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The Leading Phase of Growing Your Team

Ashley Cox

This is the fifth and final post in the 5-part Growing Your Team series. If you haven’t checked out the first four posts, you can do that here, here, here, and here!

The final phase in the Growing Your Team series is typically not considered as part of the hiring process, but I think it’s one of the most important phases. This phase will be something that will be ongoing after hiring your first employee and as you continue to grow your team (if you so choose). 

In this post, we’re exploring the Leading Phase, which is all about Y-O-U as the small business owner and team leader!

The majority of clients we’ve worked with over the past several years have had little to no leadership experience. So if you’ve been thinking you’re alone in this, you’re not.

This lack of experience in a leadership role is why so many small business owners avoid hiring the help they need and deserve or they delay hiring for longer than they should or they struggle when they finally do step into that leadership role. 

I often hear things from our clients and others I chat with throughout the week, such as:

  • I’m just tired of winging it.

  • I’m unsure whether or not I’m doing the right things.

  • I don’t know how to create company culture and it’s not where I want it to be.

  • I struggle with delegating things and trusting others to help me.

  • I want to know how to be a good leader when things aren’t going well.

  • I’m not happy with how things are going, but I don’t want to be mean to my team.

Which is why I think it’s important to talk about leadership as a vital phase in Growing Your Team. Because if you’re going to hire people to help you in your business, you absolutely need to know how to lead them when you do.

This post is the fifth and final post in a five-part series on Growing Your Team. If you haven’t checked out the first four posts, you can do that here, here, here, and here!

One of my favorite sayings is, “People leave managers, not organizations.” There’s a book by the same title written by Rick Tate and Dr. Julie White, who I had the pleasure of meeting several years ago, which does a great job of exploring why people leave and provides practical advice about what leaders can do about it.

Many of the reasons why people are choosing to leave companies in 2021 are due to things that are very much influenced and directed by leadership. 

For example, a recent study by the Workforce Institute found that a combined 54% of employees are leaving their jobs this year to find:

  • Better work/life balance (25%),⁠

  • More recognition for their work (16%),⁠

  • Better company culture (8%), and⁠

  • A company whose values align with theirs (5%).⁠

The truth is that we leaders have a very strong impact on employee commitment levels and can influence whether or not they stay – and how well they perform when they do.

As small business owners, we have endless opportunities to make the biggest and most meaningful changes in these areas by creating cultures that are nurturing, supportive, and attractive to top talent. 

As my coach Christine often tells me, this is a great example of a generative relationship – it’s a win-win situation for both sides. When you create a culture that’s supportive of your team, your team will support you and your business in turn. 

However, poor leadership and a poor company culture will lead to many negative outcomes, such as: lack of engagement, low levels of commitment/care, absenteeism and tardiness, poor work quality or quantity, and much more, up to and including employees leaving the company altogether. All of which are costly, time-consuming, and overall bad for business.

But the good news is that this is another part of growing our teams that we have control over! 

Before we explore how to achieve positive outcomes, let’s tap into the right mindset for leading:

Leadership...

  • is doing the right things; managing is doing things right (these are two different roles).

  • creates and communicates a clear and compelling vision for the future.

  • motivates and inspires people toward common goals and the overall vision.

  • builds and coaches a diverse, collaborative, and highly effective team.

  • designs a culture where everyone feels seen, valued, respected, and appreciated. 

Okay, now let’s dive into some of the most frequently asked questions small business owners have about leading teams, as well as a ton of great resources to help you step into and grow in your leadership role!

Keys Questions + Resources for the Planning Phase

1. I’m worried that I’m not ready to be a leader yet. How do I know if I am?

Becoming a leader is quite a bit like becoming a business owner. You never really feel quite ready. You just take the leap and learn as you go. 

While you could read all 15,000+ books currently in publication on leadership (including mine, which I highly recommend!) and the thousands of articles posted online and in print each year on the same topic, there’s nothing like real-world experience to accelerate your learning and hone your skills.

However, I do have some resources that will help you out as you get started on your leadership journey (because I’d never leave you hanging, right?).

The following are all podcast episodes. In each one, I share my own personal experiences with becoming a leader and leading teams for the past 15 years, along with plenty of encouragement and loads of practical advice:

2. Is it possible to build a team I can trust?

The short answer is yes. 

The longer answer is that building a team you can trust is one of the biggest concerns we hear over and over. Of course you want a team that you can depend upon and hand things over to, knowing they’re going to get done – and get done correctly.

But that can be easier said than done. So what do you need to know about building a team you can rely on and trust to help you?

Lucky for you, I wrote a 3-part blog series all about Building a Team You Can Trust, which you can check out here:

Another essential part of building a team you can trust is providing your employees with honest and timely feedback. In order to build a trustworthy team, you must first be a trustworthy leader. This means not shying away from difficult conversations and tough feedback when it needs to be addressed. 

Being able to share tough feedback or have hard conversations with employees is a skill set and not something most of us are born knowing how to do (I sure wasn’t!). That’s why I wrote 3 Tips for Sharing Tough Feedback with Your Team and was also interviewed for this article by Brit+Co all about having hard conversations to share some of the lessons I’ve learned over many years of having these types of conversations.

Keep in mind that building a team you can trust starts with you. Make sure that you’re investing in your personal growth as a leader, so that you can learn the skills you need in order to effectively lead your team. Otherwise, you may never be able to trust anyone you hire, no matter how trustworthy and reliable they are. 

3. I have control issues and a hard time letting go. Can I learn to delegate?

Delegating is another challenge many first-time leaders face and for good reason. 

It feels different to delegate inside of your own business because you’ve spent years building it from the ground up. You’ve got a lot invested in it. Now you’re just supposed to hand over the reins to someone brand new and hope it all goes well? Yikes!

If that feels a little too far outside of your comfort zone, then I have just what you need to help you ease into letting go and learning how to delegate with confidence.

First, I recommend starting with the Building a Team You Can Trust series mentioned in the question above. This will give you a good foundation before diving into delegating – because delegating is ALL about trust.

Then, watch this short and impactful interview I had with Ajia Allen, Principal of Digalyne Consulting about delegating for the first time and how to build your skills and comfortability in this area.

Finally, check out this great podcast interview I had with Kim Dawson on the 3 Biggest Mistakes We Make When Delegating (The Sassy Strategist Podcast), where I dive into the most common problems I see business owners struggle with when it comes to delegating and actionable advice about what you can do instead.

4. What is company culture and how do I create a good one for my team?

You’ve heard me mention company culture in every post in this series. And if you follow me on Instagram, you hear me talk about it all the time over there, too. Why?

Because company culture is key in building a successful and highly effective team!

If you’re not familiar with company culture, it’s about more than just perks like snacks in the breakroom, virtual happy hours, or bring-your-pet-to-work days. While these are all fun additions to the work environment, they’re not “it.”

So what is company culture?

Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers studied more than 560 companies’ culture statements and found a common definition emerge: 

Company culture is “A set of norms and values that are widely shared and strongly held throughout the organization.”

It’s about the ways we treat one another, how we work together, who and how decisions are made, and more. It’s about the ways in which we are being, collectively and individually, in the company.

To explore company culture even further, be sure to check out this great article I was recently interviewed for by Sarah Lindenfeld Hall: What is Corporate Culture and How Do You Cultivate it at Your Organization?

If you’re looking for ways to promote and strengthen your remote team, take a look at this article that I also contributed to titled 49 Programs to Strength Remote Culture, with tons of great ideas for businesses of all sizes.

Creating company culture really starts with identifying what type of culture you want and then working toward it with intention every single day. It starts before you hire your first employee and it never stops. Think of it as an epic road trip that you’re constantly co-creating with your fellow road trippers (aka your employees), one that’s full of endless possibilities and potential.

Final Thoughts

I hope you’ve found the Growing Your Team series an insightful and helpful resource. I encourage you to continue coming back to these articles as you move through each phase: from Planning and Hiring to Onboard and Leading your team!

If you’re ready for a deeper level of support, we would love to help you hire and lead the thriving team you need and deserve. Here’s how:

Hiring VIP Day – This one-day power session will help you hire your dream team member with unparalleled support and resources. Go from overwhelmed to oh yeah with our signature hiring process that gets amazing results time after time.

Here’s what our amazing client Jessie Johnson of Life as a Strawberry had to say about working with us:

“Ashley helped me structure everything from the hiring page to the interview process so that it was manageable for my team, but ALSO enjoyable for our candidates. We got great feedback from our job applicants about how much they appreciated our hiring process! Right now, we have three people on staff, and every single person is just AWESOME. I can say with 100% certainty that our team and our company culture would not be as strong as they are without Ashley and SproutHR.”

Leadership Mentoring – Get expert guidance on leaning into and leveraging your natural strengths, while developing the foundational skills you need to lead with more confidence and ease. Because you don’t have to become someone you’re not in order to lead effectively and feel good about it!

Here’s what our wonderful client Arianne Foulks of Aeolidia said after working with us:

“Before we worked with Ashley we were doing our best, but there was so much that we just didn't know. It was overwhelming. She was a wonderful resource and helped us learn what we needed to best serve our employees. I feel more confident about leading my team, and know better how to motivate people, hold them accountable, and how to deal with it when things aren't going well.”

Too often, as business owners and women, we feel like we have to do every single thing all on our own. That asking for help is somehow a sign of weakness or defeat. In reality, it’s a sign of wisdom and strength. We can’t know how to do everything in our businesses or in life. That’s why there are experts. 

When my house needed a new roof, I didn’t try to DIY it myself. Doing it wrong could quite literally have been catastrophic. Not a risk I was willing to take. So I hired and paid an expert to do it instead, someone who spends his entire day thinking about, planning for, and roofing people’s homes. And you know what? Not only did he have the skills I didn’t have, but hiring an expert also gave me peace of mind. Could I learn to roof a house? Sure. We can learn anything. But that doesn’t mean we should.

At SproutHR, we have lived, breathed, ate, and slept hiring and leadership every single day for the past 15 years. If you’ve been thinking about growing your team or you’ve been struggling with leading your team, you should work with us! 

You can’t do everything on your own. You don’t even have to do it all on your own. As our client Jessie put it best, “Stop trying to learn to be your own HR expert. Hire SproutHR and go back to doing the work you're best at."

We’d be honored to help you hire and lead your thriving team with confidence and ease. Click here to schedule your FREE discovery call today and let us show you how!

Authored by Ashley Cox, PHR, SHRM-CP