If you’re striving to be a mediocre building or trades company, this article is not for you. Of the many contractors and business owners I speak with every week, most have defaulted into this category. Not by choice of course, but because they’ve missed the power this game-changing difference possesses to create enduring, self-sustaining success.

Contractors and business owners are risk takers with a strong will to win in a brutally unforgiving industry. Problems and challenges mark the landscape we walk every day, poised to derail our best intentions and frustrate our hard work. The breakthrough point is where courageous leaders choose to depart from this subtle slide into ‘average’ and fight the battle on their own terms.

While average leaders decide to work harder and longer in hopes that things will get better, breaking that vicious cycle takes uncommon courage and intentional leadership. Great leaders and their companies leverage these attributes to reward them handsomely, provide satisfying careers for employees, and leave an enduring legacy. Average companies do not.

Armed with a compelling desire to be great and the courage to inspire change, a courageous leader’s first step to lasting success is to establish a clear and compelling purpose. Why do you exist? What is so important and exciting that moves you and those following you (assuming anyone is really following) to do the right thing, make great decisions and instinctively guard against threats? What is it that must never be violated in order to produce exceptional results that please customers and distance your company from the competition every day?

People everywhere, leaders included, navigate life with a deep need to know there’s a meaningful purpose to their everyday existence. Jim Collins notes in Good to Great that “For, in the end, it is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life. And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work”. People follow purpose, and the cost of overlooking it can be staggering.

Courageous leaders seek to understand the unique purpose for their business, articulate it clearly and teach it relentlessly. The long-term result is greatness. Not just measured by profits but by the lasting, positive impact we have on the people around us, including our customers. Courageous leaders lead on purpose, inspiring others be a significant part of something bigger than themselves. It’s the difference between average and great. Which will you be?

Fred Reikowsky, LPBC
Legacy Business Leaders, LLC
Fred@legacybizleaders.com
330.470.1300