5 Things That Business Leaders Should Not Compromise On

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | 5 Things That Business Leaders Should Not Compromise OnAs an entrepreneur, if your business is struggling or your budget is tight, you might be tempted to make some compromises when it comes to your operations and the future of your company. However, there are a few elements of your business that leaders should always avoid compromising on at any cost.

Your Equipment

The equipment and tools that you use within your business can make a huge difference to the efficiency of your operations, as well as the quality of the products that you produce. While doing a better job, high-quality equipment and tools also often last longer, which can save you money in the long run. If you are struggling to juggle the quality of the tools that you are using with their cost, a Northern Tool coupon can help you to get the right equipment that you need without spending a lot of money to do so.

Health and Safety

When you do not have a lot of time or money, it can be easy to let health and safety standards slide. However, not only can you be sued and find yourself facing legal action for doing so, but compromising on health and safety can endanger the lives and health of the employees that you rely on, and can damage your reputation. You should make sure that you always take the right precautions by carrying out health and safety assessments and training regularly.

Quality

The quality of the products that you produce can help you to stand out from other brands and can allow you to get more customers. However, many businesses let the quality of their materials and manufacturing processes dip when they are in financial straits as this can help them to save money on elements such as suppliers and equipment. However, rather than saving money by lowering your standards, you should instead consider cutting your product lines to focus on one or two extremely high-quality and coveted products.

Your Values

When you opened your business, you may have created a mission statement that listed all of your values and which you used to promote your business. Even though it can be easy to forget these during business deals and growth, it is paramount that you constantly reflect on why you started your business and what you hope that it can achieve. This will ensure that you do not lose sight of your end vision and that your business still reflects the ethics, values, and opinions that your customers appreciate when they shop with your company.

Employees

The skills and dedication of your employees can make a huge difference to your business and its ability to be efficient and inspired at all times. So, rather than skimping on the skills of your employees, you should put more effort into training campaigns, consider fixing your recruitment methods, and choose to have a smaller team of highly skilled employees, rather than a large office filled with cheaper workers. You will be amazed at the difference.

How you can use AI to become a more effective leader

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StrategyDriven Management and Leadership Article |AI|How you can use AI to become a more effective leaderOne of the greatest challenges of business is dealing with the unknown. As a business leader, you must manage risk and reward every day of your working life.

The ability to know if a new product has been marketed correctly or if your customers are satisfied with your brand is something only skill and experience can bring.

However, the rise of artificial intelligence is a potential ace card up your sleeve, waiting to be used. Armed with the ability to understand your market better, interact with it and know precisely what customers will want next can give you a huge advantage over your competition and help you lead your business far more efficiently.

Here’s how:

You can make far more informed decisions

What is the most important information you need when making a tough sales decision? Consumer data. Without it, you are operating blind, and the right decision is perilously tricky to make.

Thankfully, AI – such as the https://smartboost.ai/ system – changes this, because it can collect and quantify gigantic amounts of data on both your customers and your company. This allows you a deep, meaningful understanding of every single one of your prospects, one-time buyers and lifetime customers. The AI analyzes this data and gives you an easy-to-process report, giving you all the information you could ever need to make a reasoned decision about your brand strategy.

You know exactly how your customers are feeling

Because of this huge resource of information, you can connect far more personally with what your customers are feeling about your brand. As a business leader, it can be almost impossible to stay in touch with ‘on-the-shop-floor’ colleagues and the buyers themselves.

Previously, you could be handed completely warped information on the state of the market. Customer surveys can only go so far. This gives you the ability to correct any flaws in your products and better position your brand in the market.

While AI software will be used differently by different departments, you can use it to stay better connected to the day-to-day running of the overall business and track its progress.

Cut down on wasted resources

When marketing your product, it is difficult to analyze what works well and what doesn’t, especially with any real precision. This often leads to huge swathes of the resource being invested in advertising campaigns and even products that consumers simply don’t want. By using AI software, you can minimize this expenditure and focus on the prospects that are most likely to buy, and the products most likely to sell.

Avoid making mistakes

AI is, obviously, not human. This means it overcomes human flaws by remembering everything it has learned and never making the same mistake twice. Even the most level-headed business leader cannot deliver this level of consistency.

With every passing marketing campaign, the AI software will remember what went well in the past, and what can be improved upon in the future. This allows you to minimize the chances of managerial error and gives you peace of mind that (in theory at least) your strategy should improve the more you use AI.

How to Become a Better Manager by Exhibiting These 3 Leadership Traits

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StrategyDriven Management and Leadership Article |Leadership Traits|How to Become a Better Manager by Exhibiting These 3 Leadership TraitsAs a manager, taking the time to learn and understand how you can become a great leader can aid in improving your team’s success and engagement rate.

To effectively do this as a manager, you need to take a step back and comprehend your strengths, weaknesses, and motivations as far as being a leader is concerned.

Managers often micro-manage their team and monitor their every decision-making process, which can make the workplace less effective and desirable. Employees may even lack adequate motivation to come to work fearing that they will be bashed for their wrongdoings.

If not well monitored, this may result in high turnovers, as employees seek out more fun and enjoyable work environments.
There’s more to it than just being a manager. If you are currently a manager or you are aspiring to become one in your career. You should strive to go beyond just managing a team of employees.

What does this mean? In a nutshell, both managers and aspiring managers should strive to be good leaders at their places of work as it will aid in improving communication, and it will also motivate team growth and development.

It’s worth noting that a team that works under great leadership tends to be more productive and happier as they tend to be easily connected to the organization’s goals and business objectives.

Bearing that in mind, this guide is aimed at providing both aspiring and current managers with tips, they can assimilate to not only become better managers but great leaders at their places of work.

Managers Should Advocate for Both Professional and Personal Growth

Being a manager in charge of your team, part of your obligation is to ensure your team’s growth and success by being the cheerleader of your team.

As the manager of the department, you can set aside some departmental capital to ensure that your team is constantly learning and growing their skills by encouraging them to take up courses on platforms such as Blurt Digital.

This can help your team to become empowered and inculcate whatever knowledge or skill they may have acquired into the daily business operations, boosting productivity.

Not only should managers provide their employees with professional opportunities, but they should also adhere to their team’s personal growth. Managers can invest emotionally in their team by granting them the opportunity to engage in more challenging tasks, which will enable them to expand their creativity.

Interact and Engage in Open and Honest Communication

Having and nurturing open communication with your team members as a manager can be considered to be one of if not the most important aspects when it comes to effective leadership principles. Managers should strive to tailor their modes of communication and interactions in a manner that is suitable for each person in their teams.

Managers who actively portray transparency and open communication skills tend to nurture and build the level of trust among their teams which results in increased morale on the part of the team players.

Improved morale means that team members will go above and beyond to ensure that business and customer objectives are achieved with ease.

As Opposed to Giving Out Orders, Managers Should Teach and Enlighten Their Employees

The old school level of management involved delegating and telling your team what they need to do, without taking a leadership stand and showing your team members how to accomplish the delegated responsibilities.

Instead of persuading your team members to accomplish assigned tasks in a certain way, you as a manager should strive to mentor your team members on the importance of brainstorming and creating a collaborative work environment.

As it is only through coaching that managers can realize improved team engagement and growth in the office environment.

A Guide to Being a Great Manager in Manufacturing

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StrategyDriven Management and Leadership Article | A Guide to Being a Great Manager in ManufacturingBeing a manager is not an easy job, especially in manufacturing, where there are lots of moving parts that you need to be aware of. To make sure that your manufacturing operations can run smoothly and that your business can reach success, here are some top tips to ensure that you can expertly manage your processes and your employees.

Get the Right Supplies

The basis of any successful manufacturing company is its supply chain’s effectiveness and the quality of the materials that it uses, and it is up to you as a manager to ensure that you can find and buy the right supplies for your business. For instance, at GF Laser, their precision metal laser cutting services can allow you to get the metal that you need for any project that you are working on, including sheet metal. This will ensure that all of your engineering needs are met no matter your company’s requirements.

Hire and Train the Right Staff

However, a large part of being a manager is having employees to manage, and a large part of your responsibilities is being able to hire the right staff members for your business. You should then hone your recruitment drives, spruce up your interview questions, and ensure that you use the correct HR software to enable you to find the best team for your company. You also need to prioritize these employees’ training by sending them on external schemes and ensuring that every person knows how to use the equipment in your factory.

Focus on Safety

As a manager, it is your job to keep both your employees and your clients safe. Then, you should create a health and safety policy and make sure that this is enforced within the workplace, check that your employees have been properly trained before they get onto the factory floor, and ensure that equipment is regularly maintained and checked for any damage it might have sustained. Health and safety is also particularly important in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, with there being an increase in awareness of infectious diseases in the workplace.

Create High-Quality Goods

Although you might believe that it is your job as a manager to make sure that you deliver goods quickly, it is even more important to create high-quality goods for your clientele. This means that you should focus on improving your manufacturing processes and increasing their precision. You can do this by encouraging your employees to work to a high standard, investing in the right equipment, and by constantly collecting ad analyzing data, and conducting quality checks throughout the working day.

Constantly Innovate

Manufacturing firms need to innovate if they are going to stay successful in the future, and a lot of this innovation falls to the manager of the firm. Then, you should constantly research and find the money to invest in new gadgets and equipment and manufacturing intelligence software that can help your operations go smoothly. You should also consider developing the products and services you offer, finding better ways to meet your client’s needs, and wants.

9 Characteristics of All Great Leaders

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StrategyDriven Management and Leadership Article |Characteristics of Great Leaders|9 Characteristics of All Great LeadersThe world is experiencing unprecedented times like we’ve never seen before. The global COVID pandemic is changing the way most of us live and work. Some companies have managed to make it through these times fairly untouched, while others have faced many great challenges and struggled significantly.

One of the defining reasons why some organizations are able to weather a storm is due to the leadership. Eight months ago, no one could have predicted what was coming, but great leaders are always prepared for anything. In addition, they are always ready to change direction and adapt to the times.

What else defines great leaders? In good times and bad times, the best leaders share many of the same characteristics. The best part is, whether you are in a leadership role or not, you can learn a lot from the best leaders and if put into practice, it can make you better in almost everything you do.

Here are nine things that all great leaders do.

Leaders don’t dwell on things

Great leaders are decisive. Even when put in a situation where they really are unsure, or in tough times like a pandemic, they consider the facts and are quick to make up their minds. They know the time lost debating and the emotional anguish they would be putting themselves through is just not worth it. They also know in many cases, if they make the wrong choice, they can always recover.

Leaders teach

Great leaders take the time to teach others. Bossy people bark orders telling others what to do. A great leader knows he or she is only as good as the people around him, so she takes the time to develop her team. A great leader believes in teaching because another leader helped him become so great. Great leaders believe passing on their knowledge to an eager student is one of the best ways to give back.

Leaders tell the truth

Great leaders are always honest. They don’t sugarcoat what needs to be said even if it’s not what someone wants to hear. Their job is to develop their teams and get the best results possible. They prefer for you not to be insulted, but they would rather hurt your feelings temporarily if it means you becoming better in the long run.

Leaders listen

All great leaders show their people the way, but they also know how to actively listen. They thoroughly trust their own instincts and judgement, but they know that it’s possible that others could have better ideas or solutions, or an easier way to do something. They are willing to listen to anyone who says they have an idea because they are always open to learning. Especially in difficult times like we are facing now, they know that listening to their team is critically important.

Leaders don’t micromanage

A great leader knows that at some point, he’s going to have to cut the student loose and let her find her own way. Bossy people micromanage the process forever and never let others learn from their mistakes. Real leaders know the only way to learn is from doing.

Leaders don’t care about taking credit

A great leader has one goal: to get the job done with the best results. He’s not in it for the accolades. When things don’t go according to plan, they are the first to take responsibility. They don’t mind a pat on the back once in a while, but it is definitely not a necessity. In the chaotic business climate that we are all working through right now, they know the goal is to succeed despite who gets the credit.

Leaders learn from their mistakes

At the heart of it, great leaders are nothing more than professional failures. They’ve failed time and again but instead of being defeated by their setbacks, they learn from their mistakes and comeback stronger than before until they succeed.

Leaders aim big

Great leaders aim way beyond their potential, even if deep down they know something is out of reach. Keeping their eye on the prize is the only way they are going to stay motivated and moving forward. Sometimes they get laughed at for their auspicious tone, but it doesn’t stop them in their pursuit of great things.

Leaders always want to get better

Even when he or she reaches the top, great leaders know there is always more to learn and better ways to do things. They are open to continually learning from other leaders. They read, attend seminars, go back to school, and they are open to any form of knowledge that will help them become even better. Even though right now they are more focused on getting through the pandemic successfully, they are still looking for ways to be at their best.

About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Angela CivitellaAngela Civitella is a business executive and leadership coach who is founder of Intinde (www.intinde.com)