What makes a business leader successful? After extensive research, there are some habits or routines that stand out from the rest and that really have an impact on leaders and the people they lead within a company or around them.

1. 4 powerful habits of
successful business leaders
Image courtesy of photosteve101 at flickr.com
What makes a business leader successful? There is so much
content on the web about how to be a successful business leader
or how to be successful in life; or what can you do to improve
your chances of becoming a millionaire; or what do leaders do
every day to remain successful for the rest of their careers. After
extensive research, there are some habits or routines that
stand out from the rest and that really have an impact on
leaders and the people they lead within a company or around
them. It is not about following rules or knowing the mission
statement by heart. In fact, is more about things people do on a
daily basis that leads them to entrepreneurial success or to be
the best leaders in their personal and corporate world.

2. Successful leaders ask a lot of questions. They have more
questions than answers in order to get to the solution to the
problem. Even if the business is in a successful peak, they ask
more questions in order to be prepared or to try new
approaches to make the company even more successful. Asking
questions to employees; asking questions to customers; going to
conferences and lectures; talking to the people and even
questioning themselves gets them to a point where they want to
understand everything before they are understood themselves.
Successful leaders encourage curiosity among their people,
they lead and are curious in every aspect of life. They don’t just
agree or say “it is impossible” or “ I can’t”, they arrive to the
“why” of everything in order to improve.
Image courtesy of Andrew Steele at flickr.com

3. Focus, focus, focus. Successful leaders focus on things and get
them done. Sometimes this means important sacrifices such as
walking away from certain customer to focus on the really
important ones. When you focus on a goal or a vision and persist
to achieve it, it will eventually lead you to success. A good
example is Tesla electric cars. As Elon Musk was developing his
car, he received a lot of advice to make hybrid cars as there
weren’t enough places to charge the cars. He focused on his goal
and developed a charging network. Tesla cars are in high
demand and in today´s world are becoming ever more popular.
Focus on your goal and go for it. The idea is not to try to do many
things as one will end up not doing anything.
Keep friends close and never stop networking. For business
leaders friends and their network are very important. There are
many networking events (if all the events are not about
networking) but the most successful leaders make the most out
of these meetings and fairs. Business leaders that want to
succeed build long lasting networks of professional and useful
people. Also, they keep their friends close because it is a very
good strategy to get in contact with the right people. Knowing
the people you hire or accept useful recommendations is a very
good way to choose the right people. Lastly, successful leaders
take their time to build relationships and make a name for
themselves so people can know them for who they are and not
only for what they do or the company they lead or work for.

4. Image courtesy of PowerMax Energy at flickr.com
Thinking out of the nutshell. Amazing business leaders think
out of the box, they always try to look for a better and
innovative way out. Even when business is running smoothly
they try new approaches and take risks in order to have many
points of view and not stay in the same old fashioned way of
doing things. Businesses that give customers new products or
innovate on their services are the ones that hold to their
customers for long time. Leaders that think differently and
encourage their teams or employees to do so, are the ones that
see problem solving and successful strategies thrive when hard
times come. There used to be a cliché that said that if things are
working well, why change them. In today’s world either you
innovate or you disappear and good business leaders are
always asking themselves: is the way it's always been done still
the best way to do it? This always leads to amazing, and
sometimes very different, ways to solve problem or to approach
profitable markets.

5. There are many more habits that leaders should and must follow
in order to get where they want to go. These four are a good
starter so you can apply them to your life, company or team.
Habits are established within 21 days which means it is an
everyday task that has to be nurtured and progressively
improved. Once you start, you will see results immediately and
things around you will start to change, people will start to follow
and success will be just around the corner.