Leadership - when to show it.

How and when you show your leadership skills will directly influence your small business. We live in interesting times where more often than not our businesses become our livelihood. We are so engrossed in them that there are times you need to take a step back and look ahead at the bigger picture.

Consider yourself the Major in an army and your troops are deep in the trenches fighting for survival. They turn to you as their leader and ask for a way out, unfortunately you're in there too.....what do you do?
This is where you need to stop, get into the helicopter and rise above what's happening. You will quickly see that there is in fact a way out and it's over there...!

In other words don't get bogged down each and every day in the operational aspect of your business. You need to take time out and plan your next move. Can technology help..?

Establish firstly those areas of your business (that can be improved) that will benefit the most. You can do this by undertaking a simple business systems audit and understanding "what's actually happening around here". Be critical and don't stand for second best, this is the time to invest in your business so it is well positioned, as you will be, to take full advantage of the turnaround when it occurs.

While you work on your business you also need to get to know what makes a good business leader. What do you need to do to set you apart from the rest?

Ask yourself these questions as part of your business systems audit:

• What systems do I currently have in place?
• The systems I do have, are they working effectively?
• Can I automate a lot of the currently manual processes? (i.e. - invoicing, sales orders, quotes, payroll, timesheets, financial reporting?)
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• What are our competitors doing?
• Would allowing staff remote access into the office increase productivity? (i.e. VPN in from home)
• Do have I have my procedures documented for easy replication in the future?
• How do I keep track of my customers' information?
• Do I have adequate KPI and other financial reporting such as profitability, tax obligations, cash flow? Essential tips to manage your cash flow
  
• Are our systems fully safeguarded from loss of data?
• What is our redundancy plan in the event of data loss?

Whilst this is not an exhaustive list it should give you things to consider and they are all areas that will contribute to your success.

Your leadership here at this point will not only put in a commanding position as compared to your competitors, but will start the process of building a sound foundation in which to grow on.