There is Hope – Shifting Your Leadership Model
Many founders and CEOs have worked hard to get where they are today. And the next level of growth is possible, but you feel you are the bottleneck. Today, I am going to share with you a story about hope. This story is about how a client shifted his leadership model and removed himself from a big part of the day-to-day of the business. Discover the power of shifting your leadership model.
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Shifting Your Leadership Model: The Transcript
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Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.
[0:00]
Do you have hope, the hope that your employees and your culture will improve through these working arrangements so that the business can get back on track, maybe even get back on track to hit the goals that you set 12 months ago? Well, hope is a very powerful feeling.
[0:15]
Hopefully, you have that hope. Yeah, no, that’s too many hopes in one sentence. But what I want you to understand here is if you don’t feel hope, then you don’t feel control. And one of the things that I want to share with you is a story about hope. This doesn’t come from, you know, something in my life that I changed, but it’s actually from one of my clients. I can remember back in October 2019. I was having a conversation with a prospect. He wasn’t a client yet. But I asked him about what’s going on in the business because that’s what I do. I help founders and CEOs that are growing fast-growth companies to really understand what’s keeping them from growing faster.
[0:54]
Well, when we had this conversation, he said, You know, I know I can take on three Maybe five more clients, but the business just isn’t structured in a way for us to take on 20 more new clients this quarter. And if we wanted to grow and actually hit our numbers, we’ve got to take on a lot more clients. And I think I’m the bottleneck. I said, Well, what do you mean, you’re the bottleneck? He said I have so many things that I’m involved with that I don’t know what to do next, to move the culture to that next level. I said, Well, let me ask you a question. Because part of my job is to get really curious, what would I see on your desk right now, that lets me know that you’re not able to grow?
[1:33]
I think there are 14 reports on the edge of my desk that my team has stacked up, they’ve done all the work, and I just have to review it before it goes to the client. And I said, Okay, so what’s the problem there? And he goes, Well, that’s about two to four hours each. So I’ll spend more than half of my week reviewing the work of my team.
[1:53]
Now, you may have already grown past this, but what came next was really powerful. Over the next few months, we started working identifying specific things that he could do to change and shift his leadership model to remove him from being the bottleneck and create the kind of culture where others supported the growth of the business. Well, where are we today? I just talked to him last week, and there was something really interesting. I said, Give me an idea of how things are going with leadership. And he says, oh, wow, I really a little bit upset because it was taking longer than expected. I said, Okay. It usually does take longer than expected to change your leadership model that you’re so entrenched into.
[2:33]
What would you see on the edge of your desk now that you know that things are going in the right direction, he goes, Well, I only have one of those reports on my desk that I have to review. It’s a little bit more complex than normal. And they just want to make sure that we’re spot on and I am happy to do that for them. So that’s a big difference from having 14 to now having one. This is a testament and assigned to. There is hope out there. You can shift your model so that you are no longer the bottleneck. You can shift the model so that you are actually positioned to grow faster than you are today. But you got to be willing to let go. What can you learn from today’s story?
[3:08]
Well, first of all, you’ve got to learn that you can’t blame others, you have to actually take ownership of the solution. If you blame others, you will be waiting for them to fix it. If you are waiting for others to get better and not need a review of these cases, or whatever is in front of you, then you actually are the problem again, still, you have to make a commitment to remove yourself from the day today. I’ve done a lot of videos around this lately, but you have to make the commitment that you will not be the bottleneck that you will empower others that you will create a place where others can support you in the growth so that you can work on bigger projects, maybe more visionary work, or work on you know, business partnerships allow the business to scale beyond where it is today. You want to make sure you’re spending time actually leading your people and remember, it may take a little longer than you expected. This isn’t something that just happens overnight, that you have to let go of a lot of the systems and procedures that got you to where you are today. And so they might be hard to let go up, your team has to let go of certain things, they have to step up in new ways and take ownership.
[4:13]
Your job as a leader is to empower that. One final thought on this is, I said, What are you going to do with all this extra time. And my client said I’ve been thinking about that lately. He goes, I want to sit down with everybody on my team. And he has about 22 employees a half-day each. And I was kind of shocked by that. It’s like, you’ve never been able to give that much time before he goes, I know. But it’s important for them to know that I’m here to lead them to support them. And I wanted to make sure I gave them not just 15-minute meetings or even 30-minute meetings, I want to make sure I give them really a lot of time.
[4:46]
So over the next month, I’m going to spend my time connecting with my people and leading them to the next level so that we can continue to grow beyond where we are today. I leave all this with you. Because if you are the bottleneck if you felt like you just didn’t have hope than I want to share this story with you because there is hope out there for you. There’s no call to action, other than just asking you to look back at your business and know that if you are the bottleneck, you’ve got to realize it first. You can’t blame others.
[5:16]
My name is Gene Hammett. I help founders, CEOs and their teams grow beyond where they are today to make a bigger impact and continue the growth of their company beyond the levels which they even believe is possible. That’s my job. When you think of growth, can you think of leadership, make sure you think of Growth Think Tank, as always leave with courage. We’ll see you next time.
Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.
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