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Tips and Tools for Small Business Leaders
February 2021

Would your employees see you as a servant leader? Would they say that you're a person of integrity? Do they have the sense that you serve a higher purpose? Do you communicate persuasively? Regularly show appreciation?

There’s no better leadership than putting the needs of those you lead first.

While there are few among us who are “natural-born servant leaders,” anyone who wants to be a servant leader can be. A good place to start is to complete our servant leader competency assessment. You’ll probably be surprised that you exhibit at least some of the servant leader competencies!  It would be helpful to know which practices you already have under your belt and which practices you want to work on.

We created the Servant Leader Competency Assessment for Small Business, a short scorable self-assessment using the 21 concrete, observable competencies from Seven Pillars of Servant Leadership (James W. Sipe and Don M. Frick). We think these 21 competencies really get at the heart of servant leadership in any small business:

I.  Person of Character
1.  Maintains integrity
2.  Demonstrates humility
3.  Serves a higher purpose

II.  Puts People First
1.  Displays a servant’s heart
2.  Is mentor-minded
3.  Shows care and concern

III.  Skilled Communicator
1.  Demonstrates empathy
2.  Invites feedback
3.  Communicates persuasively

IV.  Compassionate Collaborator
1.  Expresses appreciation
2.  Builds teams and communities
3.  Negotiates conflict

V.  Has Foresight
1.  Visionary
2.  Displays creativity
3.  Takes courageous and decision action

VI.  Systems Thinker
1.  Comfortable with complexity
2.  Demonstrates adaptability
3.  Considers the greater good

VII.  Leads with Moral Authority
1.  Accepts and delegates responsibility
2.  Shares power and control
3.  Creates a culture of accountability

You can complete our Servant Leader Competency Assessment for Small Business here.

The assessment contains a more detailed description of each of the 21 competencies. There’s a place to rate yourself on a scale of 1-5 for each competency and a place for a trusted mentor, peer, or team member to rate your level of skill for each competency. The servant leader competency assessment will automatically average your score for each competency and then give you an overall score. It only takes a few minutes and everyone who takes it finds it enlightening.

After You Complete Your Servant Leader Competency Assessment

Once you complete your assessment, get familiar with your strengths so you can use them often and with confidence! Then choose 3-4 of the lowest scoring areas you most desire to change. For each of those:

1.  Determine where you can get additional information and read up on the skill. Sipe and Frick’s book is a good start—they offer a thorough description of each competency and how to develop it.

Note, a really great resource, if you haven’t discovered it yet, is For Your Improvement*, a large reference tool for the development of around 100 competencies. For each competency it describes what the skilled and unskilled versions look like, possible causes, several remedies, and suggested readings.

2.  After reading, researching, and reflecting on your own, bounce your conclusions off a trusted peer.

3.  Identify opportunities for practice and then walk out of your office, find an employee, and start practicing.

4.  After a time, ask for feedback.

Completing a servant leader competency assessment is a quick yet substantial way to impact your team’s performance. A servant leader inspires people. It causes them to feel valued which causes them to enjoy their work which causes them to work better and harder. Servant leadership creates energy, trust, and even accountability. Ultimately it creates increased profit.

 
 
Upcoming Events
Sales Prospecting Workshop

Need help Prospecting in a COVID world? Join Us!  

February 18, 2021    9-3 pm

Bring your Sales Team...for small-medium sized businesses

Learn the most effective way to prospect for new business development

Discover the required time to prospect in order to reach your sales goals, determine how to create warm leads, and find what types of marketing really help your business.


Holiday Inn Indianapolis/Carmel
251 Pennsylvania Parkway,
Indianapolis, IN 46280


Led by local
Business Coach
& Sales Expert,
Natalie Menke




*Registration Required
Growth Plan Workshop

We've held several safe and socially-distanced Growth Plan Workshops to rave reviews (especially the taco bar)!

Are you ready for 2021?!  Join us and create (or update) your 2021 Small Business Plan

April 15, 2021    9-3 pm

Discover the potential in your business by completing your Single Sheet Business Plan.  Then break it into quarterly, monthly, weekly & daily goals and get a line-of-sight from your daily tasks to your 10-30 year purpose.  Step out of the day-to-day business for just 1 day, get organized, complete a prescribed planning process, and walk away with an action plan that leads to greater profits and free time back.

Get more out of your business in the next 90 days than you ever thought possible!


Holiday Inn Indianapolis Airport
8555 Stansted Road, Indianapolis 46241


For owners & leaders of small to medium sized businesses. Bring your 2nd-in-command or your whole leadership team!

*Registration Required
 
Applying Culture and Values to Family
If families are more important than companies, and we think we all agree they are, then why don’t we plan and organize them with as much strategic clarity as our small businesses?

With a few modifications to suit your family, you can use our Single Sheet Business Plan for your family’s strategic and operating plan! It’s in Excel so you can add, change, or delete categories that make sense for your family.

-  You could start with the SWOT… knowing your family’s strengths might keep you from making comparisons to friends and neighbors’ families. Knowing the family’s weaknesses might help determine one or two of the family’s 1-year or 5-year goals.

-  I
f your family’s culture and values were spelled out, you could create a list of behaviors that support those values. Maybe there’d be fewer “behavioral infractions” if everyone was clear on the expectations and how they relate to your values.

-  What if you had a 10- or 20-year plan that included projections about income, possessions, free time, bucket list activities, that kitchen remodel, or when you plan to sell the house and downsize? Imagine if you knew what year you planned to pay off your mortgage… you could answer the kids’ questions about that 3-generation dream cruise.

-  Envision if your family set quarterly and annual goals for things like education, possessions, recreation… you’d feel more in control of the daily schedule and you wouldn’t have to wonder if your daughter plans to join the tennis team next semester or if your son plans to take advanced calculus.  

-  I
f each family member had weekly, monthly or quarterly actions to achieve those goals maybe everyone wouldn’t be stretched so thin. Or maybe there’d be less need to remind, or nag, which might result in fewer arguments.

Like your business team, the input of all family members is important. Involving all members in the creation of the plan will create buy-in. And like your business team, you’d hold regular meetings, monthly or quarterly, to assess progress and make adjustments, and say, a touch base for 10 minutes over dinner once a week. Having a regular family meeting can eliminate wondering what your teenager’s most important goals are (at least for this month) or whether your kids are practicing the values you all agreed on.

Every family has a culture so it may as well be deliberate, planned, and one that you dreamed, envisioned, and live into with confidence and collaboration on the part of all the family members!

 
“The servant leader believes that 'my success is your success'.” - Anonymous
317-908-5809 | InspireResults.com
 
 
Inspire Results, 6521 E. Rolling Valley Ct., Mooresville, IN 46158, United States

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