Want to Upgrade Your Business? Upgrade Your Leadership Team!
A maturing industry requires its leaders to act differently. As industry players grow larger to manage compliance burdens and to gain access to capital, leadership styles that worked in the past can become dysfunctional.
Directors & Boards has excerpted part of Rob’s new book regarding Tolerating Dysfunctional Leaders in their Thought Leadership section of their Q4 2014 publication. “From a roundup of new books, insights on mentorship, executive team under-performance, enduring traits, director interlocks, doing an IPO . . . and the value of your non-customers” they included Rob’s newest book.
Nearly every midsized company talks about the need to build a strong bench of internal candidates for the top management team. I agree: nothing is better than home-grown talent. However, sometimes a candidate isn’t ready to be promoted and the company simply cannot wait. In those cases, recruiting is the only option but that alternative can be rife with risk.
Most midsized company leaders want their businesses to become mighty growth machines. Unfortunately, sometimes that growth slows, stops, or goes the other way, and their leaders don’t know why. Is it the market? Is it the product? Is it the leadership team? Is it something he or she has done wrong – an ill-conceived deal; an unrealistic strategy?
Become a pro at firing executives. You won’t brag about it at parties, but your company will be stronger and wealthier for it!
Finding great leaders to join your company is required. Keeping the dysfunctional ones will kill your growth.
What kills growth inside middle-market firms? Join Jack Sweeney, co-host of CFO Thought Leader, as he interviews Robert Sher on details about his newest book Mighty Midsized Companies: How Leaders Overcome 7 Silent Growth Killers. Rob reveals the seven silent growth killers unique to midsize firms and explores some of the approaches CFOs can use to detect and overcome the organizational shortcomings that routinely prove fatal for growth.
Listen to the entire podcast here.
A dysfunctional leadership team will kill a midsized company’s growth. Even one subpar leader hurts, and hurts badly.
Leaders who do nothing about bad team members are the worst, according to Joe Montana. He would know, having been on Bill Walsh’s 49ers during a 10 year peak performance period.
There are thousands of Lance Armstrong-like people working in companies today. People who have a win at any cost approach, who poison teams, destroy a company’s sustainability and ultimately harm the company’s mission.
Is there a Lance Armstrong on your management team?
Robert Sher is founding principal of CEO to CEO, a consulting firm of former chief executives that improves the leadership infrastructure of midsized companies seeking to accelerate their performance. He was chief executive of Bentley Publishing Group from 1984 to 2006 and steered the firm to become a leading player in its industry (decorative art publishing).