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You may be surprised to hear this, but 82% of bosses tend to take leadership positions without any management training or qualifications.
This has resulted in a sharp decline in high-quality leaders in various industries around the world. A consequence of this is that we are faced with a declining level of trust in managers among regular workers and a high level of staff turnover.
So, to avoid this, shouldn’t the company founders and top management also grow and improve their skills, especially in the current market conditions where everything changes every day? Well, let’s take a look, shall we? Here’s my take on how leaders can undertake self-development and why it matters.
Related: How leaders can cultivate happiness in the workplace
Adopt the mindset of change
As a business leader, I have long learned that the financial industry is constantly changing and evolving. This means that my fellow founders and I must constantly monitor these changes if we want our business to remain relevant.
Lewis Carroll once said, “My dear, here we must run as fast as we can just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere, you must run twice as fast.” These words perfectly describe how founders should feel when gathering and analyzing new information.
And it’s not just about the right knowledge. The roles you have to fill in the company also change depending on the stage of development you are at. When you first launch a startup, the focus is mostly on building your team and searching the market for possible product niches you can fill. But as your business grows, the situation changes. And the same goes for the tasks that you, as a founder, face.
For example, these days all our teams have been trained, so I find myself dealing with these matters less. Instead, most of my attention is paid to more strategic issues, such as planning the company’s course and outlook for the next two to three years.
And that’s how I think it should be. Founders must be able to shift gears, gradually moving from managing operational issues to strategic ones. To this end, it is important to adopt a particular mindset and prepare a management team that allows your company to function without your direct intervention in day-to-day matters.
Related: 5 Traits You Must Have to Create More Leaders
Learn how to fade into the background
In my opinion, the founder’s job is to bring his company to a certain point. You will know that you have reached that stage where you will begin to feel that your skills are no longer sufficient to continue fulfilling your responsibilities efficiently. That means it’s time to take a step back and hire people who are better suited to do some of your tasks.
Being able to do this requires a certain measure of character that allows you to look at things objectively and recognize that others would be better suited than you for certain positions within the company. In fact, the larger your business becomes, the less likely you are to be suited to many roles that need to be filled. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
I would say that’s a perfectly healthy situation for a company. There may come a time when things will be managed by other people who are better at direct management than you. Meanwhile, you and your fellow founders can form the board of directors without needing to be deeply involved in regular processes.
It’s up to you to decide when the time is right for this transition to happen.
Related: 4 Ways Exceptional Leaders Can Provide Stability Today
What tactics can you use?
It’s natural for both founders and employees to grow with the company and its needs. Set specific goals you want to achieve and select the types of training that would best help you achieve them. Here are some options that I think would be very helpful in enhancing the skills needed to run a business better.
Leadership training: Coaching sessions create a space for reflection, where you can improve your self-awareness and explore your aspirations. Get a clearer idea of where you are and where you want to be to achieve sustainable growth for the company. Data shows that 70% of leaders who receive coaching benefit from improved performance in the workplace. Personally I can say that coaching often allows me to reflect on existing business issues and at the same time learn how to do better based on real cases that we have handled in the past. This has proven very useful over the years.
Industry Analysis: I mentioned before that working in finance means operating in constantly changing conditions. This is why in this case a constant evaluation of the market is essential. It helps us understand the state of affairs and the needs that market participants face. This, in turn, allows us to make projections about the supply and demand for our products and possible financial returns. If you want your business to succeed, you can never stop deepening your awareness of the market in which you operate.
Feedback collection: at my company we don’t really have a unified benchmark against which we measure all our people and try to fit them. It wouldn’t make much sense. Fintech is a very innovative field, so the most desired characteristics here are the ability and courage to think creatively, not “stick to the standards”, so to speak. Therefore, we prefer to measure the success of our training initiatives through the feedback provided by our management and employees according to the Kirkpatrick model. Whether they can apply new skills and knowledge in their work and whether the training has benefited their levels of self-confidence and motivation. This is how we evaluate our progress.