Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others. — Jack Welch
Report by Philip Chichoni
A leader is a person with followers. Religious leaders have followers. Political leaders have followers. Unions have followers because they have leaders. Many people are capable of being a follower or a leader depending upon the situation they’re put in. When you are still building your small business and you are alone, you are not yet a leader because you don’t have followers. When the business gets off the ground, you become an entrepreneur.
Entrepreneurs are leaders. Each day business owners organise resources and people to meet common goals. As you build your vision and follow your passion, the type of leader you become determines how successful and sustainable your business will become. Business leaders have the authority to determine the area of excellence in their business. The aim is always to achieve leadership in your chosen market niche. You need to be smart enough to notice patterns from random information that enables you to take decisive action, while others are still analysing the situation, and to make strategic choices that bring a competitive advantage.
I will discuss two types of leaders in business: those with a bird’s eye view and those with a worm’s eye view. Bird’s eye view leaders These are leaders who look at the big picture and recognise that opportunities are unlimited for those who are ready to seize them. They are aggressive in the market, competitive and dynamic. They want to build empires and relish high-stake games. Look at Strive Masiyiwa. He has build Econet not only into the biggest telecommunications company in Zimbabwe, but has also taken the company well beyond our borders. The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange listed Econet Wireless Zimbabwe as only a subsidiary of Masiyiwa’s operations and investments and its operations are confined to this country. Outside Zimbabwe, Masiyiwa has been aggressive in acquiring businesses in Africa, Europe, South America and the East Asia Pacific Rim, offering products and services in the core areas of mobile and fixed telephony services, broadband, satellite and fibre optic networks.
Bird’s eye view leaders are aggressive, expeditious and sometimes seem self-centred in their approach to decision making. Worm’s eye view leaders The opposite of bird’s eye view is worm’s eye view. Instead of seeing unlimited opportunities, like a bird looking down to the ground from the sky, worm’s eye view leaders think of business decisions from the ground up, paying attention to detail. They focus on strengthening their internal processes, enabling them to achieve operational and execution effectiveness. An example that comes to mind immediately is Divine Ndhlukula. She showed her internal focus by making Securico an ISO 9001 quality certified company before most of the competition in her market. Such leaders focus on internal excellencies before external expansion. They prefer to have deep expertise in narrow domains, rather than expanding and diversifying aggressively.
The problem that can happen if you take the worm’s eye view to the extreme is that you might miss some profitable opportunities because you are not looking on the outside. Striking the balance For an entrepreneur who wants to build a sustainable business, being too extreme in either type of leadership is dangerous. Bill Gates, who was focussed on the dominance of Microsoft in the market to the detriment of competitors, had a rude awakening when the US Justice Department and the European Union filed anti-trust suits against the company. Perhaps feeling remorse he decided to change his leadership style. He stepped down as the CEO of Microsoft to become chief software architect. He also set up the charity Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation to give back to the community, making him appear more righteous to many people.
Masiyiwa also set up probably the largest charity in Zimbabwe, and is a devout religious man, balancing out his aggressiveness in business and making him look good in the eyes of the people.
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Once you understand that your leadership is on the extreme side, you will need to find ways of balancing it.
It was interesting to read about a local entrepreneur who has decided to donate a quarter of his equity in his business to staff. Briton Chawatama, the owner of Bright Pharmacies, said he was giving the shareholding to his staff to empower them as well as to make them feel that they have ownership in the business. That is a great way of motivating your people and it makes them, feel responsible for the success of the business.
Extreme styles of leadership can be unlearned and be replaced by balanced leadership. It will not be easy, but wisdom comes from understanding both views and then taking the middle ground.
Sustainable success comes from learning and practicing balance in all aspects of life. Please let me know what you think about this topic.
l Phillip Chichoni is a business development consultant who works with SMEs and entrepreneurs. You may contact him by email: [email protected]. You can also visit http://smebusinesslink.com.
