In the first part of this article, I discussed why creating a culture of leadership is critical for a company looking to scale their business. Coaching, mentoring and teaching are the development activities that help employees translate strategy into action. Empowered teams understand how their role contributes to the company’s competitive advantage and success in the marketplace. They are a great source of leverage to drive growth in profits faster than growth in revenue. Despite what “process engineering” and IT consultants will typically tell you, most process glitches and production bottlenecks are individual choke points - not system errors or the result of inadequate IT. Scale is not a production issue, a technology issue, or a money issue. It is a leadership issue.
Coaching, Mentoring, and Teaching
Strong leaders view each interaction and conflict as a coaching opportunity. When they resolve issues or solve problems, they teach employees how to do it for themselves the next time. If you make a habit of solving problems for people, you simply teach them to come to you for solutions at the first sign of a challenge. That doesn’t scale. Stop talking about process and drawing flow charts - and start talking with your people.
Alignment isn’t really about placing the organization ahead of the individual. It’s about everyone seeing their own goals and well-being as interdependent with those of their peers and the rest of the organization. When individual leaders and the leadership team see themselves as all important, rather than as enablers of others, ego and incompetence take over. The best organizations drive the most complex decisions down to the lowest levels of the company - where the most relevant knowledge and experience to solve the issue reside. If all big decisions require the intervention of an individual leader or leadership team, the organization won’t scale.
While teaching the organization and its employees how to make great decisions and providing them with the authority to do so, leaders also need to embrace dissenting opinion. If two people agree on everything, why do you need both of them? Conflict and challenge are part of the way organizations adapt to changing circumstances. If you stifle candor and free thought, you stifle the ability to scale. When leaders engage people with stimulating and probing conversation, organizations learn and grow. Great leaders don’t create a state of dependency. They mandate independent thinking and open dialogue—but after a decision is made they expect cooperation and cohesion.
I recently had the pleasure of reading an article from Business Insider, “HUBSPOT CEO: 99% Of Corporate Cultures Are Stuck In The Past.” Brian Halligan, CEO of HubSpot, discussed the culture of his company. Reading this article affirmed my previous thoughts. His message is that companies need to reject conventional wisdom. Rather than looking at a playbook how to hire people, how to motivate people, how to look at every aspect of culture, etc. - they need to throw it all away and start from scratch on everything. He reinforced the fact that culture can be a powerful tool to manage a growing business. It is a key asset and a key tool that can be used to scale your business.
Everything in business begins and ends with leadership. Develop your own leadership skills and those of your associates. If you need to hire leaders, develop them further. Building an effective culture of leadership is the least expensive, most reliable way to enable your organization to scale to the next levels of growth - and achieve its potential.
About the Author
Bill’s career has focused on the markets Newport serves: emerging growth companies that need to get past No Man’s Land and private equity firms that invest in these firms. Contact or learn more about Bill here.
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