One of the realities of being an entrepreneur is that you have to keep learning and changing to survive. Everyone on the startup team knows there is no buffer, and no personal isolation from impact based on your job description that can save you. Thus everyone has to make sure they are focusing on what is important, and making leadership decisions to save the business.
That is what business leadership is all about. Unfortunately, in mature companies, a larger and larger percentage of employees forget company survival and customers as the objectives, and focus only on their own personal gain. Risks to the business drift off their radar screen, resulting in poor business decisions, as well as less job satisfaction and declining professional success.
In a classic book exploring these issues, “Lead to Succeed: The Only Leadership Book You Need,” Chris Roebuck, an expert on transformational leadership, highlighted the positive impact of entrepreneurial leadership. I have worked in both large companies as well as startups, and I have observed first-hand the principles that he highlights:
- Total focus on delivering to the customer. Every startup team member is close to the customer front lines, so they see how every function does or does not add value to the service they give to the customer. People in larger organizations move away from day-to-day contact with the end customer, and focus becomes company internal and isolated.
- Optimizing risk, not minimizing it. Calculated risks must be taken to enable change, to improve, and meet new customer needs. Minimizing risk will eventually cause any company to fail. Mistakes will happen, so the objective should not be to eliminate all mistakes, but to catch them before they create disasters, and become repeatable.
- Constantly being creative and innovative to get better. Mature organizations forget that change is an opportunity, not a threat. Yet nothing stands still. Change allows everyone to be push the limits in response, to improve their opportunity for personal growth, improve the company competitive position and odds for long-term success.
- Taking personal responsibility for organizational results. The attitude that creeps into big companies is that individual employees have no results responsibility outside their own objectives. This causes company-wide inefficiency, poor communication, and poor alignment, and also tends to reduce the effectiveness of every individual leader.
- Understanding the wider picture. To get individual and team performance to the highest level, everyone has to be committed to the organization’s vision, values, and strategy, just as much as their personal objectives. An attitude of no responsibility outside of individual objectives is almost always detrimental to the company.
- Keeping things simple. Over time, people in large organizations tend to make things more complicated than they need to be. This may be to impress others with their expertise, or their desire to minimize risk. Entrepreneurial leaders know that complexity actually increases risk, as well as mistakes, and ultimately reduces customer satisfaction.
- Inspiring people around you with a clear vision and target. People need a customer-driven vision and some form of end destination to give meaning to why they do things, and engages them beyond their internal view. They also need step-by-step targets to help them visualize the journey to that destination, and see that it’s possible to achieve it.
In fact, large organizations need entrepreneurial leadership and thinking just as much as startups. The challenge to build and maintain this perspective is the same everywhere. It has to start with leadership from the top, hiring people with the right skills, giving them the right training and tools, and motivating them with the right leadership objectives, compensation, and growth opportunities.
I’m convinced that we are entering a new era of the entrepreneur. The cost of starting your own company is at an all-time low, and all the information and tools you need to lead are readily available on the Internet. More and more people are doing their own thing, freelancing, working from home, and starting their own companies.
