Why Leadership?

Working as a management and marketing strategist over the years, clients are sometimes surprised to learn that a lot of my career past was focused on people leadership. Although I led teams that consulted and sold marketing to small businesses, and this is where that experience comes from, a true passion of mine since I began my career has been leadership. So when Michelle and I embarked on our entrepreneurial journey it was important to me to incorporate this passion into our business and find a way to support the entrepreneurs we work with from this perspective. 

What I often see in the start-up and entrepreneurial space is people suddenly finding themselves in a leadership role and, to no fault of their own, feeling like a fish out of water. They want to be a great leader and probably have some good examples to glean from, but being a first-time leader can be daunting and frankly a bit scary, especially when you are the boss and don’t have your boss to go to for advice, eesh! 

I think back to my first leadership role and I remember a lot of trial and error to learn how to hire, motivate, coach, and manage performance. I always had the benefit of my leaders and peers to lean on and learn from, and wow did I ever need them in A LOT of situations. I will always remember the very first coaching session that my Director at the time sat in on with me (it didn’t go well, to say the least) but she took it as an opportunity to coach me and help me to improve. I will always be grateful for that and for the other mentors, training opportunities, and people that helped me learn throughout the years. I couldn’t imagine having to go on that journey alone.

For some entrepreneurs, that is exactly what happens. When you find yourself at the top of your organization, because you started it and have grown it to the point of needing to hire, you can all of a sudden find yourself needing to move from contributor to leader, yikes! Not only is this a new skill set, because people leadership is a skill, it also is a huge shift in focus for an entrepreneur that is likely used to doing everything in their business themselves. 

Recognizing this in the entrepreneurial space called me to want to be that sounding board that was so important to me coming up in my leadership career. People management can be tough but it can also be extremely rewarding. For me, there is nothing better than seeing the look on someone’s face when they have a breakthrough (perhaps why I also love consulting, haha). That said, I think it is so important to have people to talk to and lean on for this, as no great leader does it alone. Like any skill, it takes knowledge, practice, and time. So the more we thought about how to incorporate this into our services at Method & Motion, the more it became clear, this is another ride that just requires a ride operator, aka us! 

With that aha moment we are excited to launch our first free exercise that focuses on leading high-performance teams. We will continue to build content to support current and future leaders in the entrepreneurial space with this series and other resources like it. We hope you find it as valuable as we do.

Looking to chat more about your leadership needs? Say hey and we’re happy to connect.