What Happens When a Leader in Your Business Loses Focus?

Increase your profits by refocusing your leadership team

Creating leaders in your company is the key to success, but what happens if one of those leaders loses focus? It is an expectation that your leaders must always perform at their best, being focused just like an athlete. If one of your leaders loses their drive and direction, what are the impacts or repercussions on the business?

Many Company Directors rely heavily on their leadership team to take full ownership of their role and lead from the front. They want their leaders to be accountable for driving performance while managing staff, results, and outcomes. It becomes very frustrating if one of your leaders is not on the same page as the rest, especially when their leadership is meant to shine.

It takes just one member of your leadership team to cause disruption in the workplace. It’s very important that YOU, as a business owner or director, keep supporting and growing your leadership team to ensure they remain focused. Otherwise they may burn-out or lose their drive, which will cost you your business!

What can happen should a manager or leader lose their focus?

1. Standards drop and mistakes happen
2.  Team culture and employee engagement breaks down
3.  Other leaders within the business become frustrated with one another
4.  Customer service is affected
5.  Loss of revenue and productivity
6.  Staff leave because they are not being managed effectively
7.  A leader leaves as they have lost their passion and drive

Involve your Team in Change

With a fast paced and competitive business market, adapting to change is necessary for your company to survive. The secret to successfully implementing change in your business is to get your whole leadership team involved in making decisions.

Benefits when you include your team in change:

• Creates a sense of ownership
• Increases motivation
• Generates focus for your leadership team to deliver.

Drawbacks when you don’t include your team in change:

• If you don’t engage your whole leadership team in this process or
  keep them in the loop, they will most-likely resist the change, creating more challenges.
• Without having all your stakeholders on board, great ideas or necessary
  changes needed may fall short as you don’t have 100% commitment.

It begins with you!

Often, business owners will say they lack the time and resources to effectively get their whole leadership team involved with important business decisions. I constantly hear, “we can’t get our leadership team off-site together as we don’t have enough staff to cover”, or “the timing is not right”.

You may have management meetings to discuss agenda items, but does your management/ leadership teams have your back? Do they all have the skillsets needed for you to rely on them to deliver what the company needs? Do you get total buy-ins from all members when decisions need to be made or do some members just agree with you and then fall back to the norm? During these types of conversations with business owners, I get push back with comments such as “I am not happy with this particular leader, but I don’t have anyone to replace them”.

My question is, “What energy and commitment does that create for the rest of the leadership team?” and “Can you save and re-energise this person, or at least try to empower them to be more successful?”

So where does the problem lie? If you, as the business owner, have taken your foot off the pedal with your leadership team, or have been pre-occupied with something else, you may be the cause of the issue by disengaging with your leaders.
Sometimes it’s not your fault and can be out of your control. Outside influences, not associated with you or your company i.e. a sickness, or other matters, can be the cause of your leader losing focus. However, the big question is, “What is your plan to support your leaders if this situation occurs?” Do you have a back-up/ succession plan? And “Who will be your next generation of leaders?”

Motivating Your Leadership Team

There’s a saying many athletes use in the world of sport, “Getting up there is one thing but staying up there is another”. This is the same principle for your leaders. You cannot expect your leaders to give 100% all the time, especially if you don’t continually train and support them. Motivational leadership sessions, backed-up by solid action plans, linked with performance management will lead to higher outcomes, success and consistency from your leaders.

It is expected that your leaders and managers perform at the highest level at all times. This includes facilitating successful team meetings, having constructive one-on-one’s with staff, training and development, performance reviews/management and motivating staff. So, in-turn, what are you doing to keep your leaders motivated? Do you set expectations with them and create performance plans that can be measured?

Business owners want great leadership in their business. However, are they focused on developing their chosen leaders to become exceptional leaders? Some may think that a couple of training sessions and break-through’s are enough to make them successful. To me, it is vital that you continually grow and motivate your leadership team to grow your business. Leaders don’t have a ceiling for developing and learning, so you need to educate them on all aspects of your company and have them 100% on board delivering positive outcomes.

So How Do You Know If Your Leaders Are Good Leaders?

•  Their leadership brings out employee engagement, a great culture and high results
•  Delivering and challenging you in senior leadership team (SLT) meetings
•  Constructive feedback when performance appraisals are conducted

Ways to Empower Your Leaders

• Appoint an external coach who can extract information and deliver positive outcomes
•  Conduct an anonymous Employee Staff Satisfaction Survey such as STAR Workplace
•  Conduct an off-site Management Workshop with a think tank and no interruptions
•  Use an industry expert to run a Leadership Program that extracts all of the above!
•  Build a strategic plan together as a leadership team!

With the new year well and truly kicked in, you need strong business goals and strategies, with your leadership team 100% onboard to drive the strategy and outcomes for 2019. If you don’t engage your leaders and set the standards with one and another, then don’t complain if you don’t get the results you’re looking for. This year my mantra is FOCUS and THINK BIG! You need to shut out the noise and focus on what is 100% important to have a big year and set yourself up for 2020 and beyond.

At KBA we are continually growing and expanding our service ­­offerings to stay ahead of the market and our competition.  So, if we can assist you, please give us a call or look into some of our services below:

• Team Leadership Training
• Sales Training
• Employee and Staff Satisfaction Surveys 

If you would like help or want to know more about our services, please contact us at Key Business Advisors on 1300 4 ADVICE