Building strong foundations in the changing landscape of fast growth…

When a team is growing fast a lot changes in a short time and high growth adds pressure that can be hard work for the team and the business as a whole. Your job as a leader is to anticipate these changes, get ahead of them when you can and mitigate for the effects by building the right foundations and setting yourself up to be responsive rather than reactive. 

So what's shifting and what do you need to be mindful of?

Working at scale looks and feels different for everyone. You’re in a space where there’s a potential requirement for more depth or breadth than before and the impact of that will differ depending on your role and the challenge at hand.  

The needs of the organisation change and there’s often a gap between what’s needed and the capacity of the existing team to rise to meet that.

There’s a whole gambit of new challenges to face that you may not yet have built the muscle for. Challenges require new levels of individual and team resilience.

Roles will inevitably need to shift and change to meet those challenges. 

There will be a natural amount of resistance in your existing team to this change. As the business grows some people, previously in the thick of it, will naturally find themselves more on the periphery or away from the action.  

This can create discomfort and feelings of isolation or being ‘out of the fold’ if not managed well. Team members that need to step up, “go pro” or “get serious’ might feel nostalgic for the old days when there was less risk, potentially less pressure or less individual accountability. 

For you as a leader, this creates its own challenges and you’re not alone in those. 

It’s common for many leaders in the fast growth arena to find themselves in a challenging space as the business transitions at pace. You’re likely to find yourself stuck in the weeds, overwhelmed, experiencing imposter syndrome, reactive to challenges or waiting for permission to step forwards in the new way needed to lead from the front. You may end up operating in a very transactional or reactive way without the headspace or bandwidth to break that cycle.

So what becomes even more important?

Leading with intention is vital. If the orgainsation is going to achieve its potential, the culture you create and the way you approach your own role and operations needs to be taken in hand and not left to chance. 

Focus on the foundational elements first and you’ll be able to build the culture you want. If you don’t create the culture it will create itself. For a few more thoughts on accidental versus intentional culture creation refer to this recent blog on psychological safety

As an intentional leader you need to put in place the right foundations and build a team that is engaged, enabled and energised. To do this you need to: 

Be focused and clear on the priorities, the vision, the challenges and the way forward.

Set and hold the vision for where you’re headed and communicate that clearly to bring and keep your people on board

Be visible, lead from the front and show how you want things done. 

Be open, put the processes in place to share information to keep your team informed and engaged at every level. 

Bring the right energy, how you show up sets the tone in the organisation and either creates momentum and accountability or stifles your team.

Bridge the gap between your current skills and competencies and what’s needed for the business as it grows, and do the same for your team. 

Create the conditions for psychological safety and necessary innovation.

As you lift yourself out of the weeds of doing everything and being all things to all people, the requirement to delegate more and in an effective way becomes paramount. You need to enable and empower your team to take proactive action with clear accountability at the right level so that it doesn’t quash the valuable risk takers, but provides appropriate boundaries to those who need them.

Clearer roles and responsibilities will need to be defined and the job of putting the right people in the right places to account for the evolving demands will be key. 

Being a further step away from the perhaps previously tight knit team will mean you have less control over your perception.

How you show up and your communications will need to stretch further and be more considered to manage those perceptions and survive potential silos and watercooler cooler gossip culture that can arise when you’re no longer always ‘in the room’. 

Your organisational and personal values will need to be clear and communicated and this means going further than pinning them up on the wall. You need to stay on top of how the pack is performing and, holding the overall vision in mind, make the necessary course corrections in a timely way. It’s a lot, so it’s no wonder there’s a whole raft of savvy, brilliant people at the top of organisations feeling more accidental than intentional!

If you are to bring your a-game and enable your team to bring theirs this requires you to cultivate:

Deep human understanding

Clarity 

Visibility

Trust 

Bravery

Energy

Space and Confidence

This is the work of the truly Intentional leader, it’s challenging, juicy and highly rewarding.

More on that to come…

I write about many of the themes explored in this article in my fortnightly blog head over to https://rebeccamorley.co.uk/blog to find out more and sign up to my weekly newsletter to hear more.

If you're keen to understand how to overcome the challenges of fast growth within your own team, or for yourself, why not drop me a line on hello@rebeccamorley.co.uk

As always, I'd love to know what resonated here and what questions this throws up for you.

Rebecca