‘Am I a good leader?’ is a good question to ask yourself on a regular basis. It’s not hard to fall into bad patterns as a business leader, and it’s difficult to get yourself out of them once you are in them. But, as long as you are self aware and you are willing to do whatever it takes to be the best leader possible, hopefully you won’t have this problem. If you are constantly looking at whether you are a good leader or not, then you will be regularly evaluating and improving which is great!
Down below, we’re going to be discussing some of the things that you need to ask yourself when assessing whether or not you are a good leader. You can add your own questions to this of course, but these will be a great place for you to start. Let’s go!
Do You Make Important Business Decisions Logically?
The first question that you want to ask yourself is whether you make your important business decisions logically or not. A good business owner and leader will look at the facts that are in front of them, and then they will use those to make a decision. Yes, there are times where gut feelings come into it, and it’s completely okay to follow them when it feels like you should, as long as you take responsibility if they do not end up in your favor, especially if you went against the facts.
You have to ensure that you are taking into account all aspects of the decision making process here. Look at the research and the cold hard facts, ask for the opinions of others that you trust, and then think about what your first instinct was. A lot of the time people dismiss their instincts for one reason or another, but they are there for a reason.
Once you have made your decision and put it into action, you have to back it with everything that you have. Use your tech and software to make the process as efficient as possible, supporting your business decisions. For example, choosing the correct construction invoicing software is paramount to the efficiency of your construction business. This is an important decision, but there are others too.
Are You Firm But Fair With Your Employees?
Another thing that you are going to need to ask yourself is whether or not you are firm but fair with your employees. Many leaders go too far with the firm part of this and end up alienating the people that work for them. It’s so easy to fall into a power trip, thinking that everyone has to do exactly what you say, exactly when you say it, but these are people too. They are not just little minions that you can order around and expect to be happy with this. They are people, with thoughts and feelings and lives outside of your company.
It’s important that you know when to be firm but also are fair and compassionate towards them. For example, let’s use the issue of lateness to demonstrate what we mean. If you have an employee who is consistently 10-20 minutes late every single morning, what are you going to do? There are some out there who would simply fire them on the spot, but is that fair? No. First, you need to have a discussion with them and ask what’s going on. They could have an issue in their personal life that they are struggling with, or maybe they have to drop the kids off at school and are trying their best to get there. It’s in cases like this that you need to show compassion and understanding, rather than judgment and harshness.
Do You Expect More From Your Employees Than From Yourself?
This is a massive problem that businesses have at the moment, and it’s perhaps the thing that irks employees the most. As a business leader, you cannot expect more from your employees than you are willing to give yourself. You cannot expect them to work hours that you are not working yourself. You cannot expect them to give 100% when you are barely giving 50%. Yes, they are your employees, but this does not mean that you can treat them as though they are slaves rather than people.
You also have to manage your expectations overall. Just because you may be willing to put in extra hours wherever they are needed, doesn’t mean you can automatically demand your employees do too. They have lives outside of your business, and that’s something you need to remember.
Are You Willing To Admit When You Are Wrong?
The final question that we’re going to be looking at is whether or not you are willing to admit when you are wrong. It will happen, and you have to be able to own up when it does, saying that you were wrong and apologize for this where needed. If you cannot do this then you will never be a good business leader, and you will never get the respect that you crave from the employees. You expect them to own up and admit when they were wrong, right? Everyone should have to do this, especially leaders.
Can you imagine how you would feel, or how you have felt in the past, when a leader messed up and wouldn’t admit this is what had happened? It never ends well, and more often than not it ends in resentment of the business leader, causing a problem with relationships between you and your employees.
At the end of the day, you need to understand that self evaluation is massively important. The first person to hold you accountable should always be yourself, and you should be trying to ensure that you are doing everything you can to be the best leader possible at all times. We know that there are times where you will struggle with this, and there are going to be days where you just want to bang your head against the table, but you can do this. Being a good leader doesn’t mean that everything is going to be easy, it just means that you’re going to manage it well.
