- March 29, 2017
- Leadership, Managing Change, Strategic Planning, Team Building
As an organization grows, so do the complexities of running it. In order to handle growth successfully you must first understand and master the typical barriers that can inhibit growth: ineffective leadership; lack of or ineffective infrastructure; and poor understanding of the dynamics in your market.
Today’s post focuses on the leadership barrier because “as goes the leadership team so goes the rest of the company”. If you lack alignment and cohesion in your executive team you won’t get very far even if you have a strong operational infrastructure and a clear understanding of your industry’s market dynamics. Most challenges a company faces are traced back to lack of leadership team alignment.
There are three key skills leaders need to embrace to create a cohesive team and to support company growth:
Prediction – as companies grow, senior leadership tends to become more removed from their customers and frontline employees and less aware of the nuances. Leaders must have regular interaction with customers, competitors and employees to stay current and relevant.
Delegation – the ability to let go and trust others is key to successful company growth and to having more than a handful of employees. It is the most important skill for leaders to master or they will run themselves into the ground. Here are few tips to delegate successfully:
- Make sure you’re delegating to the right person(s) – do they have the skill set or ability to learn quickly?
- Pinpoint the priorities – what does the person/team need to accomplish?
- Have a progress measurement system in place
- Provide feedback to the delegate.
- Give recognition and rewards.
Repetition – Consistency, consistency, consistency. As a senior leader it is vital that you clearly define your core values, purpose, goals and priorities and deliver them regularly and consistently to your employees and customers to create a culture of growth. This will keep your organization on track and everyone heading in the right direction.
When you have the right leadership in place almost anything can be accomplished or any challenge overcome. Stay tuned for our next article which will focus on the challenge of creating scalable infrastructure and understanding your market dynamics.
The above leadership tips are taken from Verne Harnish’s book “Scaling Up; How a Few Companies Make It..and Why Some Don’t and part of the Scaling-Up process. I am a certified Scaling Up coach, and use this powerful work with clients. For more information on this topic, be sure to read Scaling-Up, or contact me directly to see how we might work together using the Scaling up model.
As always, if you have a question or would like to share a challenge or success, please be sure to leave a comment. I would enjoy hearing from you!
~Patricia
