23 Feb 6 Steps To Go From a Boss To a Great Leader

When you ask around if people know the difference between a boss and a leader most will say it’s the same, just a different title. However, the answer couldn’t be further away from the truth. I remember when I started my professional career at 19 years of age, up until 25 when I had to say my goodbye to being an employee, my image of a “boss” was this; a person with an important title who loved telling others what to do but never willing to do the task him/herself.

When I became self employed, eventually had to recruit other professionals into my business, and started leading others I quickly realized that people will do more, faster and with pleasure when they are lead by a leader rather than a boss. Having experience in corporate America where most bosses show up for work feeling no better than an employee and experiencing the business world as a consultant and employer who hired over 200 employees I can tell you this much, people that perform better at work are usually the ones that are lead by a leader not a boss. Here is a quick question to gauge yourself; whether you own the business or manage one, when you show up for work and know that you will deal with not only clients but employees how does that make you feel? If you’re not excited about that, I strongly recommend you start looking for another business/profession. It simply means you’re not a leader there, you’re boss. That will be short lived. For any leadership role to be long term there has to be a conducive environment that allows growth. Growth that is open to constructive criticism, empowerment of the team members and vision.

Lets take a look at how you can take 6 Steps To Go From Boss To a Great Leader:

1. Care more about the team’s growth than your own. Putting other people’s needs before your own is purely a leadership quality. When your team does well, so do you. You simply can’t argue with that principle. Think about parenting, when the child is safe, fed and clean the parent has a better peace of mind. That is leadership.
2. Inspire, don’t instruct. Anyone can give instructions, but not everyone can inspire another person to perform a task or even excel in it. Leaders inspire people around them to take action. Therefore, leaders create more leaders around them not more followers who constantly wait for instructions to get the job done. The speed of the team will always reflect the leadership, or lack of it, set forth by the leader. When your team is motivated and inspired they will do a lot more for the cause then doing it because they received instructions.
3. Empower your staff. It’s common to have ego and to be a control freak when you’re in a leadership position. But to be a true leader you must give up control once in a while to raise more leaders around you. Delegation is an important task for any successful leader. Put your staff in positions where they wouldn’t expect to be in because they think they didn’t deserve it yet. Empower them with tasks, responsibilities and decision making. Let them rise to the expectation.
4. Build HR driven culture. What I mean by this is actually care and love your staff. It is not just work. It is part of their life, yours too. Think about it, they spend a minimum of 8 hours a day at work away from their home and social life. That is one third of their entire day. That is one third of their life. What is it about that one third that will make them want get out of bed and run to work because they are excited it? The biggest compliment I received as an employer when one my employees said to me “you know, this is the first job I’ve ever had where I actually WANT to come to work.” That same person, worked her butt off and always went the extra mile to get the job done. She was the first person in the building and worked overtime when she had to…not because we asked but because she knew she needed to finish the work.
5. Give credit, not just criticism. Bosses are great at criticizing their staff. They have a tendency of getting together with other bosses and talk garbage about whose staff is worse. It may sound something like this “Oh my God the things I have to put up with! I don’t know how many times I have to say the same exact thing, it’s worse than raising my children.” Let me share this with you, rule 1: NEVER complain about your staff to other people. Address the problem on individual basis. Give constructive criticism and remember to inspire them to do better not instruct. Chances are that they already know WHAT to do, but because most likely they don’t care for your business they don’t do it. Rule 2: no matter how bad your staff is, always speak positively about them among other business owners or managers. There are a handful reasons for that but I’ll give you one here; if you give the illusion that you hired bad staff how does that make you look like as their leader? As someone who hired them? You get the picture. Always give credit for their creativity, extra effort and hard work. Tell them how much you appreciate them and love working with them. If you hear a great idea from one of your staff, don’t tell others that it was your idea. Give credit where it’s due, always.
6. Build trust. This is key for any healthy and striving organization lead by a leader and not just a boss. I wrote a post on  7 Steps To Gain and Keep Your Employees’ Trust which I highly recommend you read and apply into your own work.

Bonus Step 7: I want to share another major attribute of being a great leader as a bonus, that is to be open to constructive criticism. This is hard to do but it’s instrumental for your leadership role. There is no room for ego when you make your organization’s success a priority. Ask for advice and be ready to receive criticism. Adjust accordingly, keep moving and lead forward.

If you currently lack any one of these attributes it doesn’t make you a bad leader. All situations are different and often times you can’t control what’s out of your hands. What you can control is your own ability to make changes. Making a change isn’t easy and it sure isn’t an overnight task. Write these steps down and keep them in front of you every day when you show up to work. Daily disciplines add up to great results. You want to move your team to action not because they fear you as a boss but because they respect you as their leader. I hope you enjoyed reading these 6 Steps To Go From Boss To a Great Leader. 

If you have any questions or would like to speak with me about consulting please tell me about your business a little HERE and your main concerns so I can assist you.

If you found this article valuable please share it on your favorite Social Media using the buttons below.

To your continued success,

Raphael Mavi