WHY IS LEADERSHIP INDISPENSABLE?
WITHOUT IT YOU DON’T HAVE A TRANSFERRABLE ASSET.
PathFinder Group can help you identify tomorrow’s leaders today and help them develop the skills needed to meet the challenges they’ll be asked to conquer in order to achieve year over year profitable growth. Ask us about the link between leadership and “transferrable value”. It is the “WHY” behind leadership’s importance.
85% of the businesses listed for sale ultimately fail to close. The dominant reason, by far, is linked to the lack of leadership depth. Where your business is almost entirely dependent on you and your relationships or where revenues are concentrated around a few customers you just don’t have a transferable business. You must position it to run without you. As such, addressing these hurdles begins with developing your bench strength.
If you want to exert more control over the ultimate transition from your business you need to understand that buyers are buying your team and its ability to grow the company with new resources and added guidance, so no one would argue that leadership is unimportant. The skills of leadership are basic to overcoming the inertia that naturally prevents a company or project from moving forward.
The challenges of leadership are many and the more complex the operating environment the greater the challenges.
The role of leadership in determining sustainable family business success is well documented. Organizations with quality leaders and a clear vision are easily distinguished from those with ineffective leadership. But how do you build a pipeline today with tomorrow’s leaders--young staff who have the competencies needed for competing in a changing market? How does one develop leaders?
Successful leadership can be developed and improved. The five principles found in Kouzes & Posner’s work, The Leadership Challenge, form the basis of our work in this field.
We’ve actually used this framework to create a millennial leadership plan to identify and develop tomorrow’s leaders today.
As noted in our section on culture, an organization’s culture is linked to profits. What is often misunderstood is the role leadership plays in setting the tone that makes this productivity link between culture and profits possible.
Few family businesses will escape the complexities of today’s markets and the increasing demands from regulation and competition. As such, a commitment to leadership skills development coupled with a personal leadership development plan are essential to building the competencies needed in the dynamic environments current and future generations in successful family enterprises will face.
If your family owned business is not doing these things, you may fail to remain relevant.
