It’s All Your Fault

As the owner of the company there are several ways you can play the power game. I’m sure we’ve all worked for miserable bosses and there’s a variety of ways that a business owner can create a culture of fear, suspicion and anxiety amongst the staff.

I have no tolerance for these types of people. I have no respect for these types of bosses: they are decidedly not leaders. And I can tell you that these people operate from a place of ego and insecurity.

I’ve been a business owner for twenty years. I would not call myself an exemplary leader for about the first fifteen of those. I was learning. I certainly had the desire to be a good leader, it was always my mission, from the beginning. Especially as a woman.

It takes time and you need to build up those emotional callouses. You need to be so confident in your leadership that you never need to declare it. You need to be so strong in your leadership that you understand your main purpose is to support and encourage all the people around you. In a funny way, you work for them, not the other way around.

I heard a great quote which I’m going to paraphrase but essentially it was, “your company should be so strong that it’s impossible to tell who the actual leader is”. I thrive on that mentality.

And certainly it’s not a hardship when everything is going right. But what about when there’s a mistake? Someone drops the ball? Something didn’t get done, or done correctly, someone is very upset and someone is to blame. Because someone is always to blame, right?

Well yes, in a manner of speaking.

In my business, I’m less concerned with who’s at fault and more concerned with 1) how do we solve this problem and move on, and 2) what do we learn from this so that it doesn’t happen again.

That said, I can tell you with absolute certainty who’s at fault.

Every time.

I am.

No matter what the situation is, I am the owner, I am the leader, I am the one who started the business and it’s my vision that everyone is supporting. Granted, we are a team and everyone contributes, but I’m the one who can see beyond the immediate day to day. And I can tell you that any conflict we’ve had over the years was because I, in some way, allowed it to happen.

Either I wasn’t asking the right questions, or getting the right information or talking to the right people or I was giving the responsibility to someone else when I should have been handling it.

I believe that people who run their companies with ego and insecurity will always look to others to take the blame. If you’re confident in who you are as a leader then accepting the blame is part of the responsibility of ownership. And again I’m less interested in focusing on who’s to blame and always more interested in finding a solution and in how we as a team can solve the problem.

By doing that, you create stronger team bonds and unity. When people aren’t worried about being singled out and shamed and are instead being looked to for solutions, it changes the whole environment from one of autonomy to one of community.

And I can also say confidently that if you own your business and you don’t feel like your team has your back, that is all on you and you have the power to change that.

Lead with confidence and accept that being the owner means at the end of the day it all falls to you. But that’s not a bad thing and it definitely doesn’t need to be lonely at the top.

All being at the top means, is that you have the biggest view.