Turning Leadership Experience into Successful Business Ownership

Have you ever dreamt about owning your own business? Doing things completely your way and building something of your own?

The good news is that if you’ve been working in leadership roles for a while, you’ll have gained some highly transferrable skills. For example, it’s likely you’ll have developed good communication and people skills over the years. These are going to be vital in making your business a success.

Your ability to set vision and long-term goals will also serve you well. Even if you’re a one-person business to begin with, having clear purpose and direction is important. 

However, having strong leadership skills doesn’t mean that starting and growing a business will be easy. You’ll have some useful experience to build on, but there will still be plenty to learn.

Shift from leading teams to leading yourself

Self-discipline, self-motivation and consistency are crucial if you want to succeed in business. You might be used to holding your team members accountable, but now you have to hold yourself accountable.

Take time to understand your working patterns. Are you more productive in the morning or the afternoon? Use your most productive times to do your most brain-intensive work.

Set yourself deadlines and stick to them. Build effective routines and schedules, factoring in time for client work, marketing and sales, finance and admin tasks, and general business development.

Be sure to set boundaries too. When you’re new to business, it’s easy to overload yourself, take on work you should turn down, or let clients dictate how and when you work. Making time for self-care is important. If you let your business run you, it can quickly lead to burnout.

Adopt an owner’s mindset

Perhaps the most challenging part of transitioning from leader to business owner is shifting your mindset.

You’re no longer responsible for executing somebody else’s strategy. You are now setting your own. You are the sole decision maker and every success and failure is on you. The risks and rewards are yours to manage and the buck stops with you.

This can take time to get used to and can cause plenty of self-doubt and anxiety in the early days. Don’t panic – this is quite normal.

Be prepared for uncertainty, highs and lows, and setbacks

You’ll often hear business owners describe the first year in business as a rollercoaster because the highs and lows feel more extreme (and frequent) than they do in employment. Sales can be inconsistent, income can fluctuate, and opportunities will fall through.

Not everything you do will pay off and it’s highly likely you’ll have some disappointments, rejections and setbacks. There’s also a good chance you’ll make a few mistakes too. The important thing is learning from these.

Resilience will be your best friend as a business owner. It’s ok to feel frustrated, disappointed or upset, but you need strategies in place to bounce back. Learn to manage self-doubt and uncertainty.

Plug the gaps

While your leadership experience will have given you many useful skills, there will also be some gaps that need to be addressed.

Something many new business owners underestimate is how much of running a business involves marketing and sales. You must be able to promote yourself, your products or your services.

Even if you are coming from a marketing or sales background, you may find this a challenge. If you have no marketing or sales experience, you should consider getting some training or coaching in these areas.

You’ll also need to develop your financial literacy skills. Knowing your numbers can be the difference between success and failure. Even if you have an accountant or bookkeeper, it’s still important to understand your accounts.

Don’t just pluck a turnover target out of thin air and price your products or services based on gut feeling. Be realistic, understand your profit margins, and keep track of income and expenditure. Be clear on what your tax liabilities are and set money aside to ensure you aren’t caught out. Don’t just spend everything that comes into your business and hope more money will appear when you need it.

Plan for the future

You don’t necessarily need to have a ten-year plan documented, but having a longer-term vision for your business is useful.

Do you see yourself growing a team or are you planning to create a lifestyle business? Do you want to stay local or build something that can be rolled out as a multi-site business or franchise? Do you want to create a business you can sell in ten years to fund your retirement?

If you have plans for growth, give yourself a rough timescale to work to. Start creating processes that can be easily followed when you’re ready to outsource or hire. Set the standards you’d want your future team to adhere to before you’ve even employed them.

Stay adaptable and curious

Businesses that want to remain successful long-term must evolve and adapt. When a business becomes complacent, resistant to change, or stale in its approach, it can lead to trouble. Big, once hugely successful companies such as Blockbuster, Woolworths (UK), Kodak, and Thomas Cook, suffered because they didn’t adapt when they needed to.   

As a new business, it is important to get clear on your positioning, but that doesn’t mean you should set your strategy in stone from day one. You need to be flexible and adaptable. You need to be open to fresh perspectives and new ideas. You need to be prepared to test, experiment, and act on your findings.

Don’t dwell on the things that don’t work or the missed opportunities. Keep moving forward, refining your systems and processes, and improving your offering.

Get support

Running your own business doesn’t mean you have to do everything alone. You can find support in lots of places.

Consider outsourcing the things you aren’t good at or don’t enjoy. This can save you huge amounts of time and money long-term. Make use of tools, technology and software that can support you and improve efficiency.

Look for communities, networking groups, or membership organisations where you can learn from others in your industry.

Get training in the areas where you don’t have any experience and continually invest in personal and professional development. Read, watch or listen to experts (do your research to make sure they are legitimate).

Working with a business coach or mentor can also be hugely beneficial. Choose someone with proven experience in helping people achieve the outcomes you are looking to achieve. They don’t have to have experience within your industry, but it helps if they have worked with businesses that have built the kind of business you want in terms of size and success.

How Alternative Partnership can help with the transition

Alternative Partnership was founded by Tina Brown in 2010. Tina has a wealth of experience working with individuals and teams in leadership, management, coaching and mentoring. She has also spent the last 16 years running her own business.  

If you’re looking for a business coach or mentor to help you transition from business leader to successful business owner, then you’re certainly in good hands with Tina.

She currently offers one-to-one coaching and mentoring services, but in 2027 she’ll be launching a brand-new group programme, specifically for women who want to make the move from leader to owner or who have recently set up their own business. If you would like more information about one-to-one support or our upcoming leadership programme, drop Tina a message on LinkedIn, email us on info@alternativepartnership.co.uk or join our dedicated mailing list here

Have you read...

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03/08/2026

Navigating Difficult Conversations as a Leader

28/07/2026

Our Clients

Array

Through their excellent service and commitment, we were able to show a remarkable improvement in the quality of service we offer to all our customers. The initial training provided to all our 66 staff who was involved in the Customer Service qualification has been of great benefit to the company, in the way they interact with our customers and deal with their enquiries. Of the 66 people 8 of those progressed to a higher Customer Service qualification with Alternative Partnership.

Julie Asbury, La Redoute

I would like to thank Tina for her exceptional support and guidance whilst completing the ILM Higher Diploma in Leadership and Management Level 4. The knowledge and skills I have gained both from Tina and the course content is invaluable and has and will continue to improve my professional and personal progression. Tina was a constant support, including times when I was uncertain on how to tackle a particularly difficult unit. I couldn’t thank Tina enough and would highly recommend her to anyone who wants to improve their own knowledge and skills in the leadership and management profession.

Lisa Vickers, Total Fitness

I am a Store Manager for a busy Retail Outlet and I decided to undertake my ILM Higher Management qualification.  I found the qualification excellent for developing my knowledge and understanding of higher management in business, especially when, part way through the course, I was promoted to a larger store and the ILM qualification was invaluable to my learning and management experience. Tina worked with me focusing on the training and development that I needed to succeed, which helped me to achieve the qualification, as well as, make business improvements to the running of my store.

I have worked with Alternative Partnership for many years now and I have achieved a number of qualifications with Tina’s help along my whole journey. She is always there for help and advice and I would definitely recommend Alternative Partnership to anyone who is wanting to complete a qualification to better their professional skills with full support and great mentoring by Tina.

Laura Baker, The Works

Dear Tina, Thank you for the Business Coaching and guidance I have received from Alternative Partnership, especially in helping me to structure myself and Key West Pest Control. This has helped to make my business run more professionally, more structured and implementing policies and procedures whilst helping me acquire my ILM Higher Strategic Leadership and Management qualification. I would have no hesitation in recommending you or your company. A big thank you.

Sean Mclean, Key West Pest Control Ltd

I wanted to have the pleasure of working with Alternative Partnership and Tina again. Tina discussed my training needs and recommended an ILM Higher Leadership and Management qualification. I thought this might be impossible for me, but yet again, Tina’s great way of communicating to develop my understanding by putting things across, in a way that simplified the information was really helpful to me and supported what it was I needed to do to achieve success. The ILM Higher Leadership and Management Diploma Level 4 course were for 18 months and Alternative Partnership, especially Tina, ensures all students achieved great results. To that end, I successfully completed the course three months before the originally planned time. Anyone wanting to build their professional knowledge, gain confidence in the work they do and experience a great journey, I would highly recommend looking at working with Alternative Partnership and I personally look forward to making my next journey.

Richard Daniels, Morrison Utility Services

Working with Tina over the last few months has been extremely inspiring. Her passion and enthusiasm for business is infectious and you can tell immediately that she genuinely wants you to be a success. Tina pushed me into writing and publishing my first book. After a conversation with Tina,  I was able to build on some existing content and turn it into a useful resource for business owners. The book, A-Z of Blogging,  has had fantastic feedback and I am so proud of what I have achieved with it, none of which would have happened without Tina’s support and encouragement. I can’t recommend Tina and The Alternative Partnership highly enough to anyone wanting to move their business to the next stage.

Lisa Slater, Make Your Copy Count
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