To build a more valuable business, you need to get your people working with you and for you - as leaders- towards a shared vision. To achieve this, nurture leadership at all levels of your organization. Then equip your leaders with a clear vision of your plans for the future and a roadmap detailing how you expect everyone to contribute. Through this process, you'll not only accomplish a more profitable business, but you'll likely enjoy your business much more.

So, where do you start? How can you discover and nurture the top leadership talent that already exists inside your own company? And how can you get those leaders to step up and build your company into the operation you've always dreamed of?

Here's how:

1. Audit your team: Investigate who you have, what their skills are and how effective they are/could be in a leadership capacity
2. Audit yourself: Ask for anonymous feedback from your team, and always encourage open and honest communication. After all, you need to become a better leader as well.
3. Build a leadership infrastructure: Regularly give additional responsibilities and challenges to your entire team and measure results. By continuously raising the bar for those with the most leadership potential, you'll nurture them into your future leaders.

   Start by taking a survey of the key players in your business. Take a second look at their positions in the company, and closely examine how each is contributing to the value of your business.

   I do this at my own company, Wardell Professional Development, using a tool we call a skills audit. Quite simply, a skills audit is a spread sheet with the employees names listed down one side and the ideal qualities and skills of an employee listed across the top. Qualities to audit could include, for example, time management, product knowledge, company loyalty, and so forth. By using this chart, you can numerically rank each of your key players out of 10 for each quality or skill. I would suggest you then do this for your entire team. Consider adding a skills audit into your employee review process. The benefits are substantial. It's amazing how leadership potential emerges from the page when you look at your employees in this way.

   Now, what about your abilities as a leader? The skills audit only describes one side of the story, after all. Are you (and/or your managers) clearly communicating the vision, objectives, and expectations of your team? Often, comparing team feedback will reveal that while the owner says their team is unfocused, the team feels that the vision and corresponding expectations have never been clearly explained. Mentioning expectations in passing is not good leadership. If you expect your team to share your priorities, then all goals, responsibilities, projects, and expectations need to be documented and reviewed with each team member. So, while you undertake to complete a skills audit for your team, ask them to do the same for you. Do this anonymously and pay close attention to the results. Likely, you'll be given some eye-opening feedback on your own leadership skills that will help you lead your team even more effectively in the future.

   Once you've completed the (two-way) skills audit, your next step is to nurture the leadership potential you've observed around you. For example, if your office administrator appears to have many of the skills you are looking for in your next manager, begin testing their leadership potential by handing them "bite sized chunks" of authority and leadership responsibilities. If he or she is the right candidate, likely their competence as a potential manager will shine through. You'll be able to see in action if they are able to get everyone working alongside them toward a shared goal, if people readily respond to that person as a leader, and if they are able to maintain direction when a project could derail.

   As a general objective, you should strive to make leaders out of employees at all levels. To do this consistently, however, you'll need to systemize the process wherever possible. For example, you could let your sales reps prepare their own quotes up to a certain dollar amount once they've been with you for more than 6 months. Or you could give your office manager control over petty-cash after completing a basic bookkeeping course..By encouraging people to take leadership roles, you'll change their mindset from "worker bees" into leaders who are proud of their contributions and, because of this, become invested in the future of your business.

   Conversely, if you leave your people out of important decisions, you serve to limit the potential of your own business to benefit from their contributions. Those with leadership potential will eventually move on if they are not challenged. Remember, people want more than just a paycheque. They want the opportunity to utilize their skills as well as improve upon them. So why not let them help you build a more valuable business at the same time?