How to Change Leadership for Company Growth

How to Change Leadership for Company Growth

As your company changes, it’s important for your leadership to change too. We’ve got the details on how to change leadership for your company’s benefit.

Starting a business is one of the most exciting, yet nerve-wracking, times of your life. But, watching it succeed and grow throughout the years is an even more thrilling experience.

The success of your business is a testament to the great idea that started it all, and the even better people that helped your business develop into what it is today. As such, it’s your job to continue building up the team that got you to where you are in the first place.

When you focus on improving your internal operations, everything the company produces gets better. Such a process begins with the right leadership approach.

To change leadership is not always an easy decision, but it can be incredibly effective. Here are a few things to keep in mind in order to make this process as easy and powerful as it can be.

Reassess Your Goals and Tactics

First things first, before you start analyzing your skills as a leader and fine-tuning the way in which you lead, you have to identify what your goals are. These should always be in terms of the company’s success as a whole, not a personal agenda.

Take a look back at all the tools and strategies that have brought the company to this point. Then, consider what the next steps for your team should be.

Think of next steps in terms of your business’ growth cycle, as well as the short and long-term things you need to achieve to get from where you are to where you want to be.

From Startup to Scaling

In the early stages of a startup, leadership is all about creating a strong foundation. At some point, though, the gears shift from getting your name out there and building a team to supporting your people and pushing the reach of your brand even further.

During this time, to change leadership means to go from building rapidly and gaining traction to maintaining what you’ve built and being tactical about what comes next.

When you’re in the beginning stages, there’s plenty of investor funding and motivation to make things happen. Once you settle into a certain level of production and revenue, though, you have to be a little more careful about what comes next.

Planning for the Short and Long-term

No matter how bold or how risk-averse you make the future goals of the business, always break them into short and long-term achievements. This keeps you from biting off more than you can chew as a leader.

It also makes it easier to convey the next round of goals to your team. After all, there’s no use in thinking ahead if you can’t get everyone to share your vision.

Make sure your communication strategies are as effective as they can be by creating points that are simple, structured, and measurable. Putting them in terms of a few months, the entire year, and then a few years out accomplishes just that.

Include Your Entire Team in the Conversation

Speaking of communication, don’t underestimate this skill as a leader. It’s one thing to know how to communicate where the business is headed in the future. It’s another to be able to relate to, motivate, and problem-solve day in and day out with the people around you.

Leaders who do these things (and more) well are those who know how to listen to their team. As such, to change leadership in the office, you have to be the one to start and encourage the conversation.

The following are some ways to do this effectively.

Instill Trust and Foster Open Communication

Always make sure your team knows they have a voice that is not just heard, but respected. This builds a strong sense of trust throughout all levels of the business.

It opens the door for entry-level employees to make suggestions to their higher-ups. It also allows individuals on the same level to relay constructive criticism and build each other up.

Such communication can create powerful changes. It transforms the leadership style of your whole team, not just you as the main leader.

Ask for Feedback

While you’re working to improve how your team communicates amongst themselves, put a special focus on feedback. Every employee should feel like they can come to you to either ask for feedback or to offer it without fear of repercussion.

In fact, sometimes the feedback that a leader needs most is something they don’t want to hear or didn’t even notice about themselves. Encouraging your team to speak up is like putting a spotlight on such blind spots.

This can help you change leadership amongst your executive team or just within yourself much more rapidly than if you tried to do it all on your own.

Stress the Value of Accountability

As much as communication strategies and feedback are important, nothing really gets done without a sense of accountability.

Accountability is what keeps every person in your office in check, without making them feel like someone is micro-managing them. Instead, it’s like an unspoken trust that everyone understands.

Sometimes, it needs to be talked about, though. If a team member isn’t living up to expectations, establishing a standard of accountability gives others room to step in and speak up.

These conversations keep employees from having to come to you for every little thing. It empowers your entire team to act like leaders, regardless of their job description.

Get an Outside Opinion

There are various forms of leadership that work for small businesses and large, international corporations.

This means lots of room for opportunity to change leadership in the office and make it what it needs to be. But, it can also cause a bit of confusion in terms of having a sense of direction when you do decide to change leadership.

That’s what an outside opinion is for.

Bringing in a leadership expert can help you and your team identify next steps together. This person offers insights on everything from identifying goals to improving communication to honing in on specific leadership practices.

A service like this might be just what your leadership style is missing.

Change Leadership and Create Startup Success

No matter how well your startup may be doing, there is always room for improvement. Sometimes, improvement opportunities arise in terms of who you are as a leader and the leadership style of your higher-ups with their departments.

Consider this the next time you take a look at your revenue numbers or market opportunities. To achieve successes in such areas, you first have to fine-tune some internal things.

Then, the rest becomes much easier to accomplish.

For more insights on what it takes to run a startup and how to succeed, click here.