C12 SOUTHWEST FLORIDA
LEADERSHIP INSIGHT
5 People Every Business Owner Needs Around the Table
The people surrounding a leader can influence the quality of decisions, the health of the business, and the kind of leader that person becomes.
The Right People Around the Table
Business owners are surrounded by people all day long.
Employees need decisions. Customers need answers. Vendors need direction. Family needs our attention. There is rarely a shortage of people wanting something from the person at the top.
But being surrounded by people is not the same thing as having the right people around your table.
I have been thinking about that lately as we have discussed several related subjects in our C12 Business Forums. We have talked about rest, reducing unnecessary complexity, and the legacy leaders are building through the businesses and people entrusted to them.
At first, those may sound like separate conversations. I am not sure they are.
Sometimes we cannot rest because we have convinced ourselves everything depends on us. Sometimes a business becomes unnecessarily complicated because we have done something the same way for so long that we no longer stop to question it. And sometimes we become so focused on the next problem, opportunity, or quarter that we fail to consider what we are actually building over the long term.
Those are difficult questions to answer alone.
- 01Truth teller
- 02Wise counselor
- 03Challenger
- 04Encourager
- 05Legacy voice
The Truth Teller
Every leader needs someone who can tell them the truth.
That sounds obvious, but responsibility and authority can quietly create distance. The more senior the leader becomes, the easier it can be for people to tell that leader what they believe he or she wants to hear.
A truth teller cares enough to say, “I think you may be missing something.” That person is willing to question an assumption, point out a blind spot, or raise something others may be reluctant to address.
We all have blind spots. The dangerous ones are the ones nobody around us feels free to mention.
Proverbs 27:6 reminds us that “the wounds of a friend are trustworthy.” There is tremendous value in having someone who cares more about helping us grow than keeping us comfortable.
The Wise Counselor
There are plenty of people willing to give advice. Wisdom is different.
A wise counselor brings enough experience, judgment, and perspective to help a leader slow down and separate what feels urgent from what is truly important.
There have been many times in my leadership journey when I did not necessarily need someone to give me an answer. I needed someone who could help me think more clearly about the question.
A good counselor helps us consider consequences we may not have seen. They help us look at an issue from another perspective and remember that today’s decisions often reach much further than today.
Business owners make an extraordinary number of decisions. Having someone nearby who brings wisdom rather than simply another opinion is invaluable.
The Challenger
Every business accumulates things over time.
Meetings. Processes. Responsibilities. Products. Commitments. Expectations. Even work that continues primarily because nobody has stopped long enough to ask whether it still belongs.
That is where a challenger becomes valuable.
Those questions can be uncomfortable because sometimes the answer is that we are carrying something simply because we have always carried it.
One of our recent C12 conversations has focused on developing a more reductive mindset. Good leadership is not always about adding another strategy, initiative, meeting, product, or responsibility.
Sometimes leadership requires deciding what no longer needs to remain.
The Encourager
Leadership can be heavy.
There are seasons when decisions do not work out the way we hoped. People disappoint us. Results fall short. A strategy we believed in does not produce what we expected. Sometimes a leader simply becomes tired.
An encourager is not someone who pretends everything is fine when it is not.
The best encouragers remind us of what is true.
They help restore perspective. They remind us of what God has already done and of the responsibility He has entrusted to us. They help us recognize that one difficult season does not define the whole story.
Sometimes a leader needs someone who knows them well enough to say, “Don’t lose sight of why you started.”
Encouragement does not remove accountability or make us weaker leaders. At the right moment, it can give us the perspective needed to continue leading well.
The Legacy Voice
This may be one of the most important voices around the table.
The legacy voice keeps asking us to look further down the road.
Revenue matters. Growth matters. Results matter. Christian business leaders should pursue excellence and steward their organizations well.
But those things are not the entire scorecard.
Eventually, every leader hands responsibility to someone else.
Part of good stewardship is preparing people, culture, and organizations that can continue to flourish when that happens.
Who Is Around Your Table?
One of the things I have learned through the years is that I do not need to have all the answers.
I do need people around me who are willing to help me find better ones.
That is one of the things I value most about sitting around a C12 table with other business owners and CEOs. There is something powerful about being with people who understand the responsibility of leadership, share a commitment to biblical principles, want the best for one another, and have permission to speak honestly into each other’s lives and businesses.
Sometimes someone around the table gives you an answer.
Sometimes they ask the question you had not thought to ask.
And sometimes they simply help you see something you could not see from your side of the table.
The people around your table matter. Choose them well.
