How to be a boss.

A lot of people describe going into business for themselves as "being their own boss". But is this really true? Are you ever really your own boss?

Generally, everyone has someone else who has some sort of expectations of them. As an employee, you have a supervisor or manager of someone who expects something from you. Middle managers report to executives. Executives report to the board. The board members often represent investors who they must answer to. Even at home, your family has certain expectations of you as do your neighbors, your friends, etc. It's a never ending circle of responsibility and trust.

So, what is it that defines a boss? And what do people expect from you as the leader of a company?

There are a lot of components to this, but I think a lot of it boils down to being a trailblazer versus being a trail follower. If you are going to start your own business, you have to be ready to make your own path that others will follow.

Trailblazing isn't always creating something completely new. One analogy might be an artist who learned the basics and then tried something new and started a movement. The artist understood all of the basics of the systems and techniques that other artists use and then decided what to change and when to break free of the known path and become a trailblazer. (Think Picasso, Kandinksy, Matisse, Monet, Pollock, Van Gogh, etc.)

How do you become a trailblazer for your business? Learn the systems, rules and techniques that govern your business. See if you can figure out what parts of those systems are useful and what parts need to be changed to create a new path that gets you to where you want to go. Then lead your company through that rough, bumpy ground and make a new trail that others will want to follow.

The great companies and the heroes in popular literature are filled with these type of trailblazers: Jobs and Wozniak, Brin and Page, Gates, Luke Skywalker, Neo. (Yeah, I just put Neo and Gates in the same sentence...cheesy, but you get the point, right?) These are people or characters who understand the systems they exist within and have figured out a way to change, tweak, interrupt or interfere with those systems to create something new.

If you are the boss, you are the one who needs to create the trail that others will follow. And there will be many times when you are left with no choice but to create your own trail. You will be faced with decisions where there are no good choices. You will find yourself put into situations where none of the standard answers you've learned are feasible. You will have to do more with less. And you will be the one that needs to help others understand why the path you chose is one they should be on too.

What trails will you blaze? How will you change systems to create something new?

photo credit, jayriot