Best Team Member by Nino Mihilli

Your Best Employee May Not Want to Be an Entrepreneur

One of the Biggest Leadership Mistakes Is Assuming Everyone Wants What You Want

Entrepreneurs have a strange habit.

We assume other people want what we want.

More responsibility.

More opportunity.

More money.

More control.

More risk.

Maybe eventually their own company.

I've probably made that assumption more times than I realize.

You see a talented employee and think:

They could run something someday.

Maybe they could.

But here's something I've learned after years of employing people:

They may not want to.

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Not Everyone Dreams About Owning a Business

Entrepreneurship gets romanticized.

Be your own boss.

Control your schedule.

Build wealth.

Create something.

Have freedom.

Those things can be real.

So can lying awake thinking about payroll.

Customers who haven't paid.

Employees who called off.

Taxes.

Insurance.

Lawsuits.

Cash flow.

Equipment breaking.

A customer calling while you're supposed to be on vacation.

Owning a business isn't automatically a higher form of working.

It's simply a different path.

Some people genuinely prefer being excellent at their job, collecting their paycheck, going home, and leaving the business at work.

Honestly?

Sometimes that sounds pretty smart.

I Used to Think Ambition Looked One Way

When you're entrepreneurial, it's easy to define ambition through your own personality.

You want to build.

So ambitious people must want to build.

You want ownership.

So ambitious people must want ownership.

You want to grow a company.

So ambitious people must eventually want management.

But ambition comes in different forms.

Someone may want to become extraordinary at a craft.

Someone may want to provide a stable life for their family.

Someone may want enough income to travel.

Someone may care more about flexibility than title.

Someone may want to coach their child's team every afternoon.

Someone may want to become the best employee in the company and have absolutely no interest in owning it.

Those are legitimate goals.

Promotion Isn't Always a Reward

Businesses make this mistake constantly.

Someone is excellent at their job.

So we promote them.

Now they manage people.

There's only one problem.

They hate managing people.

We took a great employee out of a role where they were thriving and put them into a role requiring an entirely different set of skills.

Then we're surprised when performance changes.

I've learned that before promoting someone, there's a much more important question:

Do you actually want this job?

Not:

"Don't you want to move up?"

That's a leading question.

Ask what they want.

Then listen.

Management Is a Different Skill

Being the best person doing the work doesn't automatically mean you'll be the best person managing the people doing the work.

Those are different abilities.

The best salesperson may not be the best sales manager.

The best technician may not want to manage technicians.

The most reliable warehouse employee may not enjoy scheduling thirty other people.

Management requires communication.

Patience.

Conflict resolution.

Decision-making.

Accountability.

Coaching.

Sometimes uncomfortable conversations.

Some people love that responsibility.

Others don't.

We shouldn't treat one as more valuable than the other.

Leadership Starts With Understanding the Person

This is something staffing has reinforced for me.

You can't lead a résumé.

You lead a person.

That person has goals.

Responsibilities.

Fears.

Strengths.

Weaknesses.

Family.

Financial needs.

A personality.

A life outside the company.

If I don't understand any of that, how well can I really lead them?

That doesn't mean employers need to become involved in every detail of an employee's personal life.

There should be boundaries.

But we should understand what motivates the people we're asking to perform.

Money Matters—But It Isn't the Only Thing

Let's not pretend otherwise.

People work because they need money.

So do I.

Compensation matters.

Pay people fairly.

But people also value other things.

Schedule.

Stability.

Respect.

Flexibility.

Recognition.

Opportunity.

Autonomy.

A good manager.

Predictability.

Being trusted.

A workplace where they aren't miserable.

Two employees making the same amount of money may value completely different things about the job.

That's why one-size-fits-all leadership often fails.

Some People Want More Responsibility

And when they do, I want to create room for it.

This is the exciting part of leadership.

You see someone start in one role.

They learn.

They become dependable.

Then they start solving problems without being asked.

They help someone else.

They notice things.

They become the person coworkers turn to.

That's when you begin wondering:

What else could this person do?

Those people deserve opportunities.

Training.

Mentoring.

Responsibility.

A chance to discover capabilities they may not know they have.

But opportunity should be offered, not forced.

Some People Want Stability More Than Advancement

I understand this more now than I did when I was younger.

Maybe someone has children.

Maybe they're caring for a parent.

Maybe they're finishing school.

Maybe they have another passion outside work.

Maybe they've reached a point in life where peace matters more than another title.

If they're doing great work, why should I consider them less ambitious because their definition of progress differs from mine?

A company needs dependable people at every level.

Not everyone needs to be climbing an imaginary ladder.

The Ladder Isn't the Only Direction

I think companies need to get better at this.

Traditional career thinking looks like:

Employee.

Supervisor.

Manager.

Director.

Executive.

Up.

Up.

Up.

But growth can also move sideways.

Learn another skill.

Understand another department.

Take responsibility for a specialized process.

Mentor new employees.

Become the expert everyone trusts.

Take on projects.

Increase earning power without becoming a manager.

There should be ways for good people to grow without forcing them into jobs they don't want.

I've Had to Learn Not to Expect Employees to Think Like Owners

This is a big one.

Owners think differently because ownership changes the equation.

When I look at a problem, I'm thinking about the entire company.

Cash flow.

Customers.

Reputation.

Risk.

Tomorrow.

Next year.

An employee may be thinking:

My shift ends at four.

That used to frustrate me more than it does now.

Why don't they care as much as I do?

Because it's my company.

Of course I care differently.

I have ownership.

Risk.

Upside.

Responsibility.

Expecting every employee to think exactly like the owner while giving them none of the owner's ownership is unrealistic.

What I can expect is professionalism.

Reliability.

Honesty.

Effort.

Accountability.

And care for the responsibilities they've accepted.

That's fair.

If You Want Ownership Thinking, Create Ownership

Sometimes we do want someone to think more broadly.

Then leadership needs to ask what we're providing in return.

More authority?

More responsibility?

More compensation?

Performance incentives?

A commission?

A bonus?

Real decision-making power?

A path forward?

You can't endlessly ask people to carry greater responsibility while treating them exactly the same.

Responsibility and reward should have some relationship.

Great Employees Don't Need to Become Copies of the Founder

This may be the larger lesson.

I don't want a company filled with versions of me.

That would probably be exhausting anyway.

I want people who bring things I don't.

Different personalities.

Different strengths.

Different experiences.

Different ways of seeing problems.

Someone may be more organized than me.

Someone may be better with people.

Someone may catch details I miss.

Someone may love doing something I can't stand doing.

That's a team.

If everyone thinks exactly like the founder, you're not getting much benefit from having other minds in the room.

AI Makes Human Strengths More Important

As more routine work becomes automated, I think understanding people's actual strengths becomes even more valuable.

AI can perform more tasks.

Software can automate more processes.

That doesn't make humans irrelevant.

It changes where humans create value.

Judgment.

Relationships.

Creativity.

Responsibility.

Empathy.

Leadership.

Problem-solving.

The future of work shouldn't simply be:

What can we remove the human from?

We should also ask:

What could this person become capable of if technology removed the repetitive parts of their job?

That question interests me much more.

Faith Reminds Me That People Have Different Gifts

Romans 12 talks about people having different gifts.

I've always liked that idea because it runs against our tendency to measure everyone with the same ruler.

People aren't supposed to be identical.

One person leads.

Another serves.

Another teaches.

Another encourages.

Different gifts.

Different roles.

Still valuable.

That's something leaders should remember.

The goal isn't to turn everyone into the same kind of person.

It's to help people use what they've been given well.

Sometimes Leadership Means Helping Someone Outgrow You

There's another side to this.

A good employee may eventually want something your company can't provide.

Maybe there's no position available.

Maybe their career takes them into another industry.

Maybe they want to start their own business.

Maybe they receive an opportunity you can't match.

Losing a good person hurts.

But I don't want someone's success to require them staying with me forever.

If someone worked with us, became better, contributed, learned, and then moved into a great opportunity, that's not necessarily a failure.

Sometimes that's exactly what growth looks like.

I Want People to Leave Better Than They Arrived

Whether someone works with one of my companies for six months or twenty years, I'd like the experience to add something to their life.

A skill.

Confidence.

Experience.

Relationships.

A better understanding of business.

A stronger résumé.

A chance they didn't have before.

Maybe leadership.

Maybe simply the knowledge that they can be dependable and succeed.

We won't accomplish that perfectly.

No company does.

But I like the standard.

Final Thoughts

Entrepreneurs tend to see the world through entrepreneurial eyes.

We see possibilities everywhere.

Businesses waiting to be created.

Problems waiting to be solved.

Opportunities waiting to be pursued.

That's part of who we are.

But leadership requires stepping outside yourself.

Your best employee may not want your job.

They may not want your company.

They may not want your risk.

They may not even want the promotion you're convinced they should want.

Ask them.

Maybe they want leadership.

Help them develop it.

Maybe they want more money.

Show them how they can create more value.

Maybe they want flexibility.

See what's possible.

Maybe they want stability.

Respect that.

Maybe they want to build something of their own someday.

Teach them what you can.

And maybe they simply want to do excellent work, go home to their family, and live a good life.

There's nothing small about that.

Good leadership isn't turning people into versions of you.

It's seeing who they are, understanding what they want, holding them to a meaningful standard, and helping them become better at the life they're actually trying to build.

I'm still learning how to do that.

But I think it's a much better definition of leadership.

— Nino Mihilli

Stay Connected with Nino Mihilli

🌐 Personal Website: https://www.ninomihilli.com

🏢 T47 Group: https://www.t47group.com

👷 Flat Staffing: https://www.flatstaffing.com

📖 Read Nino Mihilli's novel, The Variable, on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GX3783RG

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