What chance gathers, she easily scatters. A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together. —Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Phillip Chichoni
Although I am an Arsenal fan, I have great respect for Manchester United as it is one of the greatest soccer teams in the world. They are great because they win more than they lose. Until Alex Ferguson retired, that is.
Sir Alex had become a legend at Manchester United. His replacement, David Moyes, had big shoes to fill.
After 10 months as United manager, Moyes was fired, having won only 27 out of 51 games, or 54%: a dismal achievement for a great team.
United needed new players. Great players for that matter. However there was a dilemma, great players were not willing to come to United under the management of Moyes, who was good but not that great for such a big team. In the end, the manager had to go. This story aptly applies to business.
When a business is at startup stage, it totally depends on the acumen of the founder to drive it forward. Good entrepreneurs can quickly grow a small business using their natural talent and acquired skills.
Then there comes a level when the business outgrows the owner and managers have to be recruited. Many SME owners ignore this stage and thus stunt the growth of their businesses. The owner remains in charge of a business which has outgrown his capabilities and competences.
The risk with this approach is seen in the natural cycle of life — that anything that stops growing begins to degenerate and will soon die.
The owner of a very small business can manage everything from production to marketing and selling to managing the finances. This is possible as all these functions are at a basic level and need no specialised skills.
As the business grows, the competences required for each function get higher and higher. The owner will have to decide which function he is excellent at and delegate the rest.
There are cases where business founders have found it necessary to hand over the reins of chief executive to someone else while they concentrate on what they are good at.
Examples include Yahoo founders, Jerry Yang and David Filo who hired Tim Koogle to help the company grow into one of the most valuable internet companies.
Locally we have Shingi Mutasa who hires professional CEOs to run his firms while he remains executive chairman of the holding company.
For SME owners, the trick is in finding the right people. You want people with the right skills and capabilities for the job. If you are seen as a weak leader, the best people will be unwilling to join you.
This means every entrepreneur with growth intentions needs to cultivate the leadership skills that will make him a great leader. Great people will not follow not-so-great leaders, as seen in the Moyes case at Manchester United.
The good thing is that leadership can be learned. Most great leaders today have studied other great leaders before them so as to acquire the same skills and behaviours.
Alexander the Great spent his teenage years in the army that his father commanded; that is where he learned military leadership.
Others have learned leadership by studying the habits of great leaders, usually by reading about their stories in books, or listening to them at seminars and lectures.
One of the most important qualities of a great leader is to have a great vision. Nothing pulls people together than a cause bigger than them.
When President Kennedy told the American people that they would be landing a man on the moon before the Russians, people bought into that vision.
Seeing that the Russians had successfully landed a dog on the moon, the country in which the citizens believed was the first in the world could not sit and watch. There are stories of workers working for whole days on end to get the project done on time. Everyone involved put in extraordinary effort to see the mission accomplished.
As a leader, the greater your vision, the easier it will be for you to attract great people who will happily help you accomplish the mission.
Can you clearly articulate your vision for your business so that everyone in your team understands it? If you ask your managers what your vision is, can they give you a clear answer?
If the answers to the two questions are not a straight yes, then you need to work on your vision. You have to learn to communicate the vision of your company to the people you want to follow you.
One of the leading experts on leadership, Partson Dzamara, will be speaking on the five essential leadership skills every entrepreneur must have at the BusinessLink Networking breakfast meeting on October 29. If you need more information about the event, visit my website or send me an email.
Wish you all the best in accelerating your growth. Phillip Chichoni is a consultant who helps SMEs and entrepreneurs start and build sustainable businesses. You may contact him via email, [email protected]. You can also visit http://smebusinesslink.com
