A business builder's inclination to share leadership tells a lot about the business builder's ego. It also tells if the business builder understands what it really takes to leverage brain power to the level required for a high growth business.

Leadership cannot be exercised alone in a growth company. Actually, the more you want to grow your business, the more you must let go of the notion that you are the only, or even the most important leader in your company. Your own survival as a business builder depends on well-distributed, shared leadership at all levels of company operations. Simply stated, you will be a lonely leader if you are your company's only leader. The reasons are obvious....

There are only so many hours in a day. A business builder's job is to develop those strategic initiatives that bring in more working capital, more partners, more customers and more revenues to the business. If your employees are too dependent on you to give direction for every new problem, big or small, your company will struggle to move forward at a desirable pace.

New businesses have the best chance to gather momentum when all employees are fully aligned on company priorities. You can't and shouldn't always be there to tell employees what to do, but you can teach them your framework for managing daily problems and analyzing the risks and rewards of new opportunities. A cohesive community of 10, 20, or 30 leaders is clearly better than one.

Equipping your team with a knowledge base to become confident decision-makers is one requirement for implementing shared leadership. Another requirement of shared leadership is for business builders to give up the right to be right and to give up the right to be in charge of all company operations. Successful business builders who want to comfortably move their companies to the next level recognize that it's more important to be in union with their employees than in charge of their employees.

Whereas time-saving practicality is the core operational value of shared leadership; the core values of distributed leadership are to share opportunity, share purpose and share achievement. In today's work environment, employees long for productive purpose. They feel greater satisfaction from their own accomplishments, than the accomplishments of their boss. They want to contribute to business building plans and implementation. Most important, they want to be winners just as much as the top business builder. Authentic, well distributed leadership provides this opportunity.

Companies that survive unbelievable difficulties have highly flexible, resilient, and extremely dedicated employees. They are not manipulated to just work harder, rather they are challenged to take command more. You have the capacity to draw employees into a company and derive exceptional contribution from each and every team member. Every employee that is given the opportunity to be an influential leader will outperform your expectations. So be smart. You'll have more victories to share when you share leadership.