#LOTG Season #4 Podcast Episode #7 – Leading Organizations - Part 2: Enabling The Organization To Both Scale And Sustain Itself

#LOTG4 Ep #6 – Leading Organizations – Pt 1: Diagnosing Your Business Lifecyle and Establishing Your Leadership Role Clarity

April 26, 2017

The Language of Leadership

May 4, 2017

Published by Erica Peitler on April 26, 2017

SEASON 4 EPISODE SEVEN – Leading Organizations – Part 2: Enabling the Organization to Both Scale and Sustain Itself

Discussion Guide for this episode:

1. Navigating the transition from entrepreneurial leader to enterprise leader. Shifting from the individual to a team focus.

2. The classic struggle of working IN or ON the business. When IN the business, you don’t have the altitude to look towards the future.

3. Loyalty vs. performance. The talent focus and needs evolve as an organization shifts from entrepreneurial to enterprise. And you have to be mindful of that. Don’t be loyal to the wrong type of talent for the current lifecycle.

4. To build a sustainable organization, you now have to be a talent magnet.

5. It is unrealistic to think that all talent recruited at the launch of the organization can easily evolve and transition as the organization evolves into an enterprise.

6. Performance vs. potential.

7. A fifteen-year veteran of the organization might not have the necessary skills for the enterprise tomorrow. Don’t just give him the job because of the tenure.

8. To be a talent magnet, don’t just recruit when you have an open position. When you find the right skill set AND/OR good potential for growth, you should consider them now.

9. You have to focus very hard on building the right executive team – they are the leader of leaders.

10. A key tension is short-term vs. long-term thinking. It’s very easy to get into the weeds and be distracted by the details of the business. And “long-term” is defined differently depending on your business lifecycle.

11. Are you finding the right balance between being mindful that things are working today, and looking ahead to find the right solutions to scale to the next level.

12. If a leader says they cannot think ahead because they have to focus on running the business, they are the wrong leader. You have to balance today and tomorrow.

13. To resolve a lot of the tensions we’ve discussed in the series, it all comes down to a balancing act.

14. This process of finding balance, and resolving tensions, and focusing on both short and long-term thinking, NEVER ENDS. And the more you work on moving through them, the easier it does become to resolve them.

Click here to listen to Leadership on the Ground, Season 4 – Episode 7 NOW!