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When you're ready to scale a business, leadership must move from a founder-led model to a team-empowered approach. A company that empowers its team comprises each team member completely committed to the organization's goals and objectives and fosters growth autonomously from the owner, founder or CEO.
This setup is vital for scaling, as it allows the leader to focus on the company's future while the team efficiently handles the daily operations. When your team is empowered and aligned, your business picks up the momentum to grow sustainably and flourish beyond the initial hustle of its founding days.
Why you need a team-empowered company to scale
The telltale sign that a company is not team-empowered is when the business owner becomes the hero. A hero who needs to jump in and save the day, constantly putting out fires and dealing with urgent issues instead of focusing on what's important for the company's growth. This creates a bad habit of spending time putting out fires rather than becoming strategically focused, which will ultimately decrease those urgent situations. Focus on having dedicated leaders in each quadrant of your company. Embracing a more collaborative approach allows your team to flourish and reach their full potential to grow.
I know a company is not team-empowered when businesspeople regularly recreate the wheel because they don't have consistent systems and processes or continually update their systems as technology changes. Leadership should operate with empowerment, inspiring the team toward action rather than just telling people what to do. It's important to remember that your team functions better when inspired than when instructed. They want to share their ideas and contribute creativity to the company's vision.
Among the many benefits a team-empowered company can bring, founders should remember these three reasons this setup is critical for any company looking to scale.
1. A team-empowered company enhances business value
The reluctance to delegate is one of the trickiest obstacles for business owners. They think critical information will fall through the cracks without their close participation in the day-to-day operations. However, it is important to acknowledge that when a company relies solely on its founder, its overall worth considerably diminishes. Investors or potential buyers are less inclined to be drawn to a business that lacks resilience once leadership changes hands. Your goal is to elevate yourself to the visionary position, enabling the business to thrive independently.
Related: 3 Simple Ways to Empower Your Team
2. Team empowerment drives a strong, scalable culture
When your company is team-empowered, you're not just relying on one or a few individuals to pull the entire team forward. Instead, an entire team collectively drives their energy toward your company's goals. This contagious momentum helps to create a culture whereby every team member feels appreciated and driven to participate. A strong culture is developed by empowerment and alignment with your business's vision; it cannot just magically happen.
Scaling a company is about replicating success rather than only boosting your revenue or market presence. Replication begins with a team that shares your vision and feels empowered to take responsibility for their roles. When every team member contributes their creativity and ideas, your business scales faster because you're no longer limited by the capabilities or bandwidth of a single individual.
Related: 7 Ways to Empower Your Team to Thrive Through Change
3. Scalable models require a shift from owner dependency to team empowerment
Scaling demands a business model that allows your product or service to be replicated beyond you as the owner. If you're still entrenched in the sales process or other core operations, then your business isn't scalable — there are only so many hours in a day, and your capacity will be maxed out.
The most successful brands use 15 scalable models, including franchising, subscription services, SaaS, licensing and replicating talent across your team. Pinnacle Global Network and its team of mentors help businesses implement these models to increase their growth.
Entrepreneurs who believe that clients want to work only with them often struggle with the idea of stepping back, fearing that doing so will cause the business and potential partnership to fall flat. But with a strong, team-empowered company, this simply isn't true.
The key is extreme clarity on your company's direction and vision. Every team member has to be clear on what success looks like for their role and for the company and understand their part in reaching the vision both within and outside. The CEO will find it less difficult to let go when everyone is in line and headed toward the same North Star. Rather than saying, "I'm doing this" or "I'm creating that," start saying, "We are," and putting the focus on your team. Emphasize their achievements and strengths to your clients so they may have faith in your team's capacity to deliver.
Related: The Best Way for Your Business to Thrive Is for It to Not Need You
Start empowering your team today
One step entrepreneurs or CEOs can take to empower their teams today is to work on their own leadership style and assess how they communicate with their teams. Instead of answering everyone's questions and making the team dependent on you, ask them, "What do you think is a great solution?" or "How would you handle this situation?" You could even say, "Why don't you put a plan together and present it to the team?" These are small ways to empower your team to take ownership and put their creativity into their work. When they do this, they will care about it so much more, take pride in it, and put more energy into the success of their work.
As this happens, the team will become less reliant on the owner, allowing them to move more into that visionary role and focus on bigger-picture strategies. This directly impacts scaling because when the team is empowered, and the owner isn't bogged down daily, the company can move to a more scalable model that replicates and multiplies.
