As I mentioned on the cover, I turn to my dad for many life lessons, and when it comes to leadership lessons, I can think of no better leader than my dad. Running a small business requires a good leader at the top. The old vision of a good leader is someone who strikes fear in their employees, uses them until their wheels fall off, and then starts all over again. The leadership that small businesses need is quite the opposite. We all have value, or we wouldn’t have a business in the first place. However, there comes a time when you cannot possibly do everything that needs to be done. Small Business Leadership Lessons From My Father PASSED DOWN
Here are the lessons I would choose if I boiled all my dad’s lessons down to just three:
1. Build a system that encourages your employees to be leaders in their roles. Rarely do businesses encourage employees to be leaders in their roles, but I have found that when you train someone to be great and tell them they can do it, they do better than you could have imagined. 2. Empower your team to find solutions and figure out how to do what needs to be done. Empowering your team to figure out the logistics means allowing your team to figure out how to do what you want. Once they understand that, they can do logistics better than you. Let them impress you. 3. Never stop grinding — improve and motivate your employees to be their best. Teams lose motivation when you stop coming up with new ideas for growth. This does not mean steer away from the fundamentals. Instead, it means finding out how you can do more of the fundamentals better, faster, and more efficiently. Do not stop improving the systems and grinding to accomplish more. On a nice day when your team has been pushing hard, give them a surprise and go grab some ice cream or sit on a patio for a Friday afternoon — it’s good for team morale.
Scaling up = Growing pains
As owners, there are usually one or two things we do really well among our many tasks. The rest can be (and usually are) done better by someone else. It’s just a matter of finding those other people.
Great leadership is learning how to motivate people, and there has been no one who’s helped me more than my dad. Thanks, Dad!
MEETING EACH CHALLENGE WITH A DETERMINED SPIRIT HOW GABRIELA GETS IT DONE
As our firm continues to grow, we search for skilled professionals to add to our team. When one search led us to Gabriela, we knew we’d gone in the right direction. Though she’s only been with our firm for a couple months, she’s already made a huge impact. Attorney and founder Russell Button says, “We already feel the weight lifted off our shoulders.” connected with the community and reaching the clients who need our help. Russell Button says that she “knocked it out of the park” during the rigorous hiring process, which included a presentation to the entire firm. “I knew I was going to hire her. As our marketing coordinator, Gabriela makes sure our firm is
Gabriela felt a similar connection to the Button Law team. She’d been looking at different job opportunities but hadn’t seen anything that interested her — until she saw Russell’s post. “I saw Russell’s job application, and I love a challenge. I love taking everything on 100 percent.”
How did she develop such a strong work ethic? She attributes it all to her mom.
“My mom was a single parent and an immigrant. From the time I was 5 years old, I saw her working all the time. She was always making sure we had enough,” says Gabriela. Gabriela is the first in her family to go to college and recognizes the sacrifices that her mom made so she could get to where she is. It only drives her to work harder. “There’s no reason I can’t succeed,” she explains. We couldn’t agree more. After putting in her 100 percent at work, Gabriela enjoys spending time with her family and the new addition to her home — a puppy. “It’s been a lot of going to the country, letting him be a dog and completely wearing himself out,” Gabriela says of pet ownership.
She fits in really well with our team. She’s a team player, has the right mindset, is a self-starter, and fits with how we operate. She’s more than we could ask for,” says Russell.
Gabriela is grateful for the support she’s found at home and in her new workplace, and we couldn’t be more grateful to have her on our team!
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