Becoming the Boss

Becoming the Boss: Your Business Journey to a People Powered Business

The universal journey of leadership in business

It’s a classic tale we hear from leaders in small to medium businesses across all industries: I started this business because I had a great idea, I love what I do, I saw an opportunity and I went for it – but I didn’t realise that meant I was the boss.

What we often see is small to medium business owners who are indispensable to the day-to-day operations of their businesses. This means that taking time away for them becomes challenging if it isn’t non-existent. As leaders in our businesses, we might even feel that we have to operate like this or we might fail.

Surprisingly, one of the best measures of success is the freedom your business affords you. What this requires, however, is that you stop operating like a business owner and start approaching your business like you’re the boss, the CEO, the leader.

While small to medium business owners might scratch their heads wondering what being a boss actually means, because they’ve been running their company all this time – doesn't that automatically make them a boss?

Not exactly.

Becoming a boss, a CEO or the leader of your business means stepping up into a much more strategic way of approaching your business, zooming out and creating success frameworks for your people as your business evolves.

Rather than being on the ground all the time out of necessity, it’s about looking at the stages in your business journey and understanding what kinds of structure you need at each stage to help you without the usual friction we often see happen during stage transitions.

What are the stages of becoming the boss?

The journey to becoming the boss is universal for everyone, though you might find you start at a different stage depending on how you got into business.

You may have built something from scratch, bought into a franchise, a licence or purchased an already running business. Becoming the boss isn’t just about running your business, it’s about running your business strategically and successfully for you, your people and your business outcomes.

This is one of the key frameworks we use at People Powered HR to gage where in the journey any business is.

Idea Powered

In the Idea Powered stage of your journey as a leader you’re really at the very beginning, likely energised by the prospect of your business growing and coming to life and perhaps with rose coloured glasses about what lies ahead. You might feel invincible and like you could do this all day, every day, forever. Really, at this stage, you and your business are fuelled by an idea, a piece of inspiration, a thought or an opportunity that is starting to grow into something more tangible.

You Powered

As you get your baby off the ground, it’s You Powered. This means that everything to do with your business relies on you. You’re making things happen, you’re hustling, you’re delivering, end to end it’s all on you and you’re starting to see results, create new opportunities, and refining your offering.

Person Powered

The moment you employ someone you’ve shifted from a You Powered to a Person Powered business. This stage of growth can be overwhelming because it usually means you’re already run off your feet and waiting for enough growth to bring someone on. It’s also a period of time where you’ll have to start managing someone and, unless you’ve had management experience before, this can be a steep and unexpected learning curve for many business owners.

Team Powered

As you grow and scale, it will be inevitable that you’ll start to assemble a team around you, becoming a Team Powered business. This is where you have more structure in your business, more clearly defined roles that work independently and individually to keep your business ticking along smoothly. You know you can rely on your team and you’re starting to see the possibility of reclaiming some of your time outside of the business – but you might not be quite there yet because even in this stage, the business may still heavily rely on you.

You might even find, no matter how effective and efficient your team is, that you become the bottleneck of your business with stuff moving slowly through your pipeline because you still carry so much responsibility. You might also find that when key members of your team move on, they leave a skill gap that you have to fill in yourself as a stop-gap measure.

People Powered

A People Powered Business is one that grows emerging leaders who start taking some of the meatier items off your plate and there’s a clearly defined structure and framework around roles and responsibilities. You’ve graduated from having teams, to create a level of leadership that is now responsible for managing those teams and reporting to you, meaning you can turn your attention to bigger picture planning and take proper time away from your business that was impossible to do before.

You might hire in your leadership or you might invest in your team and skill them up as leaders, nurturing them in their career progression through your business and increasing the likelihood of retaining them longer because they can see opportunities to grow with you.

If any of these stages of business resonate with you or you find yourself stuck, connect with People Powered Business to learn how you can take advantage of our knowledge and resources to elevate your business and reclaim your time.

Is becoming a boss a linear journey?

Becoming a boss is not always a linear journey – and that is perfectly okay.

In the same way that our businesses expand and contract, so do we as bosses and leaders and the first thing to know is that you’re not alone.

If you powered through the stages of business, we looked just looked at above and suddenly find you drop from being People Powered to Team Powered as your business shifts focus or adapts to a development in your industry – whatever the reason may be – that's okay. Your business is not a failure and neither are you.

You might even find that you are a People Powered business but that it’s still heavily reliant on you. This is a great breakthrough realisation that can help you refine your leadership and role structures to work in a way that meets your needs, your business needs and the needs of your people.

I need help becoming the boss of my business, what can I do?

Becoming the boss in your business requires you to wear different hats at different stages, and to remain agile and responsive as your business grows, scales, and even contracts from time to time.

Understanding the stages of growth in the way your business is powered can help guide key decisions and save you not only money but time – undoubtedly our most valuable resources.

If you’re ready to overhaul your business frameworks, we’d love to hear from you.

An invitation to join a thriving business community

If you have questions about any of the stages of becoming a boss and a People Powered Business, I’d love to invite you to join us inside our free Facebook Group where you can connect with other like-minded business owners, leaders and managers to discuss all things HR: https://www.facebook.com/groups/hrsupportaustralia