The Secrets to Building Leaders Who Can Stay Ahead of Your Company’s Growth

As organizations scale from $10M to $500M+, one of the most overlooked, yet critical growth factors is the evolution and growth of the senior leadership team.  The job requirements of the COO or Chief People Officer for a company with $500M in revenue are more complex than the job requirements for the same functions when the company has $10M in revenue.  The Team that got you where you are can be, but rarely is, the same team that can take you to the next level.  That’s not a failure - it’s a natural, but often painful, evolution.  

One of a CEO’s core responsibilities is assessing a leader’s ability to grow - in hard and soft skills - at, or faster than the rate the company is growing.  A leader’s ability to grow faster than the company is growing means that they have capacity to see, chase and capitalize on opportunities as they arise.  Robert Glazier has a great graphic illustrating this concept in the first chapter of his book, Elevate Your Team: Empower Your Team To Reach Their Full Potential and Build A Business That Builds Leaders.

When a leader is a great cultural fit, but you see the needs of a role outgrowing that leader’s capabilities, you need to determine whether that leader has the capacity to grow with investment & training, or whether you can best serve the company AND the leader by engaging authentically and openly with the leader on both their core strengths and the future needs of the role.  

Transparently planning with a leader for them to transition into a role that will continue to align with their talents will engender loyalty. Bringing in the talent that has the skills to help you achieve your growth objectives will enhance your team’s trust in your commitment to achieving your vision. This means 1) evaluating leaders for core strengths & future scalability, not just current performance, 2) identifying leadership gaps before they hinder growth and investing in their growth, and 3) committing to authentic, transparent conversations with your leadership team.  This is how mission-driven CEOs can intentionally build teams that grow with the business - while maintaining culture, clarity, and vision.

Reflections:

1. How have the needs and skills of key organizational functions changed? Do the team members in those roles have those skill sets - hard and soft? I.e. Would you enthusiastically re-hire each person on your team based on the current needs of the role?

2. Which members of your current leadership team are thriving - and which are struggling to scale with the business?

3. How would the needs and job requirements of each leadership role change if your business doubled (or 10x’ed) in size in the next 24 months?

Recommended Reading: September 2020

At PFD, we believe that continuing to grow and learn is paramount to being able to thrive as a leader. Continuing with our commitment to our business community to provide resources with best practices, for our September Reading List, we recommend these three books: Right Away & All at Once by Greg Brenneman, Personality Isn't Permanent by Benjamin Hardy PhD, and Procrastinate on Purpose by Rory Vaden. These books vary in subject matter, but they all have insights on how you can create the best version of yourself, which will liberate you to more effectively and meaningfully lead your business. 

Right Away & All at Once: Five Steps to Transform Your Business and Enrich Your Life - Greg Brenneman

At PFD, we believe that our businesses should support the lives that we want to live and the impact that we want to make on the world.

Greg Brenneman couldn’t agree more.

In this book, Brenneman writes on techniques that you can do to BOTH grow your business, AND live a rich, purposeful life. He takes his learnings from turning around growing many successful businesses, including Burger King and Continental airlines, to provide a clear roadmap on how to achieve business and personal success. Those steps include:

• Preparing a succinct “Go Forward” plan

• Building a fortress balance sheet

• Growing your sales and profits

• Choosing all-star servant leaders

• Empowering your team
   

  We found Brenneman’s holistic, proven approach to be a practical guide for any leader that has a higher calling for their business and life.

Personality Isn't Permanent: Break Free from Self-Limiting Beliefs and Rewrite Your Story - Benjamin Hardy

In this book, Dr. Benjamin Hardy uses his psychological expertise and research to completely redefine how we think about personality. He dismantles the idea that we have one “true” personality waiting to be discovered, and instead offers a more empowering, action-oriented approach. Personality, as offered by Hardy, is a result of how we can intentionally create our desired selves and achieve amazing goals

He offers science-based advice to for personal reflection, like how to design your current identity based on your desired future self, and how to become confident enough to define your own lives purpose.

At PFD, we believe that as leaders, when we are clear about the future we want to create for ourselves and others, we are then able to take the steps to live into that future. When we define what we want to create, who we want around us, and how we can be resilient in the face of uncertainty, we grow into the person we desire to be. We are actors in our own lives, and we think this book is an empowering and practical look at how we can strategically create the future we want for ourselves.
     

Procrastinate on Purpose: 5 Permissions to Multiply Your Time - Rory Vaden

We all have the same 168 hours in the week, Great leaders are able to use that time more effectively. In this book, Rory Vaden has shared his wisdom and actionable tips to multiply the time we have available.

Vaden creates a simple guide to set us free to do our best work, and overcome stalled productivity. This approach takes into account the emotional aspect of productivity and it gives us a clear path forward. Vaden’s model gives us five simple permissions so we can stop wasting time and energy and engage in our most worthwhile work:

   •  Eliminate
   •  Automate
   •  Delegate
   •  Consolidate
   •  Procrastinate (yes, you heard that right)

We at PFD recommend this to our readers to multiply our time so we can focus on doing meaningful work.