5 Leadership Myths That Kill Entrepreneurial Ventures

Hugh Ballou

The Law of the Lid

Your leadership is like a lid or a ceiling on your organization. Your church or business will not rise beyond the level your leadership allows. That’s why, when a corporation or team needs to be fixed, they fire the leader.

- John Maxwell, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

Starting and maintaining a profitable enterprise as an entrepreneur is very difficult, at best. However, research shows that 90% of businesses that fail do so because of a lack of leadership skills.

Fortunately, leadership is a skill many people can learn. In my opinion, however, learning great leadership means that many of us must unlearn most of what we’ve previously been taught or observed.

Best practice for building and sustaining a profitable business is often a reverse paradigm from the things business schools and prevailing leadership experts teach. Leadership best practice, from my perspective, requires the same skills a conductor uses to build the high-performance cultures we call “ensembles” in the musical world. “Ensembles,” in the non-music context, are high-synergy teams. These teams develop only with the intentionality of the leader.

The entrepreneur who operates as a “solopreneur” might not perceive that synergistic teams are important. Wrong! If you are talking to at least one other person, such as a salesperson, consultant, alliance or venture partner, advisor or board member, then you have a team. It is important for entrepreneurs to surround themselves with capable people. It is also important to learn from other businesses you admire. Being an entrepreneur is a choice to stay out of corporate systems, so why do things in the same way as a company you don’t want to work for?

Team effectiveness starts with the leader and branches from there. First, you equip yourself, then you empower others. With this in mind, here are the 5 top leadership myths that kill entrepreneurial ventures:

1.     I Must Be in Command

2.     Always be Right

3.     Improper Language or Behavior

4.     Pretend to Know What You are Doing Even If You Don’t Know

5.     Delegation is a Weakness of Leadership

Are you ready to go to the next step? As you study these myths, I suggest you share your personal and organizational goals with at least three people you respect and with whom you have a valued connection. Check with them every 30 days to let them know how things are progressing. Being accountable to others is frightening at first until you realize that the people you are accountable to are the people who will bring the highest value to you because they understand where you’re going.

But most important of all, for your venture’s success, when you hit the leadership lid, raise the ceiling!