When you look back over this year, what is one lesson that you learned as a conscious business leader?
We asked business leaders in the community this question because reflection is one of the best ways to be more conscious. From listening and working with others to sticking with your mission and values, there are some great lessons in these answers from conscious business leaders.
Here are ten lessons learned from conscious business leaders:
- Go Where the Competition Isn’t
- Give Yourself Grace
- Encourage Autonomy to Make Decisions
- Meditate to Enhance Performance
- Do More of What Makes You Happy
- Understand the Role of Fear
- Listen Above All Else
- Practice emotional intelligence
- Stick With Your Mission and Values
- Work With Others
Go Where the Competition Isn’t
With over 57,000 videographers in the U.S., as a national video production team – we have to stand out, be different and go where our competition isn’t.
I learned this past year how important it is to NICHE down and go to a space that doesn’t have a lot of competitors. It will take about 2 years to get into the niche—but once you are in, you are THE COMPANY. We did this with FranchiseFilming.com and now we help franchises film their happy franchisees to drive franchise growth and franchise development. There isn’t a single other video company in this space. You need to spend the money to join associations, groups and companies in a niche.
Trevor Rappleye, CorporateFilming.com & FranchiseFilming.com
Give Yourself Grace
Every year I give myself a theme or keyword for the year. That quickly changed like just about everything else with the pandemic. One lesson/theme during this past year that emerged was grace, especially towards myself. During this time of pausing and pivots, one of the things that I had to do was give myself grace. As a leader, it was important for me but also for the team and how I lead. We often can put ourselves on the bottom forgetting to take care of ourselves first. I often would try to stay ahead or “fight” through those things but this was a draining year and a half for so many reasons and I had to give myself grace and those around me. It’s okay to not be okay, it’s okay to be tired, it’s okay to be frustrated, nervous, unsure. It’s all okay and I think that’s helped me but also the people around me.
Gresham Harkless Jr., Blue 16 Media
Encourage Autonomy to Make Decisions
One lesson I learned as a conscious business leader is to become a better entrepreneur by being a better manager and knowing what to get off my plate. I transitioned to a more conscious leadership by giving my employees key responsibilities and autonomy to make decisions. Rather than micro-managing individual tasks, I have found that it works much better to give them measurable responsibilities and allow them to accomplish those tasks in a timely manner. I learned then that the best decisions come when everything is agreed upon by the majority while leading with care, transparency, humility, and curiosity.
Alexander Shute, FaithGiant
Meditate to Enhance Performance
Taking care of your health is crucial to be a conscious business leader. Meditation offers so many health benefits that improve your work performance. It promotes sleep health and brain functionality so you can focus better on your tasks. Meditation can be done anywhere and at any time. So, when stressful situations arise, all it takes is a moment sitting quietly to enter consciousness to recenter yourself.
Rym Selmi, MiiRO
Do More of What Makes You Happy
Being successful in business requires knowing when to pivot. When you feel that there’s too much competition in your niche or you realize you’re not attracting enough customers to be profitable, changing the direction of your business can put you on the path to not only success, but also something more meaningful. As a direct result of the global pandemic, what began as a temporary way to save our office-lunch delivery business became a beautiful, lasting pivot. As nobody was in their offices but instead quarantined at home, we knew the joy of giving (and getting) a stash of snacks would help people feel connected during the pandemic lockdown. “Do more of what makes you happy” is a saying that goes around. We, at SnackMagic, believe in it and hence each day we strive towards spreading joy, delivering happiness, and filling the void of distance & bonding between people.
Shaunak Amin, SnackMagic
Understand the Role of Fear
Once you hit lifelong goals that you have set for yourself it’s another jump to finding motivation for another. A career goal I have is to become comfortable with acknowledging any fear I have within my life because your career and life should go hand in hand. Becoming fearless is a trait I admire in many people. I want to continue to understand that the role of fear is to warn and protect, not to scare and prevent. Some advice I have for creating a personal goal is to widen your perspective. When you are curious about the world around you and ask questions to understand things, you are automatically expanding your perspective and horizons at the same time.
Connor MacDonald, The Ridge Wallet
Listen Above All Else
One lesson I’ve learned as a conscious business leader over this past year is to sit back, take a breath, and… listen. As business leaders, we are wired to organize and create a structure, then implement such plans consistently each and every day. However, remote and hybrid work has taught me that I cannot create such plans in a vacuum. Rather, I need to listen to the wants and needs of my employees. Most specifically, I’ve found that my employees crave work flexibility. Therefore, instead of a regimented 9-5 day, each employee has daily deliverables that must be achieved. How they achieve these tasks, meanwhile, is up to them.
Lori Price, PixieLane
Practice Emotional Intelligence
Looking back at everything that happened in 2020-2021, I’ve realized that the most valuable entrepreneurial trait is emotional intelligence. Understanding and managing your own emotions is a fantastic asset when communicating with your investors, employees, customers, partners, and everybody involved in your work. It is especially valuable in the current challenging times.
Emotional intelligence makes the leader highly self-aware, empathic, and able to self-regulate, which is crucial in the tough business world. It also gives you a lot of internal motivation necessary to push forward. If one doesn’t understand how their emotions and actions affect them and also others, they are in for a rough ride, especially in the current times, when people value well-being and openness with extra care. Strengthening one’s emotional intelligence can be the very key to succeeding in growing your company, so it’s a good idea to nurture it throughout your career.
Tytus Golas, Tidio
Stick With Your Mission and Values
Do not go off-brand. Stick with your mission and values, even when faced with hard decisions as the country is facing a lot of shortages of products and goods. Our value is sustainability, and we kept to that even when it was difficult to find goods when there were shortages everywhere. It made us work harder and become creative.
Tamara Mayne, Brooklyn Candle Studio
Work With Others
High achieving leaders understand that if they want to achieve their goals, they need to work with others. They know that teamwork is key to success. The last year has taught me to lean on the strength of the team, provide an agile and supportive environment, and also know when to get in the trenches with them. Even as the leader, I know I don’t have all the answers, but seek the experience and insight from the team. Everyone keeps the focus on the result – satisfied customers.
Jenn Christie, Markitors
Terkel creates community-driven content featuring expert insights. Sign up at terkel.io to answer questions and get published.
