The Leadership Bottleneck: Is Your Executive Team Built to Scale?

When you first launch a business, being agile works to your advantage. You’re able to make quick decisions, put new plans into action within minutes, and keep up with evolving market trends. If customer buying behaviour changes, you’re agile enough to change to meet their evolving needs. But, as your business starts to grow and things get more complicated, agility dwindles. Now, you’re faced with systems that can’t quite keep up, overworked teams, and slower executions. This is all because you’ve probably run into a leadership bottleneck.

As a business founder, you can’t do it all alone. As your business grows, you need a leadership team that’s going to scale with you. Otherwise, your business will be held back and struggle to reach its full potential.

What Does a Leadership Bottleneck Look Like?

Leadership bottlenecks aren’t always obvious, not until it’s too late and you’re struggling to scale. This is why it’s important to have an executive team that’s able to evolve and keep up with a growing business.

• You’re Still Doing Everything – It’s not a good sign if your business is too dependent on you. When you first start a business, you’re driving everything. But, as a business grows, you need to have a team you can rely on. If you’re the founder and every major decision still needs to go through you, your team isn’t built to operate independently. You’re acting as an entire executive team, all at once, and that’s not sustainable.

• There’s No Long-Term Thinking – Though it’s important to think about the here and now, you need to plan for the future. You can’t run a business reactively, putting out fires as and when they arise and making last-minute, rushed decisions. You need a clear roadmap for the next six months. Otherwise, executive leaders spend all their time trying to keep on top of everything and not actually leading.

• There’s Critical Gaps in Expertise – You might have managers handling functions they’re not fully equipped to handle strategically, which won’t lead your business towards success. They might be managing to navigate everything for now, but it’s unlikely they’re able to be as effective as experienced, skilled executives with specialist knowledge. To scale a business, you need a team with deeper, specialised expertise.

• There’s Operational Chaos – There’s a lot that goes into running a successful business, and you need different teams and departments to work together. It’s a sign that you’ve run into a leadership bottleneck if your marketing efforts aren’t aligning with sales, and your team can’t deliver on what sales have sold. Teams making decisions without cross-functional input can lead to disaster, including disappointed customers and missed growth opportunities. You need an executive team that’s able to connect everything together, bringing everyone onto the same page.

• You’re Losing Talent – You can’t build a business without top talent. But, with so many competitors to choose from, talented employees have the freedom to pick and choose where they want to work. They’re likely to leave if they don’t have direction, support or room to grow. If your team isn’t developing professionally or getting regular feedback from knowledgeable executives, you may have a leadership gap that’s unintentionally sending talent elsewhere.

A big part of growing a business is scaling your executive team, so make sure you have a team that’s ready and able to scale alongside you.

Struggling to Scale? The Cost of Leadership Gaps

Scaling an executive team doesn’t happen overnight, but it’s not completely out of the question and impossible to achieve, as long as you have the right approach in place. If you don’t, you run the risk of:

• Missed Opportunities – Without strategic leaders in place, you may not see opportunities for expansion, partnership or efficiency, giving competitors a chance to snap them up.
• Inconsistent Execution – Without leadership continuity and a strong team, scaling an executive team varies wildly from one department or project to the next.
• Poor Decision-Making – Without experienced leaders supporting you, important decisions get made without enough context, data or long-term vision, increasing the chances of things going wrong.
• Founder Burnout – Without scaling an executive team, founders and early leaders end up working too much, they’re unable to delegate or focus on the big picture, and eventually burn out.

There’s a lot of reasons to put off building a strong executive team; the timing might not feel right, you might not need someone full-time, or your budget won’t quite stretch far enough. This is why a growing number of businesses are turning to fractional executives, as an affordable, alternative solution.

The Perfect Solution for Scaling an Executive Team

Fractional directors are experienced leaders who take on part-time or project-based leadership roles in a business. They provide the strategic leadership you need, but without the cost or commitment of a full-time hire.

Key Benefits of Fractional Directors

• Cost-Effective Access to Executive Talent – Hiring a full-time executive isn’t cheap, and that’s before you’ve factored in bonuses and benefits. But, a fractional director delivers the same level of strategic leadership for a fraction of that cost. As they tend to only work with you on a part-time or project-based basis, you get unmatched experience without investing too much into taking on a full-time team member.

• Scalable Engagement and Input – One of the biggest benefits of fractional leadership is flexibility. When you approach scaling an executive team by hiring a fractional director, you can start with one or two days a week, and then ramp things up if you need more involvement. You also have the flexibility to scale back or let them go entirely when the need changes. This lets you tailor leadership support to your budget, growth stage and evolving priorities, without any long-term commitments.

• Objective Outside Perspective – An outside leader can bring a fresh eye to your business. They aren’t involved in company history or internal politics, and they’re not jaded by the business’ journey so far. They’re loyal to the success of business, not specific members of the team. They can see blind spots and challenge assumptions in ways insiders often can’t, bringing unique views and ideas to the table, some of which you may not have thought of.

• Immediate Credibility with Those Who Matter – Bringing in a seasoned fractional director gives your leadership team instant credibility with external stakeholders, including investors and partners. It shows that you’re taking structure seriously and making smart, scalable decisions. This is amplified if your chosen fractional director has a great deal of impressive experience, which most do.

• Bridge the Gap Between Full-Time Hires – Sometimes you know you need a permanent executive, but you don’t want to rush the hire and risk choosing the wrong person. A fractional director can fill the gap, build the foundation and even help you define the role and interview candidates. They bridge the gap, giving you time to find the perfect full-time hire and taking the pressure off in the meantime.

Scalable Executive Leadership When You Need It Most

As your business grows, the cost of leadership gaps grows with it. But, that doesn’t mean you need to make big, risky hires and spend a lot of money before you’re ready. With fractional directors, you can enjoy an affordable, flexible and easy-to-execute solution. They offer expertise without the high cost, strategy without long-term commitment, and drive the business forward without the risk of burnout. When you have a scalable executive team in place, your business can scale without being held back by its own structure. The right leadership, even part-time and temporary, can unlock your next stage of growth.

If you’re feeling stuck at your current stage and you can’t quite drive business growth forward in the way you want to, it might be time to change your leadership structure and work with a fractional director. Get a free leadership gap assessment from Profici.