Growing a small business is hard. As a business owner and leader, you are expected to wear multiple hats, think on the fly and make dozens of decisions every day.  

As the business grows, leadership becomes one of the biggest drivers of long-term success, even though many business owners don’t start their careers as managers. While every leader develops their own management style, a recent study from Gallup found that effective leadership consistently comes back to a handful of core competencies, including developing people, building relationships and communicating clearly.

For small business owners, those principles can be put into practice in three ways: Continue developing your management skills, create an environment where employees can succeed and build operational systems that support your team.

1. Continue developing your management skills

No one wakes up knowing exactly how to manage people. Like any skill, leadership skills develop over time through experience, feedback and the willingness to keep learning.

As a company gets bigger, so do the responsibilities of leaders. Learning how to give and receive feedback, communicate clearly, and most importantly, adapt management styles to individual employees are all skills that improve over time.

Reading books on management and leadership, attending training sessions or simply learning from leaders you admire are all practical ways to continue developing your management skills. Even setting aside time to reflect on what’s working, where you’re struggling and how you can improve can make a meaningful difference. Experts at Harvard University also recommend seeking feedback and creating a plan for continued development.

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