It is important for owners growing their business to know what they are the best at doing, and to have faith and trust in their employees doing the rest.
by: Feisal Hammude
As many people who have experienced especially when working in the Middle East, managers enjoy micro-managing departments and their people to the point where employees feel that there work is frustrating and redundant. Company leaders tend to make all decisions in all departments due to their lack of trust in their staff, even though they are more then capable to make sound decisions. This may be due to the fact that many are privately run family companies who have a long history of passing the company reins to family members who have little or no experience or enthusiasm in running the family business, but yet when they do, there's an inability to trust any of their employees in making sound business decisions said Feisal Hammude CEO of Dubai projects.
Many of these business leaders can be more concerned with minor company details, then with the company's overall vision and strategy, even though the company is experiencing profit and growth. There's more of a concern of making quick profit at the expense of a sound and joyful work environment thus resulting in poor morale in the workplace, and the inability to retain their top talent. The trend is changing slowly however due to stiff competition and a large expat work force from North America, and Europe who are slowly educating companies and instilling their own experience. At the same time young locals have had the experience of being educated abroad and have brought back new skills and expertise making them savvy managers of some large businesses in the region.
Leadership Attitude
Leadership is about the ability to lead, to set a course and to set a vision, and choosing the best way to get there and ensuring everyone in an organization is going in the same direction. Management follows leadership. Once a direction is set, management – doing things right – assesses the objectives and declares, “Here’s the best way to get there.”
In the early stages of a business, an owner needs to be both leader and manager. But as the business grows, it becomes increasingly difficult for one person to both lead and manage. When articles are written about a once-promising company that fails, reasons cited usually include things such as a lack of adequate capital, unexpected competition or an entrepreneur’
The Other Side
The size of a company has nothing to do with whether solid management can substitute for great leadership or the other way around, as well. Large and small businesses alike need each other, and knowing the difference between the two is especially crucial for companies making a transition from start-up to a successful, mid-size and growing enterprise.
Finding Your Niche
Most businesses expend tremendous energy and resources trying to find a niche for their products or services to minimize competition, maximize profits and ensure on-going success. But seldom does the person at the top of the company spend any real time finding their own niche within the business: Are they better leaders or managers? The answer is as important to the future of the organization as knowing where to fit into the marketplace.
The answer is not always easy to uncover, especially for someone who turned a flash of entrepreneurial insight into a profitable, growing company with a bright outlook. Nor is it always an answer that appears with the same flash that created the business in the first place. But the process of finding the answer requires the same drive and commitment as someone devotes to making their business a success in the first place.
