Scale your perspective to lead
A superior leader is a person who can bring ordinary people together to achieve extraordinary results. Remember this if you are lucky enough to manage a team.
Part of scaling as a leader is knowing where you belong.
First you belong at the top, you have the vision and the skills to get things started. You hold the information and spread it down within a small team. The team is flat and they all look to you for what’s next.
Then, the grass roots begin. You have to evolve so that you’re highlighting other people. Sharing their strengths. You are still the keeper of the vision but you lead by showing the work of others not your own. Expertise bubbles up, not just a trickle from the top.
Next, you have area expertise, whether it’s marketing, technology, design or data, but are slowly building a team of better experts around you. They may be better than you at the skill that you’re leading them in. That’s what you want. The real way you lead is from way behind. The message is shared through the experts, let them share with the company what’s going on, what’s worked, and what is up next. You lead the vision but it’s told through the people building towards it. Leadership is spreading up and down.
Then you become a leader of people who are leading teams. You’re leading leaders. You are less into the mechanics and more on the showroom floor. Leading with the vision and passing off the vision to the leaders in your company to lead their teams. Everyone has ownership and is expected to lead, title or not.
In order to grow a company, you have to change along the way. There aren’t hard and fast rule to when things change, but it can work out better to move onto the next step earlier rather than later. You have to work to be better at letting others lead.
It won’t be like it used to be, but that’s not where you wanted to stay, now is it?