Leadership for CEOs: Managing Your Temper While Scaling Your Business
Let’s be honest, running a company is not the easiest thing on earth, but we decided to take this entrepreneurial journey for many reasons. What it comes down to is that you want to be at the helm of your life as a CEO and business owner. You want to drive your own train and create sustainable business growth, right?
Even with the absolute best executive team ever, things don’t always go your way when it comes to running a business. Things break down in your business operations. People make mistakes. As a successful CEO, you make mistakes, too.
We could probably write a book on all the crazy mishaps that happen in our businesses. I’ve experienced everything from my stage set falling down in front of a packed house while delivering my opening talk at a big event, to one of my team members delivering important boxes to the wrong person’s car, never to be seen again, or feeling blindsided by losing a top team member.
The truth is, these things happen in business growth and scaling. Yet, there is wisdom in every single one of these mistakes. Did we have the right business systems in place? Was there a backup strategic plan? Often, out of frustration, we create an entirely new solution that opens up a whole new door to a much better business model and accelerated growth. I always say, out of crisis comes your next best pathway to success.
That said, we can’t help but get frustrated and sometimes outright angry. In the earlier days of my business, this stuff used to light me on fire. I’m not typically a hothead, but when you’re working so hard and things fall through the cracks, you can really get riled up.
So what do you do? Well, I’ll tell you what NOT to do: Yelling at your team member or sending that angry, impulsive text does not work. You’ll feel guilty in an hour and wish you had never done it. It only makes things worse, and definitely doesn’t fix the problem.
One of my colleagues told me she discovered a big breakdown in her company while on Zoom with her team. Not wanting to lose it in front of everyone, she muted her microphone, turned off her camera, and let out a huge scream—only to realize another team member in another room was on the same Zoom with their microphone on. Everyone heard it!
We’re all humans after all. A big part of our business growth is stepping into our executive leadership, and that’s all about how we handle life’s ups and downs. The faster you can take those emotions and funnel them into “what are we going to do about it?” and “how can this be a teaching moment for business transformation?”… the better.
Your leadership team needs to be allowed to make mistakes and given the opportunity to figure out how to solve them. This helps them grow into better team members and helps your company achieve sustainable scaling. If you’re always jumping in and rescuing them, you’re just contributing to a vicious cycle of one fire after the next instead of developing a high-performance team.
When frustration happens, put the phone down or walk into another room. Visualize yourself on a beach with a margarita. Get to a yoga class. Go for a walk. Whatever you need to do! With practice, making that shift gets easier.
Remember, no one wants to screw up. They don’t make mistakes on purpose. They didn’t wake up thinking of ways to drive you crazy as their CEO. We’re all in this together in this crazy world of entrepreneurship and business scaling. If business growth was easy, everybody would do it.
Lastly, make sure you’re practicing CEO self-care. If you’re walking around stressed, of course you’ll get triggered faster when little things happen in your business operations. I love my business, but I set personal boundaries—I exercise even when I don’t feel like it, make time for downtime, get together with other successful business owners, and nurture my relationship with my husband as part of my work-life balance strategy.
We’re driven CEOs. We have big business goals and scaling milestones. And you need to be “happy in the now” all along the way of your business development journey.
Get out there and elevate yourself as a CEO because you and your business transformation are worth it!
All Your Success,
Allison Maslan