Entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey. And since many start to fill all the roles of their business, they are slow to hire and replace themselves. They wait until it hurts. Believe it or not, I’m a fan of a lean team. Having too big of a team can cut into your profit margins. HOWEVER, hiring the right people at the right time for your particular business needs is the key to a successful scale.
To scale, Entrepreneurs used to think that all they needed was a Virtual Assistant (VA). However, a VA is task oriented. They only execute the tasks that YOU assign and execute them how YOU direct. Should anything go off course with their task, they have to come back to YOU for resolution. This often leaves CEOs feeling as though they should just do it themselves to save time. Effective use of a VA requires structure.
Now, the buzz, of who Entrepreneurs need most, is a Project Manager (PM). The good news is that a PM is a thinker. They can take your desired outcome for a project, create structure around it, and execute it to completion. The bad news is that they manage projects (usually one at a time) and not your business as a whole.
Enter shared leadership. A CEO can only remain the visionary to share the dream for others to fulfill if there are others in a position to create the plan and to execute on the plan. CEOs get overwhelmed with the operations level of business when they are included in the day-to-day details, tasks, and operations. If every decision must go back to the CEO, they cannot very well stay in the dream state to come up with more visions or be the face of the business to bring in more revenue opportunities. Someone else must be qualified and empowered to be a thinker that makes decisions and leads the charge to complete the vision.
There are separate roles within operations that share in the leadership, thinking, and decision making to keep the CEO in the energy of a visionary. There is the Chief Operating Officer or Director of Operations (interchangeable), the Business Manager or Officer Manager, and supervisor or lead. I will break these positions down in the blog.
If you would like to talk about the shared leadership you need to be a thinker for your particular business, let’s talk. ShaCannon.info/talk