How can you evolve your salon leadership skills? How to properly guide your team and in what ways could you lead it towards the success of your hair or beauty salon?
One of the most effective ways to have the team by your side and focused on your salon’s goals, is to choose your leadership style while you build the strengths and recognize the weaknesses. If you want to learn about leadership styles, head over here. But beyond that choice, you have to understand the needs of your team and adopt some new habits that actually work.
Understanding of needs: The first step for a proper salon leadership
Research has shown that most people have five basic needs, that need to be satisfied in their work.
- Relatedness: Our sense of belonging and feelings of connectedness to others.
- Autonomy: Our desire to feel free when making decisions.
- Status: Our desire to be accepted and acknowledged.
- Fairness: Our desire to be treated equally.
- Safety: Our desire to be able to predict the future and develop.
It is essential that leaders incorporate those needs in every strategic decision, action plan and process.
Salon Leadership: Three Essential Habits for successfully leading your hair or beauty salon
- Future vision / Present procedures
The human brain is designed to look for certainty. That means, that we don’t really think about the future, as it is insecure. It feels more secure to think short term.
Psychologists refer to this as “distance bias”.
But, short term thinking, by itself, means bad salon leadership, as it causes long term problems. Balancing short term goals with long term vision always lies on the leader. Keeping the right balance can lead to success. Once you have your long-term goals established, short-term goals are the necessary next step in the process.
Imagine that the long-term goals are castles in the clouds and your short-term goals are the ladder you’ll climb to get there.
- People and their inclusion in the salon
Effective leadership requires effective inclusion in the team.
Brain and behavioral science however knows, that as people accumulate power, they lose their ability to take others’ perspectives. They focus more on vision and goals, rather than details and people.
Leaders must avoid the blinding effects of power and focus on the core of the salon, which is people. They need to consider the peoples’ needs, empower them to speak up and create the appropriate motivation for them.
Blinding effects of power is dangerous for salon leadership. And that because it can keep leaders isolated from important events in the hair or beauty salon and prevent development and success.
- Action Plan
“The greatest gap in the world is the gap between knowing and doing.” – John Maxwell
The reality is that knowledge is only useful, if we do something with it. Whilst it is especially important to develop a strategy, build intellectual capital and remain up to date and aware of new developments, we still need to DO something. Well structured action plans can enhance the sense of importance, safety, relatedness and fairness in employees.
So how do we build a culture of action for our team and ourselves?
Commit to acting: When scheduling for research and planning the strategy make sure to schedule for execution too.
Simplify: Simplicity removes ambiguity, blame and confusion. It increases productivity, efficiency and creativity.
Invest in learning: For a successful salon leadership, closing the gap on knowing and doing, requires an investment in training and learning for our team and ourselves.
Face the fear: Fear is one of the greatest paralyzers of success and progress. To close the knowing-doing gap, we need to face it – both at individual and at team level.
Lose the perfectionist tag: Perfectionism is the equivalent of paralysis. Not only does it prohibit us from taking the first step towards action, but it also creates unwarranted stress, crushes creativity, and prevents productivity.
At Salon Proactive we specialize in developing leadership skills and organizing salons and institutes, and we help you consolidate these needs and implement practices that focus on your business’ success.
For more information on effective leadership on your hair or beauty salon contact us at www.salonproactive.com or book a free consultation for your business!