Why You Shouldn’t Lead Alone

Remember when you could just hop in the car and go on a last-minute road trip? Just throw some stuff in a bag and you were on your way. As your family grows, that kind of travel gets a little more complicated. You must pack for the kids and make sure you’ll have a place to stay. Last minute changes are more complicated and more expensive.

The same is true as you grow your business from a startup to a scaleup. You probably grew your business on your instincts alone for a period. As an entrepreneur, you’re naturally a good problem solver and know the results you want. But at a certain point, you’re likely to hit a plateau or growth might slow down. That’s when you can’t solely rely on your instincts anymore.

You need a leadership team with different strengths, experiences, and insights.

2 Reasons for More Leaders

There are two key reasons you need more leaders associated with your business.

1. A diversity of perspectives. When you’re growing your business from startup to scaleup, you need more lines of input—more perspectives and help. You need to establish a team of leaders to help you grow. These leaders can include your executive or leadership team or leaders who are outside your company, such as mentors or a group coaching program.You don’t have to rely on instincts alone because you’ll have access to a wealth of other leaders’ knowledge. You have the benefit of learning from others and avoiding the same mistakes. You’ll also be able to help other business leaders by sharing your own knowledge.
2. A business that can function without you. If you ever want to sell your business, it’s much more valuable if it can run without you. If your business can’t run without you, that means the buyer would need to institutionalize and systemize all your knowledge.

You can practice this by empowering your leadership team to take more ownership over their results and teaching them how you think about the business. Consider your organizational structure and if there are any gaps to fill—also be careful not to over complicate it. Once you’ve passed on some of the responsibilities, you can practice by unplugging during a vacation. You’ll likely realize that it won’t all fall apart if you’re not there.

Being open to learning and relying on others is what’s going to help your business predictably grow. You can focus on insights instead of instincts, which is a much more reliable place to be making decisions from.

Take Action

Challenge yourself to empower another leader on your team to take ownership of a project or result that you would normally keep for yourself. Help them understand your process and thinking. Ask if they have any suggested improvements. It might surprise you that often there are people on your team who can do many things better than you.

If you want to join a group of like-minded business owners who are committed to supporting one another, check out The Scaling Leader—our multi-year group coaching program for business owners and executives.

It’s also a good idea to check in on your business health. We have a complimentary tool called the Business Intelligence Grader. You can take the assessment here and learn about your strengths and opportunities for improvement.