…and other misconceptions. My earliest leadership examples were my parents. They treated the people who they employed like family. This felt right to me and it was the example that was modeled for me by my entrepreneur parents. They would have holiday parties at our home for their employees, help them out when they were in need, even taking people into our home to offer a place of refuge when they were in crisis. My model for business and leadership was shaped by what I saw my mom and dad do. My dad operated a communications business in our basement for much of my youth, so the coming and going of his techs was a common sight, and these 2-3 guys became a part of our extended family. When the business had grown and he moved it to a shop in another town it left a quiet spot where there had once been a hub of activity. When my mom was pregnant with my younger sister she was working as a seamstress at a shop that sold wedding dresses. The owner was getting ready to retire, and my mom made the gutsy decision to take over the business. Thus began my further education in entrepreneurial success.
My sister and I grew up in the bridal business, and our first experience with the excitement of being a business owner was when I was about 14 and my sister was 12. The retail clothing business has the problem of every changing inventory, leaving businesses with a constant overstock of “last year’s models”. My parents gave my sister and I the opportunity to take last year’s bridal dresses and set up a shop one block down from their own large retail store. The shop was tiny, about 250 square feet with a small counter, bathroom and one dressing room. The proximity to the main shop made it easy for us to walk back to check in with mom, and also to service the people who wanted a deal. We were only open limited hours, weekends and one or 2 days after school, but the best part was that we got to keep all the proceeds! We had to learn how to keep simple accounting, and it was our first intro into profits and expenses. It was empowering and exciting every time we made a sale. My mom’s philosophy was to always give the best service possible, that was her way of differentiating her business and preventing her products from being commodities, and we modeled this even as young girls in our tiny shop.
As we got older and more interested in the activities at school…and boys…our little venture became less important, and when we gave up the lease after 2 1/2 years I was ready to move on to other opportunities. I went to work with my mom in the bridal shop and began seriously training on learning the books. As a natural introvert, I liked this job. I liked sitting in a quiet office with the hum of activity around me, figuring out and balancing the sales and expenses for the shop. It was also a less favorite part of my job to sell. This was awkward for me, but as with many small businesses, we were often just a little short staffed on the busy weekends, so Saturday was a day I would be scheduled to work the front. This meant spending an hour to an hour and a half with an excited newly engaged bride and her entourage getting to know her and understand her vision for her wedding, then showing her dresses that fit that image. I am so blessed that my mom pushed me outside my comfort zone and that I had to practice the important skills of communicating and connecting during these sales shifts. She encouraged me and pointed out my natural strengths, while modeling herself the way to give great service.
When I decided to launch my own business, I used the valuable skills I had learned while growing up in a family business to form the outlook and philosophy for managing my employees. I had seen this work for my parents, and also seen where it made them vulnerable. I thought I would be different, and that I would not make the same “mistakes” that they had. There were some times in their business where their generosity and beliefs about the good intentions of all they interacted with caused them pain. There were situations where they were taken advantage of, when confidential information was not kept sacred, of blatant theft and deceit. I saw this but I thought that would never happen to me.
Unfortunately I was wrong. I have had situations where people I trusted broke the trust. After one situation that was particularly painful, I pulled back. I started to listen to voices that said “Keep your employees at a distance”, “Never get to close to your people”, “Keep business business and personal personal”. These voices seemed at the time to ring true. I had felt firsthand the pain of someone I trusted stealing money. I heard them share confidential information with outsiders. This felt personal. I zagged over to the opposite extreme of my upbringing and natural nature. I vowed to keep my people at arms length. It was all business and that’s that.
This unnatural behavior lasted about a year. Then I realized that the dissatisfaction I felt about going to work could be pinpointed on the shields I had put around my heart. “You have to touch a heart before asking for a hand”, a quote by John Maxwell, came into my in-box. A timely reminder of who I am. I love people. I LOVE PEOPLE. It is not lonely at the top if you bring people along with you on the ride. It is incredibly rewarding to be able to impact the people you work with, live with and lead in a way that enables them to see their own powerful ability to influence people they interact with. I continue to grow and learn every day with intention, and work to share what I have learned to help inspire others along the way. I am by no means done with my journey, and I know the best is yet to come!