Building leadership teams is most successful as a team sport. High-performance leadership teams don’t necessarily materialize after highly talented executives are recruited, and they don’t necessarily evolve as team members get to know one another. Instead, a great top team is designed, recruited, fine-tuned and upgraded.
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.
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.
Mighty Midsized Companies is highlighted in Investor’s Business Daily. They’re running it in the paper on Aug 20th and online for the next month. The headline, like my book, focuses on avoiding the impediments to growth. It’s a quick read with a few highlights from the book. Avoid Pitfalls On The Road To Boosting Your Business and keep it growing through its midsize company stage. John McGee and Robert Sher share experiences. Take a look, and please share it with others.
Be afraid! Many growing midsized companies are at risk for a PR disaster like Comcast’s if they underinvest in operations. Last-minute rush-job hiring, poor training and the pressure of a growing company can combine into operational meltdowns.
Some companies overdose on meetings, others fail to communicate enough to accomplish crucial projects. But nearly all employees and leaders in midsized companies feel they can do better at internal communications.
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.
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).