Many hats are worn as the owner of a child care business. Too often I see owners lose sight of what their true role is within their school, whether it’s because they are spending too much time in the classroom due to high employee turnover or they are constantly having unsure staff members knocking on their door looking to them for direction. It might be tough but in order to have a successful child care business and grow, you need to clearly define what your role is and stick to it. In the video below I share with you what the three principles of strong and effective leadership are.
Here are the key takeaways from this video:
- In order to be successful and grow there are three roles of a small business owner you must portray – a leader/motivator, a manager, and an enforcer.
- As a leader/motivator, it is your job to constantly bring energy into the workplace and keep morale high among staff.
- As a manager, it is your job to have scheduled one-on-ones with your staff, track their progress and make sure performance goals are being set and met.
- As an enforcer, it is your job to see to it that policies and procedures are followed and recognize when someone is performing below standards and follow probationary and termination procedures.
- When acting as an enforcer remember to do so in a loving and positive way and act as a role model to your staff.
- Never rely solely on one person in your child care business, whether it is your director or your finance manager. You must have multiple people capable of performing a number of roles and have a system of checks and balances in place.
- It is recommended to have a minimum of five sources of lead generation. Ideas for this can be found in my FREE book The 77 Best Strategies to Grow Your Early Childhood Program.
- Hire slow, fire fast.
- The child care business is ratio focused with a ton of licensing involved, which can make it hard to hire slow and fire fast but it is a best practice that child care owners must embrace.
