And, chances are, there are some core strengths you have that were key to getting you to this point. Maybe it’s intelligence, perseverance, creativity, or agility. Whatever strengths you have, they have probably served you well and you wouldn’t be here without them. You have figured out the right cocktail that makes you great at what you do. So, now you are leading a start-up.
Why change the formula when it’s working? Right?
To answer that question, you have to address another. Do you want your company to stay where it is? Or do you want to lead the way in a rapidly evolving healthcare and economic environment? If so, you can’t keep only doing what you’ve always done. If you want your company to continue to grow, adapt, and stay at the top, you have to adjust and grow.
That may seem obvious on its face, but it can be a really hard thing to put into practice. Most of us figure out what has worked for us (whether intentionally or intuitively), and we keep doing that thing until it becomes second nature. It’s probably been positively reinforced along the way. To address what you need to get you to the next place, you have to stop and reflect, which can be nearly impossible sometimes with all the things you have to juggle. Stopping and reflecting seems like a luxury. However, if you don’t take time to do it, you don’t really have a shot at figuring out what your patterns are and how to adapt. You will just keep doing things without knowing why, or even without noticing that you are doing them.
It might be helpful to think about it this way: All of us have one dominant eye or one dominant hand. If we neglect the other, then we minimize our effectiveness and become overly reliant on one part of our body. That’s not an apparent problem while the dominant hand or eye is working, but what happens when it becomes injured, or needs a break from over-use? You don’t have anything else to step up to take its place. If you don’t have a back-up strategy, you become unable to function. Or, at least, you drastically slow down.
This is absolutely true as a leader, and especially as a leader of a startup that needs to move quickly, make complex decisions, and prove that your product or service deserves to be in the market. Your team is full of dynamic and changing people, the world around you is demanding more of you, and you can’t rely only on what got you here if you are going to keep moving. So what do you do about that?
Strengthening doesn’t work without strategic balance
It starts with noticing and naming what got you here and then assessing what’s needed for what is next. That sounds simple enough, but it’s really not. You will need to take time to recognize what strengths you do have and what you don’t. Which patterns are working and which ones are holding you back? When do you need to build your team to bring on the people who have the strengths that compliment your deficits? There are no easy or formulaic answers to those questions. You may have to do some assessments or exercises to help you see them. You may need to enlist the help of others you trust to give you a perspective you don’t have.
Once you do this work, you then need to start thinking about how you enlist the other strengths and skills that you need to lead in this space. You need to find more balance.
Balance is a buzz word, and I don’t think about it like balancing between two sides of a scale until they are equal. I think about it like balancing when you are riding a train. If you try to stand still with your weight equally distributed between both sides of your body, once that train moves, if you try to maintain that posture, you will fall. Balance on a moving train requires shifting, adjusting your body to the forces of the movement of the train, even hanging on at certain times or asking others to carry some of the load. In my experience, that’s the kind of balance it takes to lead well.
Grow ahead of your startup, for your startup
Growing as a leader isn’t a given, and it’s incredibly complex. But we see promising start-ups all the time who can’t get to the next phase because they haven’t given attention to their leadership needs and growth. One of the investors we work with recently said “Your company can only grow as fast as you grow”. I would be willing to bet you have poured a lot of focus and energy into growing your idea, network, and knowledge to get you and your company where it is. What have you done to assess and grow your leadership?
