Startup Leaderships
Leadership & startup have different meanings, the environment of a start-up differs from an established business, during the startup phase, the entrepreneur is responsible for leading pretty much every aspect of the company from handling development of the business concept, market analysis, hiring & managing employees, develop company culture and much more. The two essential attributes a startup leader should have for the growth of the business is the ability to multi-task and the willingness to delegate responsibility.
From being Startup leadership, there come many roles, first of all, is the main role as a leader they should come with fresh perspectives and ideas from marketing strategies to company culture. During the early stages, the leader starts from scratch and manages everything until the establishment of the business. They are the prime decision-maker, coming up with ideas they have to decide which ones are worth pursuing the company and how does one execute them.
During the initial stages, start-ups have either one or two people in a team, it is also the leader’s responsibility to assemble a top-notch team that share the same vision and delegate responsibility and guide them to run a successful start-up. A great start-up leader is also responsible for the brand image as it relies on their character which includes how they act outside of the office.
In a startup, teams work directly with the leaders to get their guidance and support. To gain your team’s trust leader should display integrity and loyalty and also provide full support and constructive feedback humbly and appreciate the good work so that your team can work harder and overcome its weakness.
Start-up leaders should time to time keep motivating their team and provide a positive environment to their team for the long term growth of the business.
One thing is for sure in the startup phase is that change and innovation are constant. Instead of panicking or having anxiety, the start-up should use methods or practice to adapt to these changes and also make their team prepared to embrace constant changes happening. Instead of being overly concerned with finding the ideal route right off the bat, simply identify a positive step and take it. By taking action, you’ll get the ball rolling for your team while you continue to search for the best way forward.
To be honest excitement and passion is required for anyone to grow in their business especially in start-ups if leaders are not enthusiastic about what it’s difficult to lead a team in start-ups, you have to show others about your passion and excitement toward what you do.
Tips for Leaders to run a Startup
1. Confidence, Passion and positive
Leaders are passionate and confident about what they do, being confident in front of your team makes you more empowered and trustworthy leading to a strong and positive team. With being passionate and confident leaders should be positive too. A positive and healthy mindset leads to greater team development. Confidence, passion and positivity go hand in hand while operating and growing start-ups.
2. Plan
Everything operating in a start-up runs based on planning, Leaders need to have a clear vision about their goal for them to plan and execute it. Leaders should plan and make decisions and make their team feel like being part of it.
3. Responsible
A leader in a startup is someone steam wants to follow and take guidance. A responsible leader acts selflessly keeping in mind the interests of the team taking necessary decisions based on the collected facts and data rather than jumping to a conclusion
4. Motivate and be humble
This is one of the core skills for a leader to motivate their team to achieve goals, start-ups are a hard and long journey to keep growing your teams should be motivated. Great leaders are humble thus not allowing their position of authority, showing genuine concern and helping their teammates if stuck. Being humble makes you a better leader.
5. Understand your team.
Understanding your team is one of the crucial skills, making it clear that they listen to others’ viewpoints too. Making your team comfortable around you, recognizing their issues, spending time with them will help with the long term goal of the company. Identifying your teams’ professional strengths and weaknesses will also help in assigning appropriate roles within the team
6. Embrace workers of all ages
Starts ups usually try to hire a young and dynamic team, but a savvy leader will look to include more experienced and knowledgeable people. There is no doubt that young ones are dynamic but the older ones have so much to offer with their experience and can be great mentors to their young team members. Great leaders do not go with their age but go with the experience for better development of startups. Thus making both young and old teammates go hand in hand.
7. Provide resources
Teams in start-ups can’t work without the right tools and materials, its leaders’ responsibility is to ensure that the company has everything that they need. From assisting team members about the required resources for the task and ensuring the management about the costs, thus leaders are responsible for the resources of the startup
8. Communication
Communication is the real work, leaders achieve their goals by communicating with people at all levels. To achieve their goals an effective leader engage with people, understand them, communicate with them and make them followers. . A good communicator can get a message across and diffuse any ambiguity.
9. Flexibility
Flexibility is all about adapting to alter as and when business grows. Start-up leaders need to be flexible while operating their business without any emotions getting involved, being flexible but at the same not going overboard is one of the traits of start-up leaders.
10. Decisiveness
Being decisive is hard and start-up leaders need to gather all the data to make sound decisions keeping in mind the growth of the company and the team. There is a possibility that decisions will be wrong or right, but as and when start-ups grow leaders learn and try to be more decisive.
11. Vision
Vision is the most important trait of a start-up leader, ultimately it comes down to how you encourage people around you to believe in your vision and purpose. Helping others in the startup with constant energy and motivation is a true leader.
12. Salesmanship
Ability to network and sell what a great start-up leader is. They are always selling, selling their employees to work for them, selling investors to invest in them, selling partners to partner with them, selling customers to buy their product. The greatest leaders all know how to network and sell
13. Self-Awareness
Start-up leaders have a sense of self-awareness, they know their strengths and weaknesses. They know the areas for growth and identify the right people to join their team.
One of the most detrimental traits of a startup leader is to. Olly Betts, CEO and co-founder of Biztech, the creators of Handle, said, “The best leaders realize that a wrong decision may be better than no decision at all.”
A lack of direction can ruin a team’s confidence in its leader. You must have confidence in your skills and decision making. Admitting to your team that you made a bad decision can also show them that you’re not perfect or afraid to admit it. It’s better to fail fast and learn from your mistakes than to never fail or learn a thing.