ABCtech #52 13DEC15 Good-bye 2015 and Change Your Leadership Style to Fit As Your Company Grows

ABCtech #52 13DEC15 Good-bye 2015 and Change Your Leadership Style to Fit As Your Company Grows

Change Your Leadership Style to Fit As Your Company Grows  by Clare Paulson – Corporate Coaching & Training Services

Entrepreneurs are visionaries by definition. They have an idea and challenge or ignore all the obstacles because they have a compelling vision of success. they frame every task in terms of a grandeur vision. This style drives the emotional climate and engages people by giving them the ‘big picture’. All good stuff when you are starting a new enterprise. But the leader of a new company needs more than a vision to be successful. The successful leader is also a coach and a commander in these early stages.

As the company grows to more than about 10 people, the vision becomes entrenched in the mindset of everyone and no longer has to be emphasized continually. At this point the company is still depending largely on ‘seat of the pants’ decisions to move ahead. Since there aren’t a lot of systems in place the leader needs to spend more time and energy ensuring that his/her employees are making good decisions. This means an emphasis on coaching and directing. Expecting people to ‘just know what to do’ leaves staff confused and quality and customer service will suffer. The leader needs to have a drive for excellence and hold high standards for performance. But this ‘pacesetting’ style needs to be used sparingly because it can be seen as pushing too hard if it is overemphasized, and this will quickly erode trust amongst the staff and morale will suffer.

As growth reaches about 20 people, delegation becomes much more important. The leader can no longer interact with every employee every day and so tends to lose some contact with what is happening in the company. This time is one of the greatest times of instability in the growth cycle of  a company. To overcome this normal result of growth, it is time to bring in trusted associates so the leader can start to ‘get his nose out of the shop’ and spend more time being a leader and coach and less time as a manager. This will require him/her to stop being an autocrat and start being more democratic. Install, document and enforce systems for all daily/normal processes and tasks. The leader allows the new managers to do their job and only gets involved to provide requested input or to receive progress reports. In other words, spends more time listening and less time giving orders. It is important that the entrepreneur/leader remains visible as the ‘boss’, but that he/she is able to defer to those trusted associates for day to day management of the business.

  As the company moves into the 60 to 80 people mark (large business by Canadian standards), the leader’s role becomes more collaborative, and his/her focus is directed more on the outside environment, scanning for new opportunities.

Leadership is an ever-changing, evolving skill, and the leader that doesn’t evolve with his/her company will surely fail.

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