Shark Tank Jump Start Your Business: How to Launch and Grow a Business from Concept to Cash (21 page)

While each of these can be effective strategies for enticing new hires, your greatest asset is something far more important than a few scattered perks or learning opportunities. It’s
the DNA of your organization, your corporate fingerprint; it is your culture.

If this book were your company, then its binding would be your culture, because in many ways that’s what culture does: it pieces together the various fragments of an organization into one dynamic tapestry that represents your business.

From your office space to communication strategy, culture dictates how you’ll run your business and, in many cases, can be the deciding factor for a new hire. Think about it: the average person spends more than a quarter of her life at work. Double (or triple!) that for entrepreneurs. Of course it makes sense for someone to choose a culture that matches his values.

And this is great news for small business owners because it provides yet another opportunity to be competitive. Let’s say, for example, that Candidate A has a job offer from a big corporation that’s willing to pay $100,000 a year plus benefits. Your company on the other hand can only afford to pay $75,000 a year with limited benefits. On paper it makes sense for Candidate A to go with the big corporation. She’d be making 25 percent more money annually and have a better all-around package. But remember, there’s more to the decision
than just salary. If Candidate A is more attracted to your culture and feels as though your business would be a better place to work, it’s very possible that your offer may be the more attractive one.

Since culture can be a powerful differentiator, it makes sense to build one that embodies your brand and champions your mission. Here are three primary areas to focus on when building or improving your culture:

Employees:
How does it feel to work for your company? This can be a difficult question to answer, mainly because it requires you to take an honest look at the inner workings of your organization. Do you give your team flexibility and freedom, or do you insist on a more controlled environment? Are your employees regularly empowered to make important decisions, or must they adapt to a more hierarchical, top-down system?

Every great culture is rooted in people, so it’s important to put yourself in your team’s shoes. Would you like working for your company if you weren’t the boss? If you answered no, you may want to begin rethinking your approach. By building a superb culture, you improve the lives of your employees, and you better believe that satisfaction extends to your customers as well.

Environment:
What’s the best way to boost both productivity and creativity? For many companies, the solution lies in creating a more productive environment.

If you champion the free flow of ideas, it doesn’t make much sense for you and your employees to sit in a large room full of cubicles. If you believe in building a democratic organization where leadership and employees work in tandem, you may wish to rethink a floor plan that puts employees in their own sequestered offices. If your environment is working against
culture, brainstorm with your team and come up with a few creative ways to reimagine your space. Believe it or not, the environment you create can play a distinct role in your culture and business.

Impact:
Customers and employees are the secret to your business’s success, but zoom out for a moment and consider the bigger question: How does your business impact the community? And what does that impact say about you as a company? Are you a beacon of responsibility? A steward of progress? Maybe that’s not the appropriate image for your brand. Perhaps your company is about promoting fun or advocating independence. Your impact is more than just part of your brand; it’s a significant part of your culture.

To understand this idea more completely, try to examine the topic through the lens of
Shark Tank
. Assume for a moment that each Shark is not a person, but a company. If Kevin O’Leary was Kevin O’Leary, Inc., what kind of expectations would you have about the company’s products or services? What kind of people might they hire? How might you imagine they would go about doing business? Now compare that to Robert Herjavec, Inc. or Lori Greiner, Inc.? Whether you want it to or not, the impact you have on the outside world
seeps into your organization and becomes a signature part of your culture.

If you want your company to grow and flourish, if you wish to attract the most talented employees and the most loyal customers, you must work to create a culture that represents your business’s point of view. It won’t happen overnight, but ask anyone who’s put the time and energy into building a prosperous culture, and they’ll most likely agree: it’s worth the effort.

If you’re an accountant, it’s likely your role is fairly easy to define: inspect and maintain financial records. If you’re a barista, you probably have a good sense of your general responsibilities: make delicious caffeinated beverages for thirsty consumers. But if you were to ask a room full of entrepreneurs to describe, in one sentence, the entirety of their roles and responsibilities, you would receive, at the very best, a hearty laugh.

If your business is growing and evolving, it only makes sense that your role as an entrepreneur will grow and evolve as well. While you may have spent the first phase developing a product or service, eventually the task will be complete. At that point, your day-to-day routine will be less about innovation and creation and more about long-term strategy and management. For some entrepreneurs this will be a welcome change; for others it will be more challenging.

Depending on your specific business, you may find yourself leading a team of two or a team of two hundred. Regardless of your team’s size, leadership must always be rooted in purpose. An accidental leader is no leader at all.

The subject of leadership is a complex and highly charged one, with an ever-expanding set of rules and philosophies. Scour the business section of any bookstore and you’ll find stacks of titles on the subject. Inquire online and you’ll discover even more material—a simple search for the term “business leadership” returns over 3 million results. With so much information available on the topic, it’s almost guaranteed that one philosophy will contradict the next.

What you must always remember is that there isn’t one way to lead. In other words, it’s not a matter of right or wrong, but of more effective versus less effective. While some choose to adopt a more participatory, open style of leadership, others favor a more structured, rigid approach. And that’s okay; there’s room for both. As the leader of your company, it’s
you
who must decide how to steer the ship, and what kind of captain you’ll be.

Before you define your role as a leader, you must first understand the role of the employee, which has dramatically changed over the last couple of decades. Fifty years ago most people dreamed of graduating from college, getting a well-paying
job at a reputable company, and climbing the corporate ladder until they could eventually retire and collect a pension. But the days of such a well-defined path to success are over. Today, people are searching for more than just a j-o-b; they want opportunity that feels deeply meaningful and uniquely their own. Perhaps that very desire was your initial motivation for starting a business.

As cultural expectations surrounding work have evolved, so too has the role of the leader. Top-down management and rigid structure just aren’t as effective as they once were. The days of corporate authoritarianism are rapidly coming to an end and making room for a new generation of leadership—one that isn’t as much about power and assertion as it is about influence and inspiration. Being a good leader today is not about how obsessively you can control, but how abundantly you can empower.

So what does that mean for you—the entrepreneur, the small business owner? How do you excel as a leader? While this subject is expansive, there are four distinct principles that can be applied to almost every type of leadership: Authenticity, Adaptability, Accountability, and Accessibility.

Authenticity:
Just as consumers are demanding more authenticity and transparency from the businesses they support, employees are looking to leadership for the same. As a leader you needn’t have all the right answers. Instead, it’s far more important that a leader is genuine in his messaging and honest about his strengths and weaknesses. Your team is your team for a reason. They don’t just believe in your business; they believe in you as well. Reward that trust and respect with a commitment to lead authentically—even when it’s the tough choice to make.

Adaptability:
We live in a constantly evolving society where
disruption occurs in greater, more pervasive ways than ever before. What works today may very well not work next year. An integral part of being a good leader is knowing how to stay nimble and adaptable. No, of course you should never sway from your core values and mission. Without those, your organization would be lost. But you also cannot be rigid or stagnant in the face of change. One size no longer fits all, and it’s up to you to create a system that embraces change.

Accountability:
There’s a school of leadership out there that says you must stand tall, act proud, and never admit wrongdoing, for fear of being seen as weak or vulnerable. That is the school of the past, not of the future. Today’s leaders must be unapologetically accountable for all their decisions—the good and the bad. You need only look to pop culture to find proof of this principle. What’s the worst thing celebrities, politicians, or business leaders can do when they make a public blunder? Deflect blame. Although the initial desire may be to point fingers or deny responsibility, that choice only results in more turmoil. It may seem backwards, but when you admit you were wrong and show real accountability, you humanize the leadership role. In doing so, you draw people
closer
to you and your organization. You will make mistakes. That’s a guarantee. And when you do, you must be strong enough to take full accountability for your actions. Otherwise, your leadership may only be temporary.

Accessibility:
In some circles there’s still a stigma about being too accessible. If everyone can reach you, what does it say about your status or clout? But being inaccessible isn’t a sign of power; it’s a sign of being out of touch. As a society we have become accustomed to immediate feedback. Thanks to communication platforms like social media, email, and text
messages, unlimited accessibility is now the rule, not the exception. Most employees, for instance, don’t want to wait six months for a formal review to see how they’re performing. They want access to information now. And it’s not just access to information they want; it’s access to leadership too. Politicians are expected to embrace social media; corporate titans are encouraged to blog. Being a leader in today’s world means embracing accessibility both from a philosophical and an operational point of view.

When you examine these four principles, you begin to notice they all have one fascinating thing in common. These are all qualities that one typically expects from
personal
relationships. Everybody wants friends who are authentic and adaptable, right? Who wouldn’t want their loved ones to be accountable and accessible?

For years, personal and professional expectations have been independent of one another, but slowly they’re beginning to merge. As the line between work and life continues to blur, so too do our expectations of each. When you begin to understand this idea, when you begin to recognize that the chasm between personal and professional is narrowing, the more these principles start to make sense. This isn’t a generational shift. This isn’t a trend. What we are witnessing is the beginning of a new way of working and a new era of leadership.

When assessing your company and considering your role as a leader, it’s natural to use other companies or individuals as inspiration: “I want to be like Richard Branson” or “I want my company to run like Nike.” Identifying these types of
examples may be a helpful starting point, but it should only be the beginning of your journey.

Being a great leader isn’t a prix fixe meal that can just be ordered up (e.g., “I’ll have what he’s having.”). Rather, leadership is more of a buffet. And as with a buffet, you must exercise the discipline and discernment to take what you need and leave the rest behind. Otherwise, your plate will become far too crowded and overwhelming.

If you asked the President of the United States or the CEO of a major corporation to define his leadership style, he probably wouldn’t give you a clear-cut answer. When you’re a leader, you’re a leader, not a specific
type
of leader. So, while it isn’t always necessary to commit to any one leadership style, it’s helpful to know which ones are most effective for achieving certain types of results.

Below you’ll find seven of the most common leadership styles.
Which ones are the best fit for you and your organization? Again, this isn’t about picking one and leaving the rest behind. The goal should be to explore the various approaches and cultivate your own unique approach.

Democratic:
The democratic leader takes a more collective approach to the decision making process. Instead of one person or one group of people making all the major decisions,
she asks the larger group to participate. This type of leadership has been proven to be highly effective, as it helps employees feel more involved in the company. However, it does also have its drawbacks. Democratic leadership has been known to create unnecessary confusion within the organization, which often leads to poor communication and disorganization. IDEAL FOR: a smaller organization that has a team of employees with equal skill levels.

Authoritarian:
When most people imagine the leader-follower relationship, authoritarian (or autocratic) leadership may be the first thing that comes to mind. Leaders who subscribe to this method typically make decisions on their own. If you’ve ever had a controlling boss who takes pleasure in micromanaging your work, than you may already be familiar with this type of leadership. But don’t discount it just yet. Not all authoritarian leaders abuse their power or become ruthless dictators; autocracy is more of a spectrum than a single shade. IDEAL FOR: an organization where the boss may have considerably more knowledge than the rest of the team or if decision-making must often occur quickly.

Transformational:
Transformational leaders are often big thinkers and even bigger talkers. They’re known for their ability to inspire and motivate others to perform. Often characterized by their enthusiasm and passion, they genuinely see the best in others and put attitude above almost everything else. While this type of leader can do a lot for an organization, it’s important that detail-oriented and analytical people support him. Otherwise, this leader’s grand visions may never be more than just that: visions. IDEAL FOR: an organization where innovation is crucial to success.

Laissez-faire:
As its name suggests, this type of leader is by far the most hands-off, asking each team member to make her
own decisions while simultaneously providing little guidance. Because its very definition requires a substantial amount of passivity, studies have shown that this is one of the least effective ways to lead a team and manage a business. IDEAL FOR: an organization with a small group of high-performing experts.

Servant:
First identified by Robert Greenleaf, this type of leadership is centered on helping others live up to their fullest potential.
A servant leader will often share power and put a significant effort into her team members’ professional development. Different from democratic leadership, there is still a primary management team in place. However, much of their responsibility is empowering those within the organization to grow and flourish. This leadership style has dramatically grown in popularity over the last ten or fifteen years. IDEAL FOR: organizations with a well-organized, mission-focused leadership team.

Transactional:
Working under the primary belief that employees should be rewarded or punished based on performance, this type of leader values organization, structure, and a solidified chain of command. Furthermore, a transactional leader takes great comfort in rules, process, and procedure, and expects others to do the same. When business is going well and performance is high, this type of leader is often beloved. But when things start to go downhill, watch out! The transactional leader believes in swift but firm penalization for errors and oversights. More effective for certain types of teams than others, transactional leadership can have both a positive and negative effect on an organization. IDEAL FOR: traditional organizations with a robust team of middle management.