Learning to Lead Leaders​

From Entrepreneur to Empowered: The Art of Leading Leaders in a Growing Company

Everyone likes talking about leadership. Bottom line – we all readily agree that it takes great people to make great things happen. Entrepreneurs who have become business owners understand this especially well, because leadership is their way of life.

Their company wouldn’t exist without their innate talant to lead and to get stuff accomplished.

Changing as you grow

But as companies grow, owner leadership must transform. If it doesn’t, owners find themselves continuing to be involved in every single aspect of their business, seemingly the only person who can – across the board – call the important shots and make critical decisions that determine the growth of their business.

In addition, owners often feel like they are the only person in the company who truly cares about the thousand details that are required to offer a high-quality product or service, and thus they are tempted to stay involved in every aspect of the process to ensure perfection.

The challenge

And so one of their greatest challenges, as they grow in size and impact, is to continually find, hire, train, and incentivize individual leaders who can take over, or the proverbial “step into their shoes” of making sure that the company lives up to that initial entrepreneurial dream of greatness, and perhaps even continue to push to raise that bar.

I have found that a shocking exercise for most business owners in their early years is to get every single company role onto an organizational chart, and then to fill in the names of the individuals who are carrying out that role. Nine times out of ten the owner is still wearing multiple hats, with their own name in many positions: Owner – CEO – Business Development – Director of Operations – Payroll – Financial Reports – HR Director … you get the idea.

What makes for a great leader?

The difference between an owner who aspires to build a great company, and one who makes it happen, is first and foremost found in their ability to see and hold course towards a long-term vision that no longer includes themselves stuck in the weeds of sales, operations, and finance.

Whether talent is found within or outside of the company is beyond the scope of these reflections. What matters most is that the owner comprehends what it takes to be a company leader that will carry the momentum forward. One of their main objectives must come to identify key company leadership roles, and to fill those seats with good talent.

What most leaders miss

But it doesn’t stop there. To be truly successful long-term, they must be keen on finding and forming leadership talent who – in turn – will do the same! It’s not just about finding, hiring, training, and incentivizing good people to do good work, but about finding people capable of taking over that role.

For a company to thrive as it grows, the owner must transition from being the central figure in every decision to becoming a leader who cultivates other leaders. This shift involves identifying key leadership roles, filling them with capable individuals, and ensuring those leaders can also build and inspire their teams. Ultimately, a company’s long-term success is deeply rooted in the strength and continuity of its leadership.

A company’s success is intrinsically linked to the quality of its leadership. Finding, hiring, training, and incentivizing leadership itself is critical to drive organizational growth and success.