Do you mind me calling you boss?
Did you set out to be the boss?
It comes with its perks.
Let’s face it, it is great not to have to ask anyone for sign-off.
You might have decided on a new direction for the business, a new positioning or niche to move into.
Strategically, you know it’s worth exploring.
And you can just decide to do it. Tell everyone that’s where you’re going. And then just go.
That speed of movement is what gives you, as a small business, the advantage over someone bigger.
They have to get alignment, consensus and sign-off. And by the time they do that, you’ll be at the finish line.
When people used to ask me if running my own business felt unstable I’d always reply that every job is unstable, and at least with this one, I was in control.
The ability to decide is that control.
But this rapid decision making has consequences.
The power dynamic
If you hadn’t already realised, as founder, your actions are perceived differently.
You might recoil at the idea but ironically you don’t have any control over what other people think. It’s not you, it’s the position. You’re the boss.
There’s a moment you notice it.
The first time you place a meeting in one of your team’s calendars and lazily don’t add an agenda.
You probably call it “Catch up” or something because it’s nothing important.
When you turn up to the meeting you are horrified
There sits a very nervous person who got an unexpected meeting invite from their boss and now thinks they’re about to be fired.
If you were sending that to someone with equal or higher status than you (like a client for example) then you’d have absolutely put an agenda, and you probably wouldn’t just drop it in the diary, you’d message first, explain what it was about, and ask when was good.
It’s a wake up call and from that moment on you always apply a bit of empathy and start to respect the power dynamic that exists.
The consequences of your decisions won’t always be as visible as a terrified employee, especially as you grow.
The big decisions force us to have empathy
Big decisions have impact. If you were to let someone go, that would be a big one.
Of course you need to be considerate of the person it’s happening to but you also have to think about your team.
If people don’t understand the decision it’s fairly obvious that you could create a problem for yourself.
So you explain it. If you don’t then you create an information vacuum and your team will fill that vacuum with their narrative
That could be that it was unfair to let them go and lead to them questioning the reasons behind the decisions you make, reducing your effectiveness or your leadership.
They may also worry that they are next causing distraction and potential flight risks.
So the big decisions force your hand, but what about the smaller ones?
The truth is you actually have to do this with every decision you make.
Small decisions have impact and you make a lot more of them, so it adds up.
Power vs empowering
Here’s a scenario.
You’d mentioned a couple of times at the leadership meeting that the strategy needed rethinking so a senior member of your team was preparing their own ideas about where the business might go.
They’d been mapping out this idea for weeks. They were just about to suggest it. And then you announced yours and theirs was dead.
Because your idea wins. The founder decides.
Another scenario would be someone sharing some mockups of a new landing page on your slack. You want to look involved so you drop a quick opinion about the CTA.
Your marketing lead had a different opinion. And now they are just sat looking at your Slack message wondering how to push back. They decide not to bother.
When you’re the boss, every opinion is a decision, every preference an order, and every nod a sign-off.
Being decisive is part of leadership but with our business hats on, we have to ask: have you just added some friction to the next idea from these people?
Rather than empower them have you alienated them?
What’s the net outcome on the business?
Leadership should rarely be command and control, save that for the emergencies. It’s more often harnessing the ideas and energy of others.
How you use your power can get in the way of that.
What to do about it
When you wield your power apply your empathy
The lesson is not to never use your status, it’s to recognise when you do and every time you use it, apply an equal amount of empathy.
If you’re making a decision, make sure you create a safe space to hear opinions. Tiny decision/opinion, tiny space. Bigger decision, make more time for this.
Over time, show the behaviours that make it safe to override you
If you invest in empathy and use your power to elevate other people’s decisions then slowly you’ll create the trust and culture that means you can worry less about the negative effects of your power.
But as you grow, new people will join and you won’t have that trust with them. Don’t assume they know your voice isn’t the loudest, by default, it is.
You have to stay consistent because trust is built slowly but lost quickly.
You don’t get to decide
You didn’t found your agency because you wanted power. You wanted autonomy and freedom.
But you don’t have freedom over this. You can’t choose not to have power.
Recognise it and mitigate its negative effects by adding a dose of empathy.