Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
It may surprise you to hear this, but 82% of bosses tend to take on management positions without management training or qualifications.
This has led to a significant decline in the number of highly qualified managers in various industries around the world. As a result, regular employees’ trust in managers decreases and employee turnover is high.
To avoid this, wouldn’t company founders and top management also need to develop and improve their skills, especially in the current market conditions where everything changes every day? Let’s take a look, shall we? Here’s my take on how leaders can develop and why it’s important.
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Adopt the mindset of change
As a business leader, I have long learned that the financial industry is constantly changing and evolving. This means that my co-founders and I must constantly monitor these changes if our company is to remain relevant.
Lewis Carroll once said: “My dear, here we have to run as fast as we can just to stay in place. And if you want to get somewhere, you have to run twice as fast.” These words perfectly describe how founders should feel when they collect and analyze new information.
It’s not just about having the right knowledge. Depending on what stage of development you are at, the roles you have to fill in the company also change. When you first start a startup, the primary focus is on building your team and researching the market for possible product niches that you can fill. But as your company grows, the situation changes. And with it the tasks that you as a founder have to master.
For example, all of our teams are now put together, so I spend less time dealing with such matters. Instead, I concentrate primarily on more strategic things, such as planning the company’s course and prospects for the next two to three years.
And that’s how it should be in my opinion. Founders must be able to shift gears and gradually move from operational to strategic issues. To this end, it is important to adopt a certain mindset and prepare a management team that will allow your company to function without your direct intervention in day-to-day affairs.
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Learn how to fade into the background
In my opinion, the founder’s job is to build his company to a certain point. You will know that you have reached a point where you feel that your skills are no longer sufficient to continue carrying out your tasks efficiently. This means it’s time to take a step back and hire people who are better suited to take on some of your responsibilities.
To be able to do this requires a certain level of character that allows you to look at things objectively and recognize that others would be better suited to some positions in the company than you. In fact, the larger your company gets, the less likely you are to fill many roles. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
I would say it’s a perfectly healthy situation for a company. There may come a time when things are handled by other people who are better at direct management than you. In the meantime, you and your co-founders can form the board without having to get deeply involved in the regular processes.
It’s up to you to decide when the right time is to make this transition.
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What tactics can you use?
It is natural for founders and employees to grow with the company and its needs. Set specific goals that you want to achieve and choose the types of training that will better help you achieve those goals. Here are some options that I think will be of great use in improving the skills you need to better run a business.
Leadership coaching: Coaching sessions create a space for reflection where you can improve your self-awareness and explore your goals. Get a clearer idea of where you are and where you want to go to achieve sustainable growth for the company. Evidence shows that 70% of leaders who receive coaching benefit from improved performance in the workplace. Personally, I can say that coaching often allows me to think about existing business problems while learning how to do it better based on real cases that we have worked on in the past. This has proven to be very helpful over the years.
Industry analysis: I mentioned earlier that working in finance means operating under constantly changing conditions. Therefore, constant market monitoring is of utmost importance here. It helps us understand the state of affairs and the needs of market participants. This, in turn, allows us to make forecasts about the demand and supply of our products, as well as possible financial returns. If you want your business to succeed, you can never stop deepening your awareness of the market in which you operate.
Collect feedback: In my company there isn’t really a uniform standard by which we measure all of our employees and try to make them fit. That wouldn’t make much sense. Fintech is a very innovative field, so the ability and courage to think creatively are the most sought-after qualities here and not “adherence to standards,” so to speak. Therefore, we prefer to measure the success of our training initiatives based on feedback from our management and employees using the Kirkpatrick model. Whether they are able to apply new skills and knowledge to their work and whether the training has increased their confidence and motivation. This is how we measure our progress.