As a founder, there are many things you have to consider, such as product development, marketing, accounts, and much (much!) more.

Understandably, it can be easy to get caught up in the day-to-day requirements and not think enough about the steps you need to take to future-proof your business.

One such step is developing excellent leadership skills. In this article, I’ll share with you some great tips you can use to develop leadership skills in 2025 and ensure you are perfectly placed to grow and scale your business effectively.

Short on time? Here are the key takeaways

Work on your emotional intelligence: The best leaders are receptive to the needs of their team.

Think flexibly: As the leader of a small team, flexibility is key for continued success.

Challenge regularly and respectfully: Don’t be afraid to challenge your team, but do so in the right manner.

Understand incentives: Not all of your team will be incentivized by the same rewards and goals.

Overcommunicate: In a small dynamic team, there is no such thing as too much communication.

Why is Leadership so Important for Founders?

First off, let’s touch on why leadership is so important for company founders. After all, as a founder, you may not currently have a team working for you, and your primary focus is on more short-term objectives, such as product ideation and building a community.

However, while most of your efforts certainly should be on the near-term success of your business, you should also have at least one eye toward the future.

It’s much better to have high-quality leadership skills in place BEFORE you onboard members of staff or work with freelancers on a regular basis rather than losing valuable time trying to learn after they’ve joined.

The difference between great and weak leadership can have a monumental impact on the success of your brand, and given it is still in its infancy, you need to give yourself every chance of success!

4 Ways to Improve Your Leadership Skills

With that in mind, let’s take a look at a few ways you can improve your leadership and ensure you’re prepared to be the founder that your team needs you to be.

Think flexibly

Just as you have to think flexibly and adapt quickly to get a successful brand off the ground, you also have to be flexible with your leadership.

As a founder of a small, growing business, hiring the right people for your team is absolutely crucial. You need someone who is able to work in a small team, highly driven, and open to learning on the job.

After all, you may hire someone to do a specific role, but that role will likely change and differ day to day, depending on your needs.

Therefore, you must be flexible with how you hire, as this will greatly improve the quality of the candidate you take on, making your role as a leader much easier.

Once you have onboarded someone, you also must be flexible with your expectations as they get their feet under the table. Remember, you founded the business, so you know everything inside out. Before it even became a brand, you had a full understanding of it in your head!

Understand that it may take some team members longer to adapt to the business you have created, and try to provide them with the time and resources they need to succeed.

Challenge regularly and respectfully

As a leader, it can sometimes feel difficult to challenge those that work for you. After all, you don’t want them to take any constructive feedback personally, and you definitely don’t want to demotivate them.

However, if you aren’t challenging your team to strive for the absolute bust on a regular basis, you will struggle to continue growing your brand quickly and effectively.

That’s why you need to develop the art of challenging without offending. When providing feedback, ensure that you call out your employee’s great work as often as you challenge things you’d like to be done differently.

Plus, when you do challenge things, do so in a completely pragmatic manner, ensuring none of your feedback can be taken personally.

It’s also important to ensure any challenges are conducted as a discussion, where your team feels confident pushing back, adding their own thoughts, and contributing to changes. Businesses that allow their team to feel like they are heard and their opinions are validated tend to be significantly more successful. That is especially true for small businesses, who need to be highly adaptable and flexible.

Lastly, remember that each person is unique in how they like to receive feedback or constructive criticism. What works for you may not be right for them, so always be mindful of what they prefer and try to make them as comfortable as possible with the process.

Understand incentives

It’s also very important to factor in what incentivizes your team. A good leader will do everything in their power to understand their staff’s incentives, as this can greatly help improve productivity and output.

After all, while your passion may be the success of your business, that may not be the case for your staff, and it’s important to understand that is absolutely okay!

Instead of trying to get them to be incentivized by the business’s top line, ask them what they would like to see as rewards for achieving performance goals. It may be more time off, it may be more work-from-home flexibility, it may even be more pay. 

Whatever the case, you can then use that as your incentive for achieving goals and exceeding expectations, as this will have a much greater effect than simply asking them to care more.

For many people, a job is a job. Some people are meant to start a business, and others aren’t. Once you realize this, and realize there is no problem that, and with the right incentives these members of staff can be very productive, you will see much greater results.

Overcommunicate

Lastly, there’s no such thing as overcommunication for a leader of a small business. Small businesses require employees to wear many different hats, and as such, it’s easy for things to get missed.

A great leader ensures that not only does everything stay on track but also that staff members have the time and support they need to succeed, and that only comes from constant lines of communication.

That doesn’t mean you should be asking for constant updates on projects and digitally looking over their shoulder all the time, though. That’s called micro-management, and no employees will stick around for a long time if you’re conducting yourself in this way!

However, it does mean you ensure you push your team to keep you updated where possible and make them feel like they can ask any questions they need to succeed.

Final Thoughts

To enhance your leadership skills effectively, explore the resources available at Foundr+. By signing up for just $1, you gain immediate access to an extensive collection of over 30 courses and more than 1,000 lessons, all led by industry experts. F

oundr+ offers valuable educational content and connects you with a community of forward-thinking entrepreneurs. To start your journey towards becoming a stronger leader, register now.