Real Leadership Starts With You: Three Ways to Grow as a Business Leader

If you’re the owner of a financial planning firm, “leadership” (and by that, I mean real, intentional leadership) can feel like a luxury you don’t have time for.

Your days get filled with client meetings, compliance stuff, team check-ins, and a to-do list that never quite gets to-done.

However, if your ambition is to grow, to build a business that doesn’t rely entirely on you, and to develop a team that can lead alongside you, then leadership isn’t a ‘nice to have’. It’s the job.

After years of reading, working with business owners, and reflecting on my own experience, I’ve come to believe that great leadership in small businesses comes down to three things:

• Working on yourself first
• Setting the tone (even when you feel out of your depth)
• Coaching and mentoring others to grow

Let’s explore each of these in turn.

👉 1. Leadership starts with self-leadership

It’s tempting to think that leadership is mostly about other people: how to motivate them, managing performance, or resolving conflict. But the truth is, leadership starts with you.

If you’re disorganised, reactive or unclear, there is no framework or management technique that will make up for that. Your team looks to you not just for direction, but for energy, tone, and emotional consistency. You can’t fake that for long.

That’s why personal growth isn’t indulgent, it’s essential. The most effective owners of firms I know are ruthlessly committed to working on themselves. They journal. They get coaching. They invest in their own development. They ask hard questions like:

• What am I avoiding?
• Where do I blame others instead of taking responsibility?
• How do I react under pressure, and what does that teach my team?

💡 Try this: Journal for 10 minutes every night before you go to bed. Reflect on how you showed up as a leader that day. Over time, you’ll start seeing patterns and opportunities to grow.

📣 2. Set the tone (even when you feel out of your depth)

One of the hardest parts of leading a growing business is the imposter syndrome that creeps in. You may be brilliant at financial planning, but no one taught you how to lead a team, define a vision, or navigate difficult personnel issues. And yet you’re the one everyone is looking to.

You don’t have to be perfect. But you do need to be intentional.

Your tone sets the emotional climate of your business. How you show up at work every day sets the weather for everyone else in the organisation.

If you’re anxious and reactive, people will tread carefully. If you’re calm and forward-looking, your team can focus on growth. If you’re visibly committed to a meaningful vision (even if you don’t have all the answers yet), people will follow your lead.

✅ 3. Coach and mentor your team

As your firm grows, your success will increasingly depend on the growth of others. Coaching and mentoring aren’t just tools for people managers, they’re core leadership skills for business owners.

But what does coaching look like in a small business context? It’s not about weekly formal 1:1s (although those help). It’s about shifting your mindset from “telling” to “developing.”

Start asking more questions:

• “What do you think we should do here?”
• “What would success look like in this situation?”
• “What do you need from me to feel more confident with this?”

When someone comes to you with a problem, resist the urge to fix it immediately. Instead, use it as a chance to grow their thinking. Yes, it takes longer in the moment, but it buys you back time and decision-making bandwidth in the long run. And most importantly it helps your team to grow and develop.

💭 Final Thoughts

You don’t need to be a perfect leader to build a great business. But you do need to be a deliberate one.

The good news? You already have the most important raw material: your own desire to reflect, grow and improve. Start there. Set the tone for your firm by showing up with clarity and consistency. And begin shifting from “chief problem-solver” to coach and mentor.

Leadership isn’t something you graduate into once the business is bigger. It’s how the business gets bigger.

Let me know how you go.

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