Excerpted from my upcoming book, Sweet Spot Leadership
Are you an entrepreneur who has dreamed of building a company that has real value? Are you hoping your great idea will automatically translate into growth and success?
As many entrepreneurs before you have learned, it is necessary to have more than just an excellent product or service. Many who start out with great ideas fail to take their company to the next level.
To truly be a leader and build the type of company you want, you must become a transformative leader. You must be willing to make changes. You also need to be prepared to guide your company as you transform to capitalize on opportunities that will help you to grow.
So what must you do to be a transformative leader? Not everyone will have a clear Steve Jobs moment of drastic change to signal a shift. If you make the decision to transform, you don’t need any outside factors to push you.
TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERS EDUCATE THEMSELVES.
Reading Sweet Spot Leadership is an excellent start, but you should be looking to many sources of information to build your knowledge base. Speak with investment bankers, industry leaders, your customers—you need to learn as much as possible to guide your leadership.
TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERS IDENTIFY THE AREAS THAT REQUIRE CHANGE AND DEVELOP NEW PROCESSES TO IMPROVE THEM.
Take a hard look at how your company is conducting business. Don’t just continue operating under the status quo. Identify what is not working and find a solution that will yield better results. Transformative leaders reflect and evaluate their businesses on a continuing basis. The initial evaluation is extremely important, but just as important is monitoring the company regularly to understand the impact of your changes. Transformative leaders need to be able to continue transforming to reach the best result.
TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERS KNOW THAT CHANGE IS HARD BUT THE TRANSFORMATION IS GOING TO BE WORTH IT.
There will certainly be some growing pains as you make these necessary changes. You will likely encounter pushback from your employees who are resistant to the unfamiliar. You need to be prepared to guide them through it and be a champion for the growth you hope to achieve.
TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERS FIND THE SWEET SPOT.
You need to identify the unique “sweet spot” for your company that creates real value. This will be the focus of your growth and will be a key element of your transformative leadership.