Your Leadership Team

Your Leadership Team is the number one asset of your business. Without a quality team you will accomplish little.  It can be a challenge to build a leadership team that is engaged and aligned.  Many  organizations struggle to grow sustainably and profitably because they lack cohesiveness from the top down.

Your business may be in one of these Four Stages:

  1. Start Up with a beginning team of 2-5
  2. First five years with 5-20 in the business
  3. A mid-size business 20-200 employees
  4. Sustainable mid-size up to 500+ employees

Have you thought about what it would take to move forward and reach the next stage? 

What do you need to:

  • Start doing
  • Stop doing
  • Continue to do

To achieve your 3-year growth plan or your purpose for being?

First, take a few moments to acknowledge yourself for the work you have done so far to build the business and to acknowledge those who have partnered and worked with you as a positive force in the business.

Take an honest look at your organization’s Purpose and Core Values. Are they established and well-defined? Can you communicate with them effectively? Can your employees? Your Customers?

Next, give yourself the time to consider your current leadership team and potential leaders, and evaluate their engagement and alignment with the values and purpose of the organization.

If you have an existing team ask these questions:

  1. What are the areas that you need to have covered by leadership you can trust?
  2. What is the level of trust between you and your team?
  3. What is the purpose of this business?
    Purpose is not your mission or what you do but the reason you created this business beyond making money or the reason you have for working in the business.
  4. What is the difference that you make in your industry? What are the results of your business in the world?
  5. What differentiates you business from others in your market?
  6. What are your Core Values?

It is important to establish 3-5 values that give the leadership team and the rest of the company the framework for the culture that reflects the values of the team and the business. One way to find these is to list the people  in your business who bring value by having a certain quality that contributes to the excellence of your business.

Here are some examples:

  • Passion for our Purpose
  • Quality First—delivering value
  • Personal and professional integrity
  • Respect for each other and our customer
  • Embrace change

Ask yourself and your team these four vital questions*:

  1. Do you have the “right PEOPLE doing the right things right”?
  2. Can you state your firm’s STRATEGY and is it driving sustainable growth?
  3. Are all EXECUTION processes running without drama and driving industry-leading profitability?
  4. Do you have consistent sources of CASH to fuel the growth of your business?
  • The Four Decisions: Scaling Up Verne Harnish

I’ll be continuing the conversation on Building an Effective Leadership Team in my next blog posts. If you have any questions or would like to share a challenge or success please be sure to leave a comment. I would enjoy hearing from you and continuing the conversation.

~ Patricia

RELATED READING:

*“Scaling Up; How a Few Companies Make It…and Why the Rest Don’t’”, author, Verne Harnish