Big Grower November 2020 - 14

THINK BUSINESS
DO YOU HAVE A STRONG
Leadership Team?
How you assemble your leadership team can help determine
the overall health - and future - of your business.
BY MARK RICHARDSON
ometimes in life you learn from your
mistakes. Sometimes you learn from a
teacher or a coach. Sometimes you learn by
just getting lucky when doing something right the
first time.
As I deal with a variety of different businesses,
the one element that separates the good ones
from the great ones is not the leader. It is not the
founder. It is not the size or even the product of
the business. It is the leadership team.
The leadership team is the muscle to create
excellence. It is the leadership team that brings a
leader's vision to life. A great leadership team is
synergistic and lives by the formula 1+1 = 3.
I was lucky to get this concept early on. As I
look back on my management experiences, I may
have been a force but it was the leadership team
that provided what it took to become great.
DEVELOPING THE TEAM
Leadership teams can look and feel quite
different from each other, but what is not in
question is that developing one is the difference
between good and great. It is also the difference
between solid growth and amazing growth.
Here are a few insights/themes that might help
you on this journey:
1. Make it a priority: How much time are
you devoting to creating or growing your
leadership team? This time should involve
finding the right members/coaching
them/challenging them/discussing the
topic. For a smaller business, this may
be in mentoring while doing; and for a
larger business it may be more leadership
workshops or outside coaching. If it is a top
priority, you invest the time and energy.
If it is a top priority, you wake up thinking
about how to achieve this.
2. Take inventory: It is important you have
the right ingredients. These people not
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S
only need the right competencies but
also the right energy and fit for you and
the culture. In Kim Scott's book " Radical
Candor: Be a Kickass Boss without Losing
your Humanity, " she refers to superstars
and rock stars. She also looks at high
performance and a high growth trajectory.
Both are important to consider, but I
also prefer to have some stability and
calm too. Getting an outside perspective
on this is healthy as well. Ask yourself
these three questions: Can they do the
job? (competency); Will they do the job?
(mindset and attitude); Do they fit? (pace/
culture). While these are simple, it makes it
clearer who you need to invest in and who
you should move on.
3. Visualize the leadership team: When I
am advising a CEO, I have them visualize
a conference room table with X seats. Each
seat has a person or is empty. The more
you can visualize the strength and the voice
in each seat the more you can fill the voids
and see the strength and weaknesses.
4. Alignment: This has a lot of legs and is
important - alignment and belief in the
vision and growth; alignment in the culture
and style; and alignment in the plan and
the strategy. Everyone needs to row in the
same direction and, ideally, in cadence.
5. Investing in themselves: It is extremely
hard for leaders to take their game to
the next level if they are not investing in
themselves. This not only takes time and
energy outside business hours to do this,
but they also need to require the same of
their team. Great leaders are developed not
just born. Development requires guidance
and coaching but at the end of the day the
real sweat needs to be coming off their
noses not yours.
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6. Dissident voices: While you want a strong
leadership team most great ones are made
up of diverse individuals and personalities.
It is up to you to bring the dissident voices
into the mix. You need to encourage these
differences to create the magic of great
leadership meetings. Some look at the
world through an important analytical lens
and some don't. Both are very important.
7. Change: This may be one of the harder
elements. Leadership teams need to change
and grow in sync with the business. The
team needs to understand the business
is the patient and the doctors (leadership
team) around the patient may not always
remain the same. When you are leading
a business through very stormy water it
requires different talent than calm and
steady. Change is not good or bad, it
just is. I believe the healthy leaders and
leadership teams understand this and are
not handcuffed by the players on the team.
In closing, whether you are big or small, having
a great leadership team is important. Begin by
spending a couple of hours a week thinking and
working on this theme. Make the topic part of
your conversations. Begin to study others and get
some outside perspective.
The bottom line is having a great leadership
team is a choice. If you want a great business, it is
not an option to not focus on this.
Mark Richardson is an author, speaker, columnist
and business growth strategist. He has written
several books on business management including
" How Fit Is Your Business? " and " Fit to Grow. "
His latest book is " Control Your Day Before It
Controls You: The 7 Steps to Mastering Your
Time. " All of his books are available on amazon.
com. He can be reached at mrichardson@
mgrichardson.com.
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14 NOVEMBER 2020
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AD INDEX
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Big Grower November 2020

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