors and start majoring in the majors. The effect will positively cascade throughout your team.  

BridgePoint Group’s Business Advisory Service

BridgePoint Group’s Business Advisory service works to help guide you and make sure you make time to think about your business. Try this exercise. At the end of your work day, pull out your diary or a piece of paper and write down what we’ve coined the ‘ON-IN’ ratio. Then, think about how many hours that you worked ON the business relative to working IN the business that day. Do it as a percentage if you like and tally up your results at the end of the week. 

What comes up for you when you reflect on your answer? There is not a ‘one-size fits all’ or ‘ideal’ ratio here. It’s about you identifying whether you are genuinely content with your current ratio or not. If you aren’t content with your ON-IN ratio, then what can you do about it? Is there a key change that will move the needle for you? Or a myriad of changes?

Remember, if you aren’t green and growing, you’re ripe and rotting. 

If you can find a way to work more on your business, you will create room for improvement, innovation, insight, and growth. If you allow yourself to become increasingly stuck in your business, you will find exactly that, you become stuck in your business. Business owners and leaders don’t have to be in a ‘dark room’ trying to find the light switch and figuring it all out on their own. Many business owners we work with are seeking sound advice, robust support, and insights into improving their business. As a business owner, you just need to ask for it or click here to find out how BridgePoint Group’s Business Advisory Service can help you. 

As you continue to grow your own leadership development, pay close attention to your leadership style. How can you tweak it for even greater results? Adjusting your ON-IN ratio is a good exercise to begin with. 

If you’d like a free 30-minute leadership consultation to discuss how you can adjust your leadership style, then reach to our leadership team.

Talk To

Neil Parker

MANAGING DIRECTOR

Get in touch