Leadership Edge - 7 Essentials for Organizational Growth
For emerging leaders, executives, and aspiring CEOs with an entrepreneurial spirit.
Every entrepreneurial leader needs three things to survive and thrive: strength, structure, and strategy. The soundness of these three will determine the difference between success or failure. So often in life, as well as in leadership, we experience inflection points. There are moments where we have the opportunity to decide to START, STOP, GROW, or GO!
You might say and feel that you're stuck. I see it in the eyes of so many leaders, and there's an acuity to such a moment where he or she will move forward or give up. So often what begins with a dream ends in just a to-do list of getting stuff done. We grow hard under disciplines that are necessary to keep things going so that we can meet the demands of the day or just payroll on Friday.
Though those demands are real, we want to honor them. It's in that place of high responsibility prolonged over time tends to erode our focus. We feel our strength become weak, our structure becomes fractured, and our strategy becomes unclear.
Leading Strong is the opportunity for you to step back for a moment, to work ON your leadership instead of IN it. It's the opportunity for you to think objectively about what may represent areas of volatility in your leadership and your organization. Every leader carries a level of stress about them. So often that pressure comes from lack of awareness. We start first with self-awareness then awareness of the health of our organization. These are the vital signs revealing our organizational health. It is the dashboard by which we can read what's working well and not. Then like an extended sickness that leaves us lacking in energy and resolve. Once diagnosed then we can prescribe resources, attention, and solutions to work on solving the problem.
Most entrepreneurial leaders tend for ready, fire, aim approach to their leadership. That aggressive, quickly calculated, and optimistic assertiveness to action is noble. However, over the course of time, we see this approach begin to impact the 7 Essentials for Entrepreneurial Growth.
It's time to step back and evaluate the overall health of our leadership and your organization. We need to see what's holding you back and keeping you from growing forward. It's a model that you can begin building from today. Whether you're just launching your business, stuck at that next million or breaking 100 million.
The resources and tools available for entrepreneurial leaders are within easy reach for those who want to be a student of growth and performance. However, tools are only as helpful as those who use them. You have to commit to yourself to using one of these resources and leveraging it to the full benefit.
Like a tradesman coming in, working as an apprentice, they're very interested in all the different tools available. But it's really after spending time learning that you begin to narrow your focus. A master artisan will be noted for their quality, effectiveness, and excellence of their work. Most leaders and specifically entrepreneurial leaders have extraordinary talents. No matters skill and expertise we cannot be masters in every discipline. We need to grow and get help. If not, our broad range of abilities often spread us thin. We can feel weak and worn down. It's the beginning of the seven essentials starting with the area of your strength. We are a limited resource. You can only give out of your account until one day you are emotionally, mentally or even financially bankrupt.
Leading Strong gives you a structure that keeps you focused on doing what is essential. That structure grows alongside a clear strategy for where you are going. Going and growth go hand in hand. If you're not walking forward towards a vision, mission or goal that you hope to accomplish, you will not experience growth. As we will often refer to as growth in this book, we take some liberty in the broad sense of the term. Let's define it in 3 ways.
- First, and the easiest to measure is the financial growth. It's is a performance measure. Some would say it's only the results that matter. It's the bottom line approach for those who are motivated strictly in a financial sense. Those rewards are essential, and the results of our work are the measured. Still, it's only one-third of our emphasis in the area of growth.
- The second area of growth would be in the essentials themselves. The 7 Essentials that we will identify in this book, creating a baseline for each one and be able to mark growth in each of these areas. Believing in the end that as you monitor and measure growth in the seven essentials, it will result in a bottom line return.
- Finally, the third area of growth is you, the leader. The spirit of Leading Strong is about your development of the leader. By focusing on your character, competencies, and ability to communicate the commitments towards essential growth.
Welcome to the Leadership Journey. It's a section we will be walking toward Leading Strong, 7 Essentials for Entrepreneurial Growth.
I'm excited to be with you on the journey.
Leadership Edge - TIME TO WORK ON YOUR ORGANIZATION
7 ESSENTIALS FOR Organizational GROWTH
Strength - 5 Critical Questions
Strategy - Strategic Focus
Structure - Organizational Health
Inspiration - Sustainability - Profit
Encouragement - Support - Team
Execution - Systems
Innovation - Space