You may be surprised to hear this, but 82% of bosses tend to come into leadership positions without any leadership training or qualifications.

This resulted in a big drop in high-quality leaders in various industries worldwide. One result of this is that we face a decline in the levels of trust in managers among regular workers and a high level of employee turnover.

So, to avoid this, shouldn't company founders and top management also undergo the growth and improvement of their skills, especially in the current market conditions when everything changes every day? Well, let's take a look, shall we? Here's my take on how leaders can undergo self-development and why it's important.

Connected: How leaders can cultivate happiness in the workplace

Adopt the mindset of change

As a business leader, I have long learned that the finance industry is constantly shifting and evolving. This means that my co-founders and I must constantly monitor these changes if our business is to remain relevant.

Lewis Carroll once said, “My dear, here we have to run as fast as we can just to stay put. And if you want to go anywhere, you have to run twice as fast.” These words perfectly describe how founders should feel when gathering and analyzing new information.

And it's not just about having the right knowledge. The roles you need to fulfill in the company also vary depending on the stage of development you are at. When you first start a startup, the focus is mostly on building your team and market research for potential product niches you can fill. But as your company grows, the situation changes. And so do the tasks that you, as a founder, must handle.

For example, all our teams are formed these days, so I find myself dealing less with such matters. Instead, most of my attention goes to more strategic matters, such as charting the company's course and outlook for the next two to three years.

And that's how I think it should be. Founders must be able to shift gears, gradually moving away from treatment operational issues and towards strategic ones. To this end, adopting a particular mindset and preparing a management team that will allow your business to function without your direct intervention in day-to-day matters is important.

Connected: 5 traits you must have to create more leads

Learn how to sit in the back seat

In my mind, the founder's job is to build their company up to a certain stage. You'll know you've reached that stage when you start to feel like you are competencies are no longer sufficient to continue to fulfill your responsibilities efficiently. This means it's time to take a step back and hire more suitable people to take over some of your duties.

Being able to do this requires a certain measure character that allows you to look at things objectively and admit that others would be better suited than you for some of the company's positions. In fact, the larger your business gets, the less suitable you will be for many of the roles that need to be filled. And there is nothing wrong with that.

I'd say it's a perfectly healthy situation for a company. There may come a time when things will be handled by other people who are better at direct management than you. In the meantime, you and your fellow founders can form the board of directors without having to get deeply involved in due process.

It is up to you to decide when the time is right for this transition to occur.

Connected: 4 ways extraordinary leaders can provide stability today

What tactics can you use?

It is natural for both founders and employees to grow with the company and its needs. Set specific goals you want to achieve and choose the types of training that will best help you achieve them. Here are some options that I believe would be helpful to enhance the skills you need to better command a business.

Leadership training: Coaching sessions create a space for reflection where you can improve your self-awareness and explore your aspirations. Get a clearer idea of ​​where you are and where you want to be to achieve sustainable growth for the company. The evidence shows that 70% of managers who benefit from training to improve performance in the workplace. Personally, I can say that coaching often allows me to reflect on existing business issues while also learning how to do better based on real cases we have handled in the past. This has proven very useful over the years.

Industry Analysis: I mentioned before that working in finance means operating under constantly changing conditions. This is why continuous market evaluation is important here. It helps us understand the state of affairs and the needs that market participants face. This, in turn, enables us to forecast demand and supply for our products and potential financial returns. If you want your business to be successful, you can never stop deepening your awareness of the market in which you operate.

Collecting comments: at my company, we don't really have a unified standard by which we measure all of our people and try to make them fit. It wouldn't make much sense for that. Fintech is a very innovative field, so the most desired traits here are the ability and courage to think creatively, not so-called 'standards compliance'. As such, we prefer to measure the success of our training initiatives through the feedback provided by our management and employees according to The Kirkpatrick model. Whether they are managing to apply new skills and knowledge in their work and whether the training has benefited their confidence and motivation levels. This is how we measure our progress.