Leadership traps and growth strategies

Leadership traps and growth strategies

Why is your indispensability the biggest barrier to scaling and how can you turn your company from a bottleneck to a growth engine?

Estimated reading time: 7-10 minutes

The two roads

Imagine two company directors. Let's call them Peter and Anna.

Peter is the classic leader trap prisoner. He's the first one in the office and he turns off the lights at night. He's on the copy of every email (just to keep him in the picture). All decisions go through his desk. If Peter goes on vacation, his company goes on life support. Peter is proud that life stops without him. He feels it's the measure of his importance, when in fact it's his prison.

Anna is often not in the office. Sometimes she is out for strategic meetings, sometimes she is picking up her child from nursery school. When Anna's not in the office, her company doesn't slow down. In fact, cases and projects are moving forward, clients don't even notice her absence and are just as satisfied. Anna is the growth strategy has chosen.

Peter has a (manually) controlled, micro-managed and, although probably very well paid, but extremely stressful job / job. And Anna has a business that is not entirely dependent on her, and she can step off the merry-go-round for a while if she feels like it, or even sell her company because she has built something that works.

A Latest CoachLab experiences and the international literature (e.g. The Founder's Dilemma) also show that most managers start as Peter, but need to become Anna for their company to survive growth. The gap between the two is not a lack of hard work, but a fundamental shift in strategy.

A "Busz-faktor" és a vezetői ego

There is a morbid but very useful concept in software development: the "Bus Factor" (Bus factor). This number shows how many key people would have to be hit by a bus before the project would crash.

If the number in your company is 1 - and that one person is you - you are not safe, you are in danger.

A classic Harvard Business Review study, the The Founder's Dilemma (The Founder's Dilemma) highlights exactly this: the biggest pitfall for entrepreneurs is having to choose between control and growth. As long as you control 100%, your growth has a biological limit: your time and your energy.

Many people believe that the delegation of control loss of control. But in fact the control and thus sharing responsibility.

Insecure, inexperienced or novice managers tend to believe that they are the best and the brightest in the office or even in the whole company.

If you're the smartest person in your company, you've hired the wrong people, or worse, you're not letting the right people flourish.

Urgent vs. Important: The price of attention

Why do we get caught up in the micro-genome? Why do we feel that we have to do everything?

A válasz gyakran fizikai vagy biológiai. Amikor "tüzet oltunk", amikor megoldunk egy hirtelen jött problémát, az agyunk dopamint termel. Hősnek érezzük magunkat. Hasznosnak. Ezzel szemben egy működési modellt vagy egy folyamatleírást megírni, vagy egy kollégát betanítani unalmasnak tűnhet, és az eredménye csak később látszik.

According to Dwight D. Eisenhower's famous matrix - a Clumbia University aynaga ; a vezetők idejének nagy részét a "Fontos, de Nem Sürgős" kvadránsban kellene tölteniük. Ez a stratégia, a rendszerépítés, a csapatfejlesztés. Ezzel szemben a CoachLab based on the experience of a magyar kkv-vezetők 80%-a a "Sürgős és Fontos" (tűzoltás) vagy a "Sürgős, de Nem Fontos" (mások helyett dolgozás) mezőben tölti a napjait.

The biggest trap of a manager is to control everything. When your presence is the key to day-to-day operations, you are the bottleneck in the system. But when you distribute decisions, information and responsibility - the system becomes faster, more stable and more scalable.

The Competence Trap: Linear vs. Exponential Growth

In our work at CoachLab, we identify again and again a paradox that we at "Kompetencia Csapdájának" we call it. This is the most dangerous trap a talented leader can fall into.

What is it about? It's about. you're too good in your profession. Since you write the best copy, design the most beautiful house or close the most efficient deal, it seems logical that you should do it. But that logic is the death of growth. If the best operational person in your company is the CEO (that's you), then your company has no CEO.

A growth strategy does not mean taking on more. It means taking it to the next level.

The difference between the two mentalities is huge:

• The linear growth trap: If you want to earn more, you work more. That's the freelance mentality. The ceiling is your 24 hours.
• The strategy of exponential growth: If you want to earn more, you build better systems that multiply other people's time. That's the entrepreneurial mentality. There is no ceiling.

Think McDonald's. They're not one of the world's most successful companies because they make the world's best burgers. It's because they are system that an 18-year-old student can use to produce the same quality from Tokyo to New York.
(Arról nem is beszélve, hogy a "Meki" biznisze nem is a hamburger, hanem valójában az ingatlan, de ez egy másik téma, talán majd erről is írunk, ha lesz ez iránt érdeklődő. 😉

De visszatérve a hasonlathoz: Neked nem hamburgert kell sütnöd. Neked a "konyhát" kell megtervezned, ahol mások sütnek. Amíg ezt a váltást fejben nem léped meg, addig bármilyen marketingkampányt indítasz, csak a káoszt fogod növelni, nem a bevételt.

The Paradox of Systems: why structure is the key to freedom?

What does this freedom look like in practice?

• Automation of knowledge transfer: When a new colleague arrives, it's not you or a key member of staff who has to sit next to them for weeks. With the help of a well-constructed digital knowledge base (Wiki, video training materials), he or she will learn the basics on their own. You are mentoring, not explaining the alphabet like a school teacher.
• The elimination of decision fatigue: One of the most important forms of freedom is mental freedom. Without systems, your day is spent firefighting and micro-decisions („How much discount can we give?”, „Who approves this post?”). Having policies in place gives the team a decision crutch, freeing you from the daily grind and focusing only on strategic issues.
• Quality independence: Az ügyfeleid nem azért kapnak kiváló szolgáltatást, mert te épp jó napot fogtál ki, hanem azért, mert a cég "DNS-ébe" kódoltuk a sztenderdeket. A folyamat garantálja az eredményt, bárki is végezze a feladatot.
• Scalability without stress: the biggest obstacle to growth is usually the driver himself kapacitása. Egy rendszerezett cégben, ha holnap dupla annyi megrendelés érkezik, a szervezet nem roppan össze a teher alatt, hanem egyszerűen "magasabb fokozatba kapcsol". A struktúra teszi lehetővé, hogy a növekedés ne káoszt, hanem arányos profitnövekedést hozzon.
• Error as a system development tool: Egy struktúra nélküli cégben a hiba "bűn", amit bűnbakkeresés követ. A rendszerelvű gondolkodásban a hiba egy értékes visszajelzés. A kérdés nem az, hogy „Ki rontotta el?”, hanem hogy „Hol a hiba a folyamatban, ami ezt engedte?”. Ez pszichológiai biztonságot teremt a csapatban, ami elengedhetetlen a proaktivitáshoz.
• Automatic operation: A projektek nem állnak meg a távollétedben. A világos felelősségi körök és a "kottába foglalt" indítási protokollok miatt a gépezet nélküled is lendületben marad.
• Creating marketable goodwill: It is cruel but true: a business without a system is really just a job created by the owner, without which it is unsaleable. Systems (processes, documentation, automation) transform your business into a real, marketable asset. Investors don't want to buy your personal genius, they want to buy a functioning machine that predictably generates profit.
• The possibility of conscious improvisation: Ez talán a legnagyobb paradoxon. Csak akkor tudsz igazán jól és biztonságosan improvizálni (pl. egy váratlan piaci helyzetben vagy krízisben), ha az alapműködésed sziklaszilárd. Ha a "hátország" rendben van – a számlák kimennek, az ügyfelek kiszolgálása zajlik –, akkor a vezetőnek van szabad kapacitása és bátorsága kreatív, kockázatosabb manőverekbe kezdeni, mert tudja, hogy az alapok nem fognak közben összeomlani.

It is a mistake to think that systems kill creativity. It's the other way round: systems create a safe space for creativity. Ha a kollégáidnak nem azon kell aggódniuk, hogy "hogyan kell számlázni" vagy bármi egyéb "rutinfeladat" vagy egyértelműen megfogalmazható, leírható feladat hogyan működik, hogy valósítható meg (mert ez le van írva), akkor az energiájukat a valódi értékteremtésre, az innovációra és az ügyfél problémájának mély megértésére fordíthatják.

Sabotage or Strategy?

There's a hard truth you have to digest. In the past, and even now, I talk to and often work with many people, leaders and entrepreneurs as a coach, who don't outsource their tasks, don't build systems that work well on their own, because cannot believe it, and are rather sure that without them, this operation would not be of a sufficient standard, but above all would not be viable.

In doing so, we are enemies of ourselves, our employees and our company. It is in fact self-sabotage. You sacrifice the future of your company to protect your ego.

A CoachLab's research highlight that one of the most important factors in employee satisfaction is the autonomy. If you decide everything, if you always have their backs, you're not only burning yourself out, you're driving your best people away. They're the ones who are told what to do. The talented people who want to create leave.

A leader who is able to incorporate his own knowledge into others is able to grow. Anything else is just unnecessary spin that seems useful and sabotages your own work.

The good news is that it can be learned

When I say your company has to function without you, I'm not saying you're redundant. I'm saying your role needs to change.

You need to move from the role of operator to that of architect.

The real challenge is not implementation, but system building: what is the process that guarantees results without your active involvement?

Zárásként - Vezetői csapdák és növekedési stratégiák

Simon Sinek once said: "A vezetés nem egy rang. A vezetés egy döntés. Döntés arról, hogyan gondoskodsz azokról, akik a balodon és a jobbodon állnak."

Taking care does not mean doing the work for them. It's about giving them a system they can feel safe in and the tools they need to succeed.

If you have one standard, repetitive task on your list as owner, you still have work to do. But here's the good news: it can be learned even if you think it's unthinkable right now. I've done it, others have done it, many have done it. You can do it too!

Are you ready to kick yourself out of the operational side of your own company and start working for the COMPANY, not the TIME?

Frequently Asked Questions about System Design