Yes, Sole Proprietors Need Good Leadership

My father-in-law is a retired police officer. The family discussions on the current police crisis often rolls around to the same key point: the failing police departments come from a lack of good leadership. I was even pointed to an article from an officer on why he believes (at least the LAPD) leadership is proving to be so poor.

Now, I don’t want to get into a political fight about this particular topic, but that, along with a few other things I’ve been reading, have gotten me thinking about good leadership, and why it matters even in a creative organization of one.

Let’s start where leadership issues are obvious–big organizations–and move down from there.

Good Leadership in Big Companies are Hard to Come By

Unless you’re extremely lucky, If you’ve worked at a big organization for any period of time, you’ve had a bad leader.

There’s thousands of books that compare the good leaders to the bad. A quick Google search will send you to down a rabbit hole of courses to help executives tune up their leadership skills.

Despite all this easily available guidance on how to develop and nurture good leadership, we have very little of it.

Why is that?

Well, the why is pretty obvious. Companies promote and reward people based on the connections they make, the bargains they strike, and the skills they have at their role before being promoted. But it turns out being really good at selling paper has no baring on how well you lead an office.

Any attempt at leadership is typically made after the person is already failing at the leadership position.

The “how to fix it” is much more complicated. Companies have this built in structure to promote people into management to reward them for the good work they do in other fields. Even if they have no experience at management whatsoever.

If you were to ask a group of college graduates why they chose Organic Chemistry, how many would say it was so they could manage the stock price of Exxon? I’m guessing none. And yet that’s where Exxon goes for their CEOs.

It’s a weird, common psychology that we assume someone good at one field will be good at another. It’s like Michael Jordan’s baseball career. To get the right people in the right place, most companies would need to be fundamentally restructured.

Heck, even being “promoted” to management really needs to go.

Some people honestly want to manage people. They love the work, they love the inspiration. That’s the answer to their Great Question. But for many more they take the management position because that’s the only way to get more money.

What Does This Have to Do With Indiepreneurs?

My goal is to help creative independent contractors run the best business they can. A big part of having a good business is to have good leadership.

The sole proprietor has a very different issue than a big corporation. Good leadership for the Indiepreneur means being seen as a leader in the field, the kind of person who can guide the client to the desired outcome, whether that’s art that will light up a room or a book that lights up a gloomy afternoon.

This means the leadership comes not from inspiring and guiding employees, but from guiding and inspiring clients.

Does this mean emotional cheerleading or posting deep thoughts on pretty backgrounds on social media? Well, that might be part of it. But it’s something deeper. Why do you do what you do? Why do you want to do it for others.

Focusing on that first, and keeping that always at top of mind in your every action, will help you be the leader in your field, assuming your “why” resonates with others.

Let’s put the example down to see who you would want to buy from and follow:

“I take good family photos for a good price.”

“I love seeing families interact with each other. My goal is to capture the essence of that family interaction so it can be seen for generations. I’ll work for your family at reasonable rate.”

I hope you like the second one better. Rather than describing the product, it’s describing why the photographer does the work and how it can help a potential client.

Yes, it is marketing. But it’s also leadership. Because that independent photographer who is committed to a specific “why” in the work will research and lead in the best way to capture that why, and will also lead the client to what they actually want in the photos.

For some people, just like those managers at big companies, good leadership is not a core skill. Next week I’ll talk a bit about how to manage those weaknesses.