I need to confess something to you: I am not usually a very good boss to myself. It was about 4 years ago when I quit my job and exclaimed “I want to be my own boss!”
Then I got my wish: I…was…my…own…boss.
That is good news, but the bad news…I was my own boss.
I don’t know if you ever felt the way I did where you feel like you have split personalities in your head. Let me explain. You can watch/listen HERE.
When you are your own boss you have two roles when running your own business: You have to be the boss AND you have to be the employee. Sometimes those two are fighting against each other in your head.
For me The Employee was freaking awesome: she was turning out great work, creating content in record time, getting clients great results, and helping to grow the business.
The Boss, though, was really, really mean and constantly telling The Employee things like, “You aren’t good enough.” “Great job, but I don’t know if you’re going to be able to do it again.” The Boss made me sick from all the stress she was imposing, and it was really, really horrible. So while my Employee was being successful by making my clients successful, we had a real morale problem up in my head because of my Boss.
Can you relate?
The worst part of realizing that I was a horrible boss to myself is that I am a professional leadership coach. I know how to be a good leader: recognize people, and help them set realistic goals… In fact, in my corporate job, I was in charge of recognition for the region, but I couldn’t be a good leader for myself.
I have realized after four years, my Employee is getting sick of her Boss. My Employee is getting mad and burnt out. I would never ever treat anyone on my team this way, so I need to stop treating myself this way.
If you can relate to this, I want to give you some ideas and quick steps to start moving in the right direction.
Some Big Ideas
- You do have two roles in your business. The Boss and The Employee.
-The Boss needs to do their job and here are their responsibilities:
Goals
Strategy
Schedule
Recognition (you get paid is not enough)
-The Employee also has a job:
Don’t question the boss all day.
- The Employee needs to execute the plan
- If you are new to being The Boss, you may need to allocate some professional development in this area.
A client recently said, “I don’t even know where to start. Where would I start?” I said that you start with the skills of goal-setting and time management so that you can set clear goals (not vague rank-goals), clear activity goals, and set a schedule. But you may want to allocate your professional development hours to how to lead yourself. You can start with a book on habits. I would recommend Great by Choice. - Set up time to be The Boss.
Don’t let your Boss be on a permanent vacation. Is your Boss on a vacation? If your Boss is always on vacation, how do you think that is going to make your Employee feel? Confused? Scared? Unsure? Is your Boss showing up for work?
I have “Boss” time on Monday nights before I meet with my coach on Tuesday; I have a client that has “CEO” time on Sundays. You need to set up some time to be The Boss.
Moving forward, you don’t need work harder. You just need to carve out some time – plan about an hour a week for your Boss to show up and set goals, execute the plan, then review and reflect at the end of the week. Have your Boss and Employee sit down for a chat, compare notes, and go from there.
The Boss role is a critical, critical role because how you lead yourself is a reflection of how you are going to lead others. One of the toxins that I’ll admit to in my business is that because my Boss was so mean to me was that all of that yuck was spilling out on to others. That is not ok and we don’t want to do that.
If it is hard for you to be nice to yourself, do it for the good of the team and the people around you.
This week, be good to yourself. I got a mug that says “World’s Best Boss” to remind myself to be a good boss to my team AND to be a good boss to myself.
I hope this has been helpful. If you are not sure how to start being a good boss, or if you want to get better at it, then I encourage you to join the Emerge Surge where we will help you learn to lead yourself first.
When you are ready, here are a few ways we can work together:
1. Are you ready to have more consistency, more action, and more joy in your business? If your answer is a resounding YES then we invite you to join our Emerge Surge membership group. You can grab the details and learn more HERE or set up a 15-minute call HERE with my business partner Karen to chat about the next right step for you.
2. Order the 2020 Emerge Leadership Planner so you can crush your 2020 goals. Order physical or PDF planner HERE
3. Schedule a free team training- we will set up a zoom training with your team to go through the 5 Keys to Helping Team members make sales a more enjoyable process. Simply send an email to team@emergesalestraining.com connect and schedule.
4. Work with me and my team privately. If you’d like to work directly with me and my team to take your business to the next level… just send an email to team@emergesalestraining.com with the word “Private”… tell me a little about your business and what you’d like to work on together, and I’ll get you all the details!