Healthy Arrogance: A Leadership Tool for Small Business Owners

The Problem: Perception of Weak Leadership

In a small business, the perception of weak leadership can be detrimental. Employees and even suppliers want strong, decisive leadership. Strong leadership helps people feel secure, motivated, and inspired. It gives people a cause to follow. A dose of healthy arrogance can strengthen a small business owner’s leadership.

Weak leadership can manifest as indecisiveness, a lack of vision, and poor communication. A small business owner who frequently changes their mind about business strategies without clear reasoning can create confusion and frustration among employees, even a lack of respect. Or if you struggle to articulate the vision and direction, it can result in decreased enthusiasm, engagement, and even trust among your followers. All this, of course, leads to less productivity, low morale, and more turnover. It can even affect supplier relations. Suppliers may lose confidence in your business’s ability to fulfill commitments, potentially leading to strained relationships and unfavorable terms.

The Solution: Incorporate Healthy Arrogance

To strengthen your leadership, and counteract the negative effects of weak leadership, small business owners can incorporate a dose of healthy arrogance into their leadership style.

The word arrogance can have negative connotations! So, let’s first clear up what healthy arrogance isn’t. And what healthy arrogance is.

Healthy arrogance is not about:

• Egotism: Thinking you are better than others or refusing to listen to feedback.
• Obstinacy: Sticking to a decision despite evidence that it’s wrong.
• Aggressiveness: Pushing your thinking on to others and talking over them.

?Healthy arrogance is about conviction and self-assurance without crossing into vanity or stubbornness. It involves:

• Confidence: Believing in your abilities and decisions.
• Humility: Being open to feedback, being willing to admit mistakes, and apologizing when necessary.
• Resilience: Bouncing back from setbacks and being able to create forward momentum.

As Will Packer states in his book, Who Better Than You? The Art of Healthy Arrogance and Dreaming Big, people who have healthy arrogance have “superior confidence not only in themselves and their abilities but also in their predestined success.” Packer says, “This manifests itself in ways that you may not immediately think of. These are individuals that, when in a room full of successful and powerful people, don’t think?uh oh—I’m not sure if I belong. They think?not only do I belong in this room, but this room is better because I’m in it.”

Mindset and Behaviors for Healthy Arrogance

To adopt a mindset of healthy arrogance, business owners need to:

1. Believe in Your Vision: Have a clear vision for your business and believe in its potential. Communicate this vision confidently and often to your team and stakeholders.
2. Be Decisive: Make decisions confidently and stick to them. If you know you have trouble making decisions, talk the tough ones through with a trusted friend until you’re sure about the direction. While it’s important to be open to feedback, avoid second-guessing yourself, especially out loud to others.
3. Embrace Continuous Learning: Recognize that you don’t know everything and be willing to learn not only from your suppliers and partners but also from your employees.

?Specific behaviors to adopt include:

• Assertive Communication: Speak with confidence and clarity. Ensure your team understands your expectations and the reasons behind your decisions.

• If you’re introverted: Give yourself the alone time you need to prepare your thoughts before speaking and don’t try to wing it. This helps you avoid long, uncomfortable silences and stammers.

• If you’re extraverted: Take the time to prepare concise statements and then stick with them. This helps you avoid rambling or restating and losing your audience.

• Be accountable: Own your decisions and their outcomes. If things go wrong, acknowledge your mistakes and take corrective action.

• Set High Standards: Hold yourself and your team to high but achievable standards. Encourage excellence and innovation.

Benefits of Healthy Arrogance

Incorporating healthy arrogance into your leadership style can bring numerous benefits to your business, employees, and yourself:

• For Employees: Strong leadership can lead to an enthusiastic and engaged team of people who know where the company’s going and are clear on their part in it. They make empowered decisions, look for ways to continuously improve, and support your decisions.

• For You, the Owner: Adopting healthy arrogance can boost your confidence and even reduce your stress. One of our clients, a manufacturing business owner said, “I used to be ashamed that I can sometimes be arrogant. Now I embrace it and just be sure to balance it. I’ve stopped second-guessing myself.”

• For the Business: Your business becomes known as a great place to work and you gain a stronger reputation among suppliers and customers.

Summary

In summary, weak leadership can cause significant problems in small businesses, including decreased productivity, low morale, and strained supplier relationships. By incorporating healthy arrogance into your leadership style, you can strengthen your leadership, project confidence, make better decisions, and inspire your team. Remember to balance confidence with humility, continuously learn, and be open to feedback. As Will Packer wisely notes, “Healthy arrogance is the belief that you are capable of achieving great things, coupled with the understanding that you must continuously learn and grow.” Embrace this mindset and watch your business thrive.