Building a leadership team doesn’t mean breaking the bank. Though there’s always going to be some costs involved in hiring executives and growing your team, it might not be as expensive as you first thought. With fractional executives, you can build a strong and reliable leadership team, knowing that your budget can take the strain.
Why Building a Leadership Team is Vital for Business Growth
Many business owners try to do it all, including navigating business growth. They want to be the founder, but also a salesperson, financial expert, marketing lead, operations manager, head of HR and a big part of customer support. This is often possible when you first start a business and everything is in the startup stage. But, as a business grows, it becomes harder to be everything, to everyone. In fact, it could actually hold your business back. If all of your time is taken up making day-to-day decisions, you’re not going to have time to do anything else.
You Can’t Do it Alone: The Risk of Not Having Reliable Leadership
- Business Owner Burnout – If you’re doing everything alone, you run the risk of burning out. This happens because you’re stretched too thin and forced to make important decisions in areas outside of your expertise.
- Slowed Business Growth – You run the risk of missing opportunities because you’re too busy trying to keep your head above water. If you’re busy handling everything, there’s no time to innovate, evolve and grow.
- Inconsistent Execution – Without strong leadership in each area, execution suffers. There’s always going to be something that’s forgotten about, overlooked or completed to a subpar standard, simply because you don’t have the ability to do everything.
- Lack of Strategic Focus – Without a leadership team, you’re constantly reacting to whatever’s thrown your way, instead of steering the business forward strategically. It’s hard to focus on strategy when you’re trying to wear a dozen different hats at once.
The Benefits of a Building a Strong Leadership Team
When you have a strong leadership team to rely on, a lot of weight is taken off your shoulders and your load is lightened. This allows the business to grow with intention and strategic focus, rather than stumbling around in the dark. The right leaders help you to make better decisions faster, as they have experience and perspective you might not have. They’re also able to make your operations and processes more professional, organised and optimised, making sure the business is ready to scale.
With a strong leadership team, you’re more likely to attract and retain talent by creating a culture where people thrive. It’s also a lot easier to navigate uncertainty – including market shifts, securing funding and launching new products – when you have experienced, capable and industry-savvy talent leading the way. All of this frees up your time, so you can focus on vision, partnerships and growth strategy.
Building a Leadership Team? Here’s What Makes a Team Great
You can’t simply bring a random selection of leaders together and expect to have a great leadership team. It just doesn’t work that way. Not every group of executives creates a strong team. When you’re building a leadership team, you need to choose people who will challenge your thinking, execute projects flawlessly and take ownership of the tasks.
- Flexible – A modern leadership team needs to be flexible enough to adapt quickly. There’s no knowing when markets will shift, or when customer behaviour will change. Whether it’s launching in a new region, changing your offer slightly or getting ready for investment, your team needs to adapt with you.
- Aligned – Everyone on your leadership team should be on the same page, working towards the same results that you are. That means being aligned on missions, values, vision and key business goals. When leadership is aligned, the rest of the business follows.
- Scalable – When you’re building a leadership team, you need to prioritise scalability. Your team needs to be able to grow with the business, regardless of how quickly that growth happens. That means having people that can handle increasing complexity, larger teams and evolving goals, without needing to be replaced every few months.
- Experienced – It’s not enough to choose people who have seniority, they also need to have relevant experience. You want people who have on-the-ground experience, people who aren’t afraid to get stuck in. Their experience should be within your industry or business model, and proven to achieve results.
- Collaborative – With multiple departments and smaller teams, a great leadership team works across various functions and collaborates with everyone else. For example, a marketing leader needs to be able to work with sales, customer support and HR. There shouldn’t be any competition.
How to Build a Growth-Focused Leadership Team Affordably
The idea of hiring a full-time leadership team can feel daunting, and that largely comes from the costs involved. For a lot of SMEs, hiring a team of experienced executives isn’t viable, especially with a limited budget. This is why a growing number of business owners are opting for fractional leadership teams.
Here’s how to approach building a leadership team that’s effective in both growth and cost.
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