Boss vs. Leader: Which One Are You?

A leader is someone who inspires people to be their best and to do more than whatever they thought they could.

I'm going to show three differences between a boss and a leader for you to see which behaviors best describe you. And maybe, for you to see if you can move a little more, developing from a boss to a leader.

So, let's talk about boss versus leader. What's the big deal and what's the difference?

Well, there's a lot of us who are entrepreneurs. We're entrepreneurs, people who are growing their business or just getting started so whether you're just starting out in your business or whether you've been doing this for a while or maybe you've been doing this for five or even 10 years or more, there's going to be a point in your business where you're going to have people that work with you and maybe some that work for you.

You have to expect that managing and leading people will be added to your responsibilities now.

And, there are differences in how a boss and a leader approach their jobs. A boss will take pleasure in the power they own while a leader will ensure an encouraging environment.

Boss vs. Leader: A battle on time management, money, and manpower

As you grow and you're getting started in your business, generally speaking, you always have more time than money.

Time and money are always the two resources that are in an eternal struggle. When you're starting out your business, usually 99 percent of the time, you have more time than money because you don't really have any money coming in as you're just starting out in business, unless you have a rich uncle somewhere you have an inheritance.

Most of us don't start out with a lot of money which is really difficult because you've got to do it all by yourself. It takes commitment so the business stays in the game.

For example, I started my company successclinic.com in my college dorm room in 1997, in the middle of a recession with 800 dollars to my name and a book on HTML. That's all I had to start with.

Since those very humble beginnings, over the last two decades, helped our coaching clients at over 2.7 billion dollars using my methods. We've helped people just like you to add six figures, multiple six figures, seven figures and yes, even eight figures using my methods.

How have I done that well?

I teach my inner game and outer game methods and I also teach what I now call my authority cycle formula.

The authority cycle formula is where I show you how to go from “I don't even know what I'm doing” or “I have an idea but I don't know how to get started to”, “I don't know what my offers are”, and “I don't know how to build a funnel and I need to get traffic”.

I'll walk you through all those stages in my courses like 30k income secrets and my elite inner circle. That's what we call the authority cycle formula.

What does that mean for you? 

As you're growing your business, you're going to go through those stages where you're going to have to bring somebody in. Because as you start to bring in more money, probably your time is going down bringing clients. The more clients you get, you're going to reach a point where “Oh my gosh! You know what? This is great! I'm busy but I don't have any time”.

You’re going to have to have people work for you, basically, whether they're a virtual assistant or maybe you're going to have someone help you with your traffic or help you build your funnels or help you with your social media whatever it might be, you're going to have people that work for you.

How do you become a leader instead of just a boss?

Leader’s Trait #1: A leader knows how to listen

First of all, one of the things that I've noticed over the last two decades of working with countless entrepreneurs, business owners, CEOs, and executives is that bosses tell more than they listen, whereas leaders listen more than they tell.

Now you've heard the saying before, “We have two ears and one mouth so we should listen twice as much as we speak.” But, that never happens. Nobody ever does that but that's one of the things that we should look for when we are looking to bring in people.

One of the certain things you’ll do now, of course, you have to tell people what you want. You have to be clear about what it is that you want but you're also going to have to listen.

As a leader, you have to listen. You have to listen to what the real issues are. Your role is to create a workplace where effective communication is present.

I remember when I was just starting out in business, I really didn't know what I was doing. I had no experience in marketing or business or accounting or sales or online business. There was no such thing as funnels, no such thing as social media. There was none of that so I didn't know what I didn't even know. And, that's one of the big, big problems in business.

A lot of times you don't know what you don't know, that's why it's so important to listen.

It seems that maybe that's a time when you need to bring in a coach. You need to bring in a coach, a mentor, or someone who's been there, someone who’s been on the top of the mountain. Someone who can help you get there even faster, much faster, and easier to your goal.

An expert business coach has the ability to see and picture out the workflow from a critical perspective. One who has been in the industry dealing with management and system problems and providing solutions for years. It never hurts one or even a company to receive coaching strategies. After all, it has been a key why businesses achieve their goals skyrocketed year after year.

However, you also need to listen to the people that work for you. You need to understand why you should encourage them to work with you, instead.

For instance, let's say you have someone who is doing your customer service. You need to listen and know what you're hearing from your clients, your customers, their concerns, problems, what they are frustrated about, and what they are not getting.

Hence, the more you listen, the more you’ll be able to help people. The more referrals you're going to get, the more money you're going to make.

Leader’s Trait #2: A leader teaches and inspires

On number two, bosses command whereas leaders inspire. A leader teaches you why and how to do it.

When you're a boss, you're telling people what to do, do this and do that. You know the Gopher method, go for this and go for that. That's all great and wonderful if you are a genius and if you know everything.

Yet, most of us aren't like that. Most people don't know everything. I don't think anybody knows everything, right?

Therefore, a leader should:

• Tell people what he wants.
• Ask people what they want.
• Clarify each demand and needs.
• Create a common ground to meet each other’s terms.
• Listen to feedback and be open to changes.

Clarity is very, very important yet it is also important that you develop constructive approaches. The influence you have as a leader reflects how your followers feel.

How can your employees stay motivated? So, how do you inspire people?

Find out what's important to them so you can know what their priorities are, characteristics they have, and assess where they focus on.

Leadership, just like in relationships, values the process of earning trust.

Both are considered workers, in control of each performance. Expectations are met when both know their positions and play their role effectively. It benefits both sides when their purpose is working and learning together.

When the vision isn't to instill fear but build confidence, any individual in a team can produce quality results and have a great impact on the company's growth.

You have to listen and ask better questions like Afformations?. You can go to afformations.com and learn how to ask much better questions, empowering questions. These are not typical feedback, it nurtures positive feelings within the employee. It is driven by creating a strong connection, focuses, and supports what the individual can offer.

In fact, you should influence everyone on your team, your staff to use Afformations?. Why? Because that will help them to get really better and faster results with far less effort. Practice to hear and explain.

Leader’s Trait #3: A leader gives credit and takes accountability

There's an old saying that goes around, “It's amazing what you can do when you don't care who gets the credit”. Bosses take credit and give responsibility whereas leaders take responsibility and give credit.

Leaders aren't after the praise and claps, they want you to do better than they did and be successful with your career.

I'm sure you've probably been in a situation where you did something and you did a lot of work. Then, maybe somebody took credit for your work. I know I have and that really hurts.

It takes away your joy, your passion and your inspiration. Frankly saying, it can really make you mad. Imagine if you do all this work and then somebody else takes the credit for it.

We see humans are always starving for recognition and appreciation. We just want somebody to listen to us because most people don't.

Even people closest to us, our friends and family, usually don't listen very well. Most people don't and that's not to say they're bad people. They just haven't been taught how to listen and maybe they don't really understand how important it is.

As a boss, they are the ones that take credit. “Hey, I did this. This is all my work because I’m a visionary. I have supervision and that's why I'm the supervisor!" But, when something goes wrong, they sort of throw the blame around other people.

There’s an old saying: “Success has many fathers but failure is an orphan.” When there’s success, everybody wants to take the credit.

I can't tell you how many people I've heard from over the years who said, “Well, I was the number one sales trainer.” Like how many number one sales trainers do they have? I wonder if you know it's all the same person. So, they really have 50 sales trainers who claim to be number one. It’s interesting how most people pretend to be the top yet never really gave the same energy to fight and win the spot.

If something does go wrong, who's going to want to step up and say, “Yeah, you know what that was on me.” That's what a leader does!

Leaders operate legacy in their minds, not competition. Leaders set an example in self-accountability. You know and listen even if it wasn't technically your fault.

Let's say someone on your team does something wrong. They really messed it up. Sometimes, it is really their fault. It’s their responsibility and you really didn't do anything wrong. Nevertheless, as a leader, you have to talk to that person and you may want to do it in a private setting.

When something goes wrong, what you don't want to do is embarrass the person in public. That's not really a good idea because:

•  People are very resentful because they’ve been treated unfairly.
•  They are usually very angry because they were humiliated.
•  And they will likely look for a way to get back at you.

Thus, you may want to take them in private and talk about what happened, what went wrong. Notice what you're doing, asking, and listening.

For the most part, we want to correct this. Basically, 99 times out of 100, it's a systems problem, not a people problem.

People usually do very good work when you give them the parameters to do the work. It’s still on you as the leader. You can say, “You know what, that's a really good point and that I really wasn't clear enough and we needed to clarify that so let's systematize this process. Let's put this in place and so that way we won't have that mistake in the future.”

Every single time, I mean 99 times out of 100, it's really a systems problem. It's a system that wasn't clear which really does fall on you as the leader. You may want to review the system and impart where knowledge and understanding are in need.

As the leader you really don’t want to take credit and give responsibility. You should want to take responsibility and share the credit.

“Hey, you know what we wouldn't have gotten there without the team, without all of us. Teamwork makes the dream work.”

You now have valuable ideas to follow and share with your employees or future subordinates. 

Maybe you want to lead a business that you aren't sure of or want to leave the boss role, for those who want to learn more about how to start and scale your online business and really hit that 10 or 20 or even 30k per month, join us at onlinebusinessretreat.com. Remember this is from the safety and comfort of your own home. Everything’s virtual nowadays, so might as well experience this kind of job and level up the way you lead.

High standards and competency are required and expected when you take leadership roles. It usually focuses on skills, training processes, and making decisions. Often neglected are the ability to balance emotions, approach mistakes in the development of sustainable solutions, and their mission to motivate each employee to grow with the tasks they delegate.

Everyone wants to be the leader because they like being dominant, turns out they just feel like being a boss. They want people to follow the policy and term they created as a servant does. They are fond of foul language, criticism, and ineffective approach. Even so-called professionals turn out to be drowned by the dark side of company politics, unable to change their bad behavior.

Competent leaders do a fantastic job of being people experts. They are emotional because they are sensitive to people's feelings which makes it easier for them to work with teams to provide and improve the needs of the organization.

Effective leadership makes a great difference. It creates opportunities for growth and development, not only with the company's position in the economy but also with people's success.

“The definition of a true leader lies with the trust you give, felt in the passion you offer, and witnessed in the purpose you show.”

So, what cards are you going to play now? Is it just authority you truly want or are you up to making a big difference to influence people with your vision?