5 reasons why Leadership Crafting is Essential for Scaleups

(Want to know what Leadership Crafting is? Then start with the first blog post!)

1. Your founders need to consciously grow from founders to leaders

Being a startup founder vs. being a scaleup leader - two very different jobs. Shifting from the role of an entrepreneur to leading others is about shifting from doing everything yourself to motivating and inspiring others. It also requires a great deal of introspection to find the perfect way to take on the role, not to mention learning to communicate in a way that others can connect to. This is a big shift and it is not uncommon for some of the original founders to move on once the company starts growing. This, of course, is not necessarily bad. But what if the problem was lack of motivation for what the role had become, and a different leadership role could be crafted to better match what inspires and motivates each person? It's worth it to at least take a look at what that could mean.

2. (Good) investors will want to know what leadership looks like in your company

There is a multitude of interviews and articles out there by investors saying they invest in the team, not (only) the business idea. When a startup is still looking for a product-market-fit, it might even be very unclear what it is that the company will end up doing. But once the company scales, and bigger investment rounds come into play, any responsible investor will want to know what the company is doing for its people, and what leadership looks like. At this stage, if you've just let leadership develop ad-hoc, it will be very hard to describe, in words or numbers. But what if you crafted it yourself, decided what you believe in and what you don't, and acted on those values? Wouldn't that make it much easier to have those conversations and find investors who share the same values, so that they can support you even when the going gets tough?

3. You need all your people to be leaders

If you're employee #1, or even #10, you probably remember a time when everyone knew everything about the company and communicated with everyone on a daily basis. But when you grow, the people horizon moves further and further from the core team. Do you still know what everyone is working on? Do you even need to? Most scaleups don't want to create hierarchies that slow things down or stifle creativity, but there needs to be some structures in place that help people feel seen, safe and supported. Leadership isn't a role, it's a collection of behaviors, attitudes and actions, led by values. It can't be copied from someone else's handbook, because in order for it to be what your people need, it needs to be crafted from the inside. Leadership crafting helps you define what roles are needed in your company and how everyone can contribute to achieving what you have set out to do.

4. You need to know what you're still missing in terms of leadership

When a company grows, roles evolve and many people take on responsibilities they aren't necessarily extremely interested in, or even qualified for. This is fine for a while, but in order to grow sustainably, your key people need to be in positions that they both enjoy and can master, for both their sake and the company's. Not to mention that the first team wasn't necessarily very diverse, which might be an obstacle to success now, or later on. What leadership crafting can do for you here is help you with some serious introspection. Who are we? How is leadership distributed? What kind of leadership talent do we need and how could we ensure it evolves with our growth? How do we hire those people and not just people similar to us?

5. If you don't consciously build your leadership culture, it will fall into default mode, which makes it very fragile

What happens if you just let leadership evolve naturally and don't think about it too much? Well, many things can happen, but most often this results in leadership being a collection of your key people's habits and preferences. This means some people will be great at it, some not so great, but surely there will be a wide range of leadership behaviors and styles in your company. This is hard for new people to navigate, and if there are problems, this kind of leadership often leads to destructive conflicts that can become personalized. So, how are you leading leadership? What are the values and assumptions it's based on? How can you make sure everyone is aligned and leads similarly enough, especially in difficult times? This is also something leadership crafting can help with.

Do these points resonate with you? Do you think there is something important missing? Get in touch!