Successful business owners think big, learn continuously and attract great talents to achieve their organisation’s mission and objectives.
These traits were comprehensively discussed in the last edition of this column. However, successful entrepreneurs and managers have four other traits.
These includes:
4. Team playing: Highly successful business leaders understand that team wins the championship, not individual talent. They develop and maintain an organisational culture where everyone in the team is carried along, and no one is left behind.
Everyone in the team has a sense of belonging and responsibility to contribute their quota to the growth of the organisation. They believe “each of us needs all of us and all of us need each of us”. Their philosophy is “everyone is important”. So they treat everyone with dignity and respect.
Be a great team builder. Develop a culture of mutual respect and accountability. Give room for constructive criticism at all levels of the organisation. Operate an open-door policy. Let everyone in your team know that their voice matters and they are appreciated. Be a leader, not a boss.
5. Systems and processes: Successful business leaders believe in efficiency of the system and effectiveness of the people. Therefore, they build necessary processes and system to get things done quicker, better and cheaper. They don’t just build system and processes, they also document them so that anyone can plug into the system, know what to do and achieve required results.
Simplify your business procedure. Document your processes. Have Standard Operating Procedures for each unit. Build a culture where everyone in your team belief in system and processes.
6. Discipline: Being an incredibly successful business leader requires a high dose of personal discipline. Great entrepreneurs and business executives have developed the discipline to concentrate at work, be highly result-oriented, meet timeline and deadlines. They are known for honesty, probity and high standard.
They have developed the discipline not to give excuses but focus on results. They complain less and work more. They constantly look out for opportunities to grow, improve and innovate. They major the major and minor the minor. They don’t waste their time on frivolities. They are disciplined enough to keep striving until they achieve their set goals.
Create time on a daily basis to learn, stay fit and relevant in your field of endeavour. Be known for taking your business and career serious. Be disciplined with your time. Work while you work. Avoid productivity killers and time wasters. Be known for excellence and getting results.
7. Hunger for more success: Incredibly successful business owners and chief executives are hungry for more success out of life. They are hungry to solve more problems to more people, create more solutions to societal needs, build new products and services, break into new markets and new industries, and acquire new companies.
When Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook, it was a simple social media platform to connect people across the world in its early days. Gradually, Mark and his team started building new tools, new solutions and new business models that enhance the user experience of the platform and made Facebook a very successful company in the 21st century.
Mark has acquired Instagram and WhatsApp to consolidate his market share and leadership in the social media platform.
Jeff Bezos started by selling only books on Amazon. Today, Jeff and his team sell almost everything on Amazon. They have built different solutions and companies. Jeff acquired companies like Zapoo, Alexa and Washington Post.
Aliko Dangote keeps expanding his business empire across sub-Saharan Africa on a yearly basis because he is hungry for more success.
Out of the seven habits of incredibly successful business leaders, this habit of hunger for more success is the master key to achieving massive success in business and career.
Be hungry to learn more, create more, build more, achieve more, contribute more and live more because there is more out of life for you. Be contented with your life but never be satisfied with who you can become and what you can build because the room for improvements and massive success is never filled.
If you are in business, you are a gladiator. You must always be on top of your game because we are in a volatile, unpredictable, chaotic and ambiguous business world, where things change with a speed of light and what works yesterday may not necessary get us results today.
Therefore, the choke cord to your business is you. Your ability to develop the skill sets, mindset and the habits that will help you succeed remarkably depends on you. Sincerely, I don’t know what the future holds for businesses in the world – the new technology that will surface and change the game or the new policy or industry that will emerge and put everyone on their toes; but this is what I know, you can become an incredibly successful business leader, if you develop and master the seven habits elucidated above.
ACTION PLAN: Identify one of the above habits you can master that will give you a special advantage as a business leader. Take action to start developing this capacity.
AFFIRMATION: I am open to developing the habits of successful business leaders. I am blessed and highly favoured.
Sesan Kareem is the founder/CEO of HubCare Health, www.hubcarehealth.com, and the principal consultant of Sesan Kareem Institute, www.sesankareem.com.ng
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