Leadership Constraint to SME Growth

Challenge

A successful New Zealand SME operating in the services sector was finding business growth was overloading their leadership capacity and capability. This was creating leadership stress and they could no longer expect a handful of directors to cover all aspects of leadership, as they had done previously.

Approach

The starting point was understanding the projected growth path for the business and the implications of this for leadership. We took time to understand the leaders and managers across the business to understand their strengths, weaknesses and aspirations. With that commercial and leadership understanding we were able to make recommendations around leadership structure, roles, processes, development and measurements. We worked in one-on-one coaching relationships with a number of the managers and leaders as they developed their leadership to a new level.

Result

This business has continued to realise their growth ambitions with less of the growing pains they were previously encountering. The leadership structure and capability is spread more widely across the business and is more effective, resilient and sustainable. This has allowed the directors to focus on leading growth.