Built to Last – How to Grow Your Business by Hiring Leaders

All businesses need leaders on their staff, but small businesses need leaders even more. Why? If you are the entrepreneur who started the business, imagine yourself as the go-to person for all questions.

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Imagine yourself having to be the person who develops new procedures. Imagine yourself as the person who answers all the difficult, thorny questions that may come up.

If you have to provide all the leadership in the organization yourself, when will you have time to run your business – much less expand it? I suspect that you have other responsibilities on your plate besides supervising employees. What you need is a self-supervising employee who can discern when something needs to be done, and take the initiative to do it. Moreover, that person needs to care about the business and have the judgment, background, and intelligence to be able to make good decisions based on the information that is available – even if a question comes up that was not covered during employee training. What you need is a leader.

How can you find a leader if you are currently going through the hiring process? Look for the following signs of leadership:

Signs of Leadership in Lower Level Positions:

Continuing one’s own education. Not all industries require their leaders to have advanced degrees or certifications in order to advance, but many do. When you meet a job candidate who is attending school or pursuing a professional certification, or who has recently finished a degree program, take note of it. By continuing his or her education so aggressively, such a job candidate is showing not only that he or she can handle the stress and pressure of working and attending school simultaneously, but is planning to advance in their career by pursuing additional credentials. In other words, this person is ambitious and determined to take the initiative, rather than wait for promotions to be handed out at regular intervals.

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Working off the clock. The hallmark of an employee who lacks ambition is working straight nine to five hours, arriving right on time and leaving right on time, and taking no interest in the industry outside of work. Someone who aspires to be a leader in the industry, however, will go out and find activities to participate in that are related to it. You might find a job candidate who also does volunteer work for a community organization, for example. Or you might find an employee who likes to come to work early in order to have time to read the newspaper and browse through business websites.

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Positive energy. I find that leaders tend to be very energetic people with their fingers in lots of pies (figuratively speaking). They take a keen interest in many different areas, not all of which will be work-related. Leaders often, but not always, like to make time to exercise. It seems as though they have an inherent need to be constantly busy doing something. If you come across a job candidate who does a lot of volunteer work, or runs marathons, or who spends a lot of time on a time-consuming hobby, consider that person a potential leader – even if none of those activities are connected with the job in question. They are all signs of energy, and energetic employees are employees who help businesses to expand.

Signs of Leadership in Upper Level Positions:

Publications, conferences, trade shows, and public talks. Leaders in an industry will take a keen interest in the industry, taking the time to educate themselves further about special topics. Eventually, continuing education plus ongoing experience makes an interested party into something more – an expert. An expert without any leadership potential or ambition might stop there, but an expert who really wants to make a difference in the industry will take the initiative to help to develop the industry further, by sharing knowledge and engaging in a collective discussion of topics that are of interest. There are several ways to do this. For example, one might share knowledge by writing articles and submitting them to industry publications, or by participating in public talks, panels, and workshops at conferences and trade shows.

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Mentoring. A true leader does not climb the ladder of success alone, but reaches out a hand to help others to ascend as well. Try to find out if the job candidates you are considering have ever mentored their coworkers or supervisees. Mentoring could mean giving regular advice and encouragement, or helping a coworker to find ways to network in the industry by introducing them to others in the industry, or by inviting them to join professional groups. A mentor might also take time to help a supervisee develop new skills, either by teaching those skills directly or by providing a supervisee with the chance to work on promising projects. Ask about mentoring in your interview. Leaders don’t mentor accidentally – they know they are doing it and are often quite proud of their mentees.

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A history of changing one’s work environment, as opposed to being changed by it. Employees with a lot of initiative and drive will often shape their own job responsibilities. During their tenure in their current positions, their job responsibilities will expand in many areas. These employees have an eye for efficiency and are open to trying new ways of doing things. Often they will find that they have more hours in their work day than their predecessors did, even though they are working the same hours, because they have found shortcuts and economies of scale to make the work go faster. Needless to say, people who have the ability to do this make very valuable members of your team, because they can literally increase the number of products or services that your business can offer in the same amount of time, without increasing the number of employees on your payroll.

Conclusion

You might not be enthusiastic about the idea of an employee changing the work environment or the job responsibilities for a position. After all, if you are an entrepreneur who started your own small business, you very likely have strong ideas about how the business should be run. I have to tell you that a leader
is someone who may challenge a few of your ideas. You may even have conflicts with this person from time to time. But that’s okay. In fact, you should welcome challenges and new ideas with open arms. Businesses are living, organic entities that have to continue to grow and change – or they will die. Hiring someone who pushes you to try something new may be the impetus your business needs in order to expand, grow, and thrive.

About the Author: Brendan Cruickshank (Vice President of Client Services) – Brendan is a veteran of the online job search and recruiting industry, having spent the past 8 years in senior client services roles with major sites like Juju.com and JobsInTheMoney.com. He is quoted regularly as an expert in employment and jobs trends in major media outlets like the Washington Post, US News & World Report, and Forbes and has spoken at recruiting industry events such as Onrec and Kennedy Information’s Corporate Recruiting Conference.

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