Do you want to change your thinking as a salon owner? Follow business coach Liz McKeon’s simple tips to improve your leadership skills

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When you are buried in work with to-do lists and tasks coming at you from all directions, it’s easy to forget that you are supposed to be an innovative, creative and cutting-edge salon manager. Part of your role is to invent, inspire, lead and motivate your team members to be the best team possible.

Take the first step

The first step is to stop being constrained by pressure and by work. Dedicate some time to thinking outside of the box and consider new ideas and options. For a moment consider how you would view your role, your salon and your team if you were a stranger coming in from the outside or coming in to do your job for the first time. What would you change and what would you leave exactly the same? Consider how you are running your salon floor from your client’s point of view. What works, what makes sense and what doesn’t?

It is easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day tasks. The downside is that it means we fail to stand back and look at our work with fresh eyes every single day. If you want to be the best manager for your team and offer the best service and experience for your clients, you will need to be open to new ideas, new suggestions, new concepts and new directions.

Start asking questions

The next step is to start asking more questions. The smartest managers are those who ask questions all the time. Asking questions during your daily activities and interactions with your team can be very helpful in all kinds of ways. As long as you adopt a tone of friendly enquiry it’s very hard to cause offence with a question. However, it’s a very effective way to draw attention to the flaws in any plan and to encourage other people to correct their thinking without you having to address their issues.

Asking questions is also a classic solution when you’re in a tight corner as it will buy you a little more time and may even provide you with usable information.

You will learn a lot more about your team if you ask them more questions and you may elicit solutions you wouldn’t have done otherwise. It also encourages them to express opinions, solve problems, offer suggestions and submit ideas. Keep asking questions, even difficult ones, especially for upcoming salon projects as this will ensure nothing is overlooked. By doing this you will spot potential problems before you hit them, so if in doubt, ask your team lots of questions!