Do you know what all organizations in the world have in common, regardless of their size and the sector to which they belong? Surely you get the idea: that the most important thing they have is their human team. For this very reason, building and managing your workforce is a challenge for all leaders, especially startup entrepreneurs.
We must start from the basis that being a leader is not easy: you have to know how to be persuasive without falling into authoritarianism and be friendly without blurring your role. As if that weren't enough, your collaborators eagerly await your guidance while also wanting you to delegate and show that you trust them. All of this must be considered while recognizing that each person has a different personality and unique needs.
Doesn't sound easy, does it? So, let's explore seven things you can do as a startup leader when managing your team of collaborators:"
Welcome aboard!:
The person you choose to hire is just as important as your onboarding process. Onboarding is crucial for any employee, but it holds particular significance for small companies that don't yet have a well-established culture.
Once the selection and hiring process is complete, you must initiate a welcoming, engaging, and informative onboarding process. Clearly communicate the organization's expectations, what is expected of the new employee, and what they can expect from you and the company. While working for companies like Zappos or Warby Parker may be fantastic, making working at your company equally great is simply a matter of creating the
correct organizational culture.
Your primary goal should be to ensure that your vision for your company aligns with that of your employees. Sharing goals and developing strategies to achieve them are vital:
Growth:
It is about ensuring that each employee, through your guidance and mentoring, builds a foundation that helps them meet global expectations to the desired level and excel themselves by taking on new responsibilities. Be generous with your knowledge and your vision of the project, encouraging your team to learn something new every day.
Thus, as your organization grows, you will always have people ready to train new hires and capable of succeeding those who leave (if someone wants to leave!). Think that your Scholars today will be the future Directors of the company tomorrow.
Do not forget that startups no longer practice micromanagement, on the contrary, its main value is that employees are managed through meritocracy.
Delegate:
Part of growing a business is delegating. The more tasks or projects we entrust to our collaborators, the more time we will gain to focus on new ones and the more self-confidence our team will feel.
But be careful, even if you delegate, you must make sure -especially at the beginning- that the collaborators progress in their execution and show your interest in them.
Nothing beats defined goals and ensure professional development on a recurring basis to achieve an autonomous team that knows where the ship is heading.
Persuasion:
We are not talking about Jane Austen's latest novel, but about a fundamental feature to undertake successfully. A leader has to transmit her vision to her team and get them to accept it because they understand and share it, not because they feel obligated. To do this, you will have to know how to infect others with your ideas and arguments.
The more good decisions you make and successes you share, the more persuasive you'll prove to be.
Empathy:
Empathy is the tool that allows us to understand our team and that helps us improve communication, develop strategies and cultivate commitment among collaborators. In addition, leading with empathy will improve performance and job satisfaction.
Respect:
Closely linked to empathy we find respect. Working in a startup should never be at odds with being professional. And the foundation of any long-term relationship is respect. Treat your employees as well as you would the best of your customers and that will be the culture you will be creating. Always be consistent: grand pitches are useless if you don't know how to communicate appropriately with your employees.
Sustainability:
In a startup, you compete with large corporations that have large infrastructures, which is why it is extremely important to know how to lead with the means available. Can't you offer multinational salaries? Give them more flexibility and any size that can benefit their well-being (autonomy, teleworking, continuous feedback...). Surely you can find many reasons for your team to want to stay and grow together with the project.
We don't know of any of those unicorn companies that have gotten where they are without taking care of the talent and needs of their employees!
In addition to these tips, it is very important that you lead by example. You are shy? Show that everyone can outdo themselves and be the most social person in the room, but forget about stereotypical leadership traits. That is another common trait of all organizations: we are all different. We must take advantage and enjoy our differences to build a team innovative, diverse and, above all, trust in our leadership to be the startup that everyone wants to work for.
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The work philosophy and the agility with which everything happens in a startup is a great competitive value that any company would like to have. If you are a startup or if you would like to transform your processes to work dynamically like in the most modern and innovative companies, we invite you to learn more about Hrider. Discover how 21st century companies manage talent through continuous feedback!
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