As a start-up founder, leading a team can be a daunting prospect.
How can you command the confidence of your team in the earliest days of your business? In this article, we explore five techniques that you might want to leverage, from executive thought leadership strategies to providing regular progress updates.
1. Set a clear vision
The best way to command the confidence of your team is to set a very clear vision for the business. A vision is a clear statement of what you want your business to achieve, including concrete goals with timelines.
You want your team to see and recognise that you have a very clear strategy, and you’re not simply making it up as you go along. You want them to feel confident that they are being guided by someone who knows where they want to go – and has a sketch of how to get there.
Too few start-ups do this. In fact, recent research shows that nearly 7 in 10 employees do not understand their company’s vision. That said, when it comes to articulating visions, it can be easy to slip into the mistake of making your vision vague and overly aspirational. You don’t want a mission like “To make the world a better place”.
This doesn’t tell people in tangible terms what you want to achieve as a business. Instead, go with a vision that is much clearer, specific, and functional, such as “To build the best healthcare management platform for senior care homes”.
If you’re a big, established business, you can get away with a vague aspirational vision. But as a start-up, it’s much more important to keep it tangible. Everyone needs to know – without any potential for misunderstanding – what you are collectively working towards.
2. Make sure everyone is clear on their role
One of the biggest causes of friction in a start-up is the lack of clarity around job roles. This can lead to uncomfortable situations where team members lose trust in your leadership – and even start to question your judgement.
As a result, make sure that everyone in the team has a tangible list of responsibilities, and don’t try to reinvent the wheel with trendy job titles. Keep everything simple, so everyone knows what they’re doing and how their day-to-day activity contributes to the overall success of the business.
One of the best ways to make sure that everyone is clear on their role is to have very defined job descriptions with a list of day-to-day tasks. Of course, as a start-up, you need to stay flexible, but this flexibility needs to be built on a firm foundation in the first instance.
3. Refocus energy if people are getting distracted
People get distracted all the time. That’s natural. As a start-up, you’ll constantly find yourself getting draw in unexpected directions: a team member suggests a new product, the idea of an international office appeals to you, or a different type of client walks through the door.
It is always worth considering these opportunities. But as a leader, it is your responsibility to consider them quickly, be decisive, and refocus the team’s energy on your settled strategic goals.
In particular, it is easy to find yourself getting distracted by 2 or 3 novelty ideas. But you risk accidentally waking up in 3 or 4 months to find that everyone is spread thinly, and you have lost focus on your core underlying vision.
It is important to be disciplined, and to enforce that strategic discipline on the team. If you ever feel that the team is starting to get distracted or losing sight of your original vision, refocus everyone’s energy, reset activities, and point people in the right direction.
4. Leverage thought leadership
Teams understandably trust leaders who are recognised for their insights and knowledge across the industry. It gives teams the confidence that leaders can lead the company and take it in the right direction.
As a result, you might want to more actively leverage thought leadership as an executive. This is the process of proactively raising your own profile as a senior business leader by showcasing your insights and expertise.
In practice, this might mean becoming a little more active on LinkedIn and sharing your thoughts and insights there. It might mean speaking with the press, with a view to securing some strategic coverage. It might mean producing videos that demonstrate your insights and perspectives.
In fact, research has shown that top talent is more likely to want to work for a business with a well-known CEO as it provides a ‘halo effect’ over the whole of the company.
5. Celebrate small wins
Finally, running a start-up is never going to be smooth sailing. There are going to be ups. And there are going to be downs. You need to make sure that you use the ups to remind the team that you are making solid progress.
It is even more valuable to celebrate those wins when they relate to your wider strategic objectives and clearly take you a step closer to your ultimate vision. This might be launching the first version of your product, securing your first customer, hitting 100 clients, or something else entirely.
This celebration doesn’t need to be anything big. Instead, it should just underline and focus attention on the process that you are making as a business. It might be buying doughnuts for the office. Going to lunch together. Or even just giving a motivational stump speech.
Growing a start-up is a challenging endeavour, and it ca
