These five leadership skills will help small business leaders achieve sustainable success!

1. Leadership Skills for
Small Business Leaders
The five most important Leadership skills
for small business owners

2. Agenda
 Introductions and Welcome
 Small Businesses – Who Are They?
 Leadership Skills for Sustainable Success
 Leadership Skill Development
 Call to Action!
 Questions

3. Small Businesses Defined
The Small Business Administration (SBA) defines a
small business as independently owned and operated,
organized for profit, and not dominant in its field.
Examples include (www.sba.gov):
 Manufacturing: Maximum number of employees range from
500 to 1500, depending on the product manufactured
 Services: Annual receipts may not exceed $2.5M to $21.5M,
depending on the service being provided
 Retailing: Annual receipts may not exceed $5.0M to $21.0M,
depending on the particular product being provided
 General and Heavy Construction: General construction annual
receipts may not exceed $13.5M to $17M, depending on the
type of construction

4. Leadership Skills
1. Effective Communications – defined as all parties
understanding the message with the same meaning.
 Same Meaning - Share knowledge (context) along
with information (content).
 Effective Listening – We are typically not hard of
hearing, we are hard of listening.
 Managing Conflict – Communications are both the
cause and the cure for conflict.

5. Leadership Skills
2. Team Building – Teamwork is leveraging
complementary skills toward shared goals and
holding team members mutually accountable to
achieving desired results.
 Recruiting – Looking for future talent externally and
re-recruiting your star performers internally
 Hiring – Assessing attitude as well as skills and
knowledge for all new hires at all levels.
 Developing – Creating a culture for associates to
stay relevant to your business.

6. Leadership Skills
3. Collaboration – How well do we work with:
 Customers – How easy is it for them to do business
with your organization?
 Strategic Partners – How are these relationships
generating mutual benefit to each other’s business?
 Vendors – What core values do they each share with
your business?
 Employees – How does your culture leverage their
active participation in your business?
 Others?

7. Leadership Skills
4. Goal Setting/Time Management
 Goal Setting – A process to clearly reflect priorities
and expectations.
 Written – not written; not real
 Aligned – in sync with strategic direction
 Shared – everyone knows what is expected
 Time Management – …is really Goal Management
 Prioritization – high rewards and/or consequences
 Spending time versus investing time
 Full calendar ≠ a plan

8. Leadership Skills
5. Business Acumen: Linking an insightful assessment
of the external business landscape with the keen
awareness of how money can be made – and then
executing the strategy to deliver the desired results.
 External Business Assessment – influences across
the landscape impacting the ability to execute the
strategy such as Political, Legal, Technology, Global
and Sociocultural.
 SWOT Analysis – Internal Strengths & Weaknesses
along with external Opportunities and Threats.

9. Leadership Skill Development
Effective leadership development is as much about
the questions as it is the answers. Ask the right
questions to challenge the status quo.
 What does business success look like?
 How effective is the leader’s communication style?
 What is the leader’s goal setting process?
 How are leaders investing their time?
 How do each of the associates attitudinally “fit” in
the culture going forward?

10. Call to Action!
 What will you do with this new information in the
next 30 days to help you improve your leadership
skills and more effectively lead your business?
 Questions?
 Thank You!
Rick Lochner
www.rpcleadershipassociates.com
rlochner@rpcleadershipassociates.com
630-219-3316