Scaling Up...The Leadership Challenge

Getting your company to mass scale requires leaders who have experience building teams, understand your market and have the networks to help you scale.

“Those who build great companies understand that the ultimate throttle on growth for any great company is not markets, or technology, or competition, or products. It is one thing above al l others: the ability to get and keep enough of the right people. The management team” ― James C. Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

1. Growth Mindset

Leaders with a growth mindset enjoy challenges and believe that their intelligence, talents and abilities can always be improved through constant learning, failure and openness to feedback.

These leaders are able to motivate and engage their teams because they have a positive view of their employees. They rate their teams highly in the areas of innovation, collaboration and commitment to learning and growing. This attitude provides their employees with opportunities to grow.

Moonshot thinking:

Leaders with a growth mindset are ambitious and imagine the possible instead of being limited to what is available now.

Embrace Failure:

Learning from failure and feedback is a key factor in having a growth mindset.

Know when to pivot:

Leaders with a growth mindset are quick to realize when something is not working and are willing to change direction.

Collaborate:

Learning from others and sharing knowledge is a key attribute of leaders with growth mindsets.

Grow other leaders:

Companies led by leaders with growth mindsets are more successful at scaling because of their ability to grow other leaders.

Resilience:

Leaders with growth mindsets respond well to set backs and are able to get back on track quickly.

2. Customer Orientation

Scaling leaders are ver y great at understanding their customers’ needs, concerns, and problems. They see themselves as partners in enabling their customers accomplish their goals. They listen carefully to customer feedback and adjust as necessary,

3. Ability to build self reliant teams

Scaling leaders understand the importance of getting out of the way and allowing their teams to use their skills and talents to solve problems and make decisions. They place a huge focus on hiring the right people and giving them the tools they need to succeed.

Automation is often used by scaling leaders to improve processes and scale operations while maintaining focus on innovation, growth and customer acquisition and satisfaction.

4. Global Mindset

Growing from a start-up to a unicorn requires leaders with a global mindset. These leaders are able to spot trends and connect the dots, respond quickly to feedback, appreciate the local differences and invest in building local teams. They have deep expertise in their perspective domains and are able to communicate effectively and frequently to maintain the engagement of their global teams. The "how" is equally important as the "what" and "why.

Global Contexts:

Global markets require new standards and regulations. Global leaders invest in learning about these differences before jumping all in.

Get local right:

Hire and listen to local and diverse talent. Global leaders connect the dots, recognize different contexts and make locally appropriate decisions.

Hyper communicate:

Time zone shifts, cultural differences and other local factors require global leaders to communicate clearly, frequently and with impact.

ScaleX Blog