Thoughts on Leading and Delegating
In these short interviews, the following women entrepreneurs were asked to describe their experiences and insights regarding leading and delegating in a business context.
Diana Mercer, Peace Talks Mediation Services www.peace-talks.com, teams lawyers and therapists as mediators to help couples resolve divorce and custody issues in a sane, sensible and fair way at a reasonable cost.
Mary A. Ardapple, Apple’s Bakery, Inc. www.applesbakery.com, founded a home styled bakery that is designed to facilitate customers daily conversations while enjoying the best Midwestern hospitality and quality made from scratch farm style cookies, pies, tea breads, cinnamon rolls and more.
Kelly Moore, Moore Benefits, Inc. www.moorebenefitsinc.com, owns a health insurance consulting, brokerage and administration firm for companies with 1-200 employees in Southern California. The company’s mission is to make coverage affordable, understandable, and work the way it is supposed to work.
All three women are a Make Mine a Million $ Business Program Awardees.
Diana Mercer, Peace Talks Mediation Services
In the workplace, many women often define leadership as working harder than anyone else. Do you agree? What is your own leadership style?
I don’t agree. It’s more about working smarter, and working with vision. Leadership is about inspiring people, not about grinding yourself into the dust with one-upsmanship of “hey I’m working harder than anybody”. If anything, that can be demoralizing.
By the same token, you also have to lead by example. If you want people at work on time, you need to be on time. If you want people to burn the midnight oil, you need to, too, or inspire a reason they want to even if you’re not there at the helm.
As for my own style of leadership, I’m probably pretty traditional, at least in the “new tradition” of leading by example and inspiring inspiration (as opposed to some sort of boiler room browbeating). I’m transitioning from being the in-house manager to being a true CEO and rainmaker, no longer sitting at my desk all day every day but out in the world, making Peace Talks a bigger presence in the community and as a brand.
I’m doing a lot more collaboration than I used to---leading as a result of what I’m hearing from the group and what I’m learning and bringing back. It’s a lot more collaborative than it used to be and it’s working really well. I’m learning to accept outside influence.
For many of us, it can be difficult to “let go” and allow our employees and others to take on the responsibilities and tasks to be accomplished. What are your own attitudes and practices toward delegating?
You either learn to delegate or give up trying to grow. You can’t do everything yourself. If you can’t trust the people you’ve hired to do the work you give them, it’s either a training issue or a bad hire. The excuse of “I can do it better myself” means that it’s either time to revamp your training or start recruiting. My job as CEO is to hire people who can do the tasks I need them to do BETTER than I could do it. Then I need to step off and let them do it.
I was recently on a 10 day business trip/vacation and the office ran very smoothly without me. That’s the definition of success—I know we’re ready to grow because I’ve successfully set this place up so that I’m not needed…which means I can do it again in another location, and with a franchise, and…..the sky’s the limit. If I had to be sitting here for it to work, we’d be very limited in our growth opportunities.
In general, what advice would you give to any woman business owner wanting to develop her leadership skills and find her "inner leader"? As part of your answer, please list 3 things women can do to strengthen and assert their leadership capability.
- Be open to outside influence
- Your front line employees know more about your business than you do so ask for their input and make them stakeholders in your success
- Open up your vision and be willing to think big and think different
Mary A. Ardapple, Apple’s Bakery, Inc.
In the workplace, many women often define leadership as working harder than anyone else. Do you agree? What is your own leadership style?
Yes, it is often stated women work harder that anyone else. I see that as a reflection on our women’s areas of responsibilities often cover greater ground between business, family and community. Consequently for us to be successful in these roles requires effective prioritization and effectiveness.
I know from personal experience the more organized I keep myself the more I am able to get done and feel great about it. Time has a value and each individual is responsible on how to best structure this. So for those of us that work on many things at one time it may give off an impression we are working harder where actually for me it is that I am working on the things I want to work on and don’t allow the distractions to become interference.
For me, leadership within the industry, business, and community have been a center focus of my career. As a young entrepreneur my style was much more “bull in the china shop”. This was predicated because of being young and on a very steep learning curve. Over the course of time with broad exposure to many leadership styles, my style is deeply rooted in delegation and as a central guiding post. This has served me well not only in my business but within the greater community and gives me the reputation of bringing diverse individuals together to work jointly in advancing the issue. My course has been blessed to be key leadership positions throughout our community. It is my belief leadership by example is great advise to follow.
For many of us, it can be difficult to “let go” and allow our employees and others to take on the responsibilities and tasks to be accomplished. What are your own attitudes and practices toward delegating?
This is an area which I adopted early in my career. It is important for our employees to see owners, too, make mistakes and to acknowledge their responsibility in the consequences. It is equally important to delegate and realize there is the likelihood those delegated to will make some mistakes along the way as well. It is important to hold them accountable for the consequences as well. This places an increased importance on making certain they have the necessary tools at their disposal and are adequately trained to carry out the requested tasks. Without this we are setting them up for failure.
It is vital for the team to be able to make the right decisions whether the owner is present or not. This approach has allowed me to take vacations over the years, and rarely have I returned to a situation of disastrous proportions. In my experience staff want to be respected and valued and by not only allowing but expecting them to think on there own is a strong step in team development.
In general, what advice would you give to any woman business owner wanting to develop her leadership skills and find her "inner leader"? As part of your answer, please list 3 things women can do to strengthen and assert their leadership capability.
In general, I would recommend that you have experiences where you are able to observe and participate with a wide variety of leadership styles.
- Volunteer at your child’s school
- Volunteer on a church committee
- Be active in your industry association
Also, it is important to break out of the daily grind routine with purpose to gain insight of other arenas. Without taking this time one is continually in their own leadership arena, it is healthy to allow yourself to be led to learn how to better lead.
Kelly Moore, Moore Benefits, Inc.
In the workplace, many women often define leadership as working harder than anyone else. Do you agree? What is your own leadership style?
To me, leadership is not working harder than anyone else, rather it is coordinating everyone's efforts towards a common goal. My challenge is to work in the areas where I work best, and delegate everything else. So while I am setting the vision and consistently communicating my expectations, I rely heavily on others to do what they do best. This frees my time so that I can keep moving forward and not be stuck in the details.
What has been the effect, if any, that your commitment to Work Life Balance has had on your business?
Delegating is truly an art form, and I find that I can only delegate parts of a whole. Never have I been able to turn over one big project or account to someone. I find that when I show the person how their part fits into the whole, and then monitor how that one part turns out, we can take the next step. In time, after someone hears the same words over and over, they begin to learn to take the next step without direction.
In general, what advice would you give to any woman business owner wanting to develop her leadership skills and find her "inner leader"? As part of your answer, please list 3 things women can do to strengthen and assert their leadership capability.
Developing leadership skills is a lifelong process, and is constantly in a state of development. Here are the ways I have begun to find my "inner leader":
- Determine your own strengths, what you like to do most, and what you do best. Do these things most of the time, and delegate everything else. This is what makes your business blossom and grow.
- The things that must be delegated are to be done by people who LOVE doing what you do not want to do. Find out what type of person that is, and hire that person. Or, look at your staff and fill them up with things they are best at, and find someone else to do what no one else wants to do.
- Make sure you circle back with everyone to whom you have delegated, and pay attention to what they have done. Are they adding value to the business, project or process as you had hoped? This will allow you an opportunity to show them the appreciation they crave, and let you know if any adjustments need to occur. You cannot abandon them and assume everything is OK just because you don't hear anything.
Thank you for the opportunity to share what I have learned from my M3 coach. These changes have been occurring in my leadership development only in the past 3 months, and I can already see amazing results!
