Are Women Natural Leaders?
Why did you set up your business in the first place?
Women tend to be much more driven by purpose, rather than pure financial gain. Men tend to be more motivated by power. It is not surprising then in a global economic market that there continues to be far more male CEOs than female CEOs.
What is interesting though is that women are much more likely to create businesses with social impact; those with a social or entrepreneurial purpose. And in these types of businesses the split between male and female owners is much closer to 50/50.
What is being lost if women are forced to fit a mould created by men? We are different but this is not a problem that needs to be fixed; it is in fact a source of strength. Women have natural leadership skills and are more comfortable to empower others.
So what has this all got to do with you and your business?
Well as a female leader you have the natural aptitude to grow a team to support you; you will give them space to work things out for themselves and understand that mistakes are a part of learning. And aptitude is what you will look for in your team as this is what cannot be taught. They will learn about your business and all the skills that they need in order to help it grow.
You will see making yourself obsolete as a positive rather than negative thing. This is not great when you are working as a manager in a big business but is exactly what you want to do if you are running your own business; as this will allow you to step back from the day to day running of the business; allowing you to concentrate on strategic growth.
What do I know about this? - well, I did make myself redundant!
I was lucky enough to have a great opportunity to start up and build a business unit for an international travel company. My boss saw something that I didn’t see in myself - pure determination. Failure was not an option and I worked my socks off; travelling all over the world negotiating contracts with hotels and setting up systems so that travel agents worldwide could book them. This was 1995 and pre internet; so it was pretty cluncky and labour intensive, but it worked.
It went from 0 to 10 million turnover in 5 years and I built a team of ten. At the end of the 5 years I promoted one of the team to operations manager and basically made myself redundant! For me, it was a time to step up and go to University to do an MBA which led me to bigger and better things when I started my own business.
As a business owner, you don’t have to make yourself redundant....
You can put yourself in a position where you have the best of both worlds. By building a business that is no longer reliant on you doing everything yourself:
You only have to do the work you love and are brilliant at - just think what it would be like to be able to delegate all those things that just aren’t in your zone of brilliance.
You have the time and headspace to think about strategic planning for business growth - or to a take a day off to just THINK.
You can build your network and create new business partner opportunities and collaborations - the excitement of sharing ideas with other inspirational leaders.
You can provide opportunities for your team to learn new skills - there is nothing like seeing your team grow and flourish; learning and building confidence.
Building a business requires many skills, it is challenging and needs resilience. There will be amazing days where everything is going well; you sign a new client, you exceed your target for the year, you win a business award. You will experience the joy of knowing that all these things are down to you and the team that you have nurtured.
But there are also days when you have challenges, when things don’t go to plan; when you wonder why you started in the first place.
I know all about these ups and downs from co-founding and running an award winning business which grew to £8m turnover with a team of 25. It was extra tough doing it alone without any help from someone who had been there and done it; who could support and guide us on this journey.
Is it the right time for you and your business to invest in a business coach?
🔹 Have you come to a crunch point in your business and are unclear what direction to take next?
🔹 Are you ambitious to grow but feel you are making things up as you go along with no structure or clear vision?
🔹 Do you feel you know what you need to do, but just don’t seem to be able to get it done and move forwards?
🔹 Do you have loads of ideas but none of them seem to come to fruition
🔹 Do you have people supporting you, but still feel you cannot step away from the business?
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