Leadership Qualities That Will Benefit You as a Franchisee

You’ve probably heard business professionals speak of “soft skills” at some point. These are the intangible abilities that you can’t easily teach academically. Instead, you usually have to practice and harness them over time.

Island Fin Poke invites all of you budding entrepreneurs and aspiring franchisees to review these six “soft” leadership qualities.

6 Soft Leadership Qualities for Franchisees

What are your values, morally, business-wise, and socially? Do your team members and subordinates know you have them? Island Fin Poke, for example, values a legitimate family (Ohana, in Hawaiian) approach to business matters. While many businesses preach similar values, practicing them can be a whole different matter. We’re not here to tell you what to value, but the folks around you should clearly understand what they are.

Become the Best Listener

You probably hear this one a lot, but it’s a constant motif in business management for a reason. If you don’t listen to others, it shouldn’t surprise you that they behave unpredictably. We encourage you to learn more by checking out this resource on active listening.

Learn How to Discern Right from Wrong

American business in the 21st century involves lots of laws, regulations, standard operating procedures, and policies. It’s a leader’s job to know as much as possible and utilize them to discern right and wrong whenever there are contentious workplace disputes.

Practice Continuous Improvement

Since no person or business attains full perfection in this life, there’s always room for improvement. The key here is to identify improvement areas without overwhelming one’s subordinates with unreasonable expectations. Always seek new ways to improve and modify your business, but don’t forget the helpful axiom of “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.”

Always Work on Communication Skills

This coincides with listening. We expand on that by adding importance to other aspects like written communication and counseling. You could write several books on the topic, but this is where a leader develops the ability to address difficult issues with employees, explain things accurately, and anticipate other people’s responses.

Be a Leader With Vision

Anybody can be a manager. True leadership, however, extends well beyond handling the day-to-day nuts and bolts of your business. Vision is the quality or skill of recognizing long-term trends and setting broad goals/objectives accordingly. Visionary leaders don’t get stuck in the present at the expense of the business’s future.

Island Fin Poke operates dozens of Hawaiian-style restaurants across the U.S. All of these function within a franchise business framework emphasizing individual leadership. Since we know leadership depends on soft skills like the ones mentioned above, we encourage our franchisees to develop them as much as possible. If you’re interested in franchising with us or want to learn more about Island Fin Poke, feel free to contact us any time.