The Four Core Dimensions of Leadership for Business Growth: People Development

We dig into what it really means to develop people: not motivational posters or random seminars, but deliberate coaching that grows skills, confidence, and career paths. We use a simple contrast between a coachable “Betty” who wants to improve and a resistant “Timmy” who fights everything to show how the same leadership approach increases employee retention for your best people while creating a culture that low-trust employees often choose to leave. That’s not harsh, it’s clarity, and it’s how high-performing teams form.

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Today's Episode 

We also call out a common business mistake: promoting top performers into management and hoping they “figure out” leadership. Coaching is a separate skill, and without training it often turns into micromanaging and boss behavior. Along the way, we argue that obsessing over lagging metrics and quotas is backwards when you haven’t invested in the people who control the outcomes. If you want better numbers, build better people first.

If you want to go deeper, we also invite you to our live webinar and Q&A tied to Five to Thrive. Subscribe, share this with a leader on your team, and leave a review so more owners and managers stop tripping over dollars to pick up pennies.

Transcript

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Five To Thrive Series Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right, welcome back inside the studio. And we are currently going through our five essentials for record growth, which I call the Five to Thrive. And we're currently in our first pillar, leadership. And we're talking about the four core dimensions of leadership. Matter of fact, this is part four of an ongoing series. So if you're just catching up, I'm going to link below so you can start from the beginning. And today we're going to dive into something that I'm most passionate about. All these are important, but this one I just happen to be most passionate about, and that is people development. And part of this is how you create rockstar employees. And this is also a recipe for retention. I'm going to talk more about that here

Defining People Development

SPEAKER_00 0:36

in just a second. Let's talk about people development and leadership is the deliberate practice of growing an organization's capability by investing in the skills, knowledge, and career paths of its individual team. Here's a key word that I have said many times. Many of you out there know how I feel about this: this word investments. College professors that have never owned a business in their entire life will never teach you this. But the reality is, as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, even corporate executives out there, if you can wrap your head around this concept, you will crush

Costs Versus Investments

SPEAKER_00 1:12

any goal that you're trying to accomplish. Is that a cost cannot be lumped into the same overhead category as an investment? Period. The cost keeps you open today. There is no return, all right? An investment produces a return on your time, efficiency, chaos, your fun, your sales, your revenue, your production, your collections, your new customers, whatever it may be, there is a return. You cannot lump that into the same category as your electricity. But this is what people are taught, right? You look at the numbers, it's like what's coming in versus what's going out, and there's my profit. It's all bogus, right? This is how you trip over dollars to pick up pennies all day long. And this right here, by investing in the skill sets of your team and their knowledge, advancing their career path forward, this is an investment all of you should be making. It's one of my most difficult sales to convince everybody out there that one of the biggest marketing investments or best marketing investments you will ever make is not pay-per-click, it's not social media, it's not your website, it's investing in growing your people, their skill sets, how they interact with your customer, your patient, your client before they buy, after they buy. Every one of those interactions has an impact on you creating fans or unlike or just satisfied customers, satisfied patients, or regretful buyers. It's a huge return on investment, but it is so difficult to convince the masses that that is where the money should be invested. Now, rather than focusing solely on short-term tasks or outputs, leaders who prioritize people development build loyal, resilient, autonomous, and high-performing teams. All right, there's a lot there. And let's talk about this. This is what I was referring to a little bit ago.

Retention With Betty And Timmy

SPEAKER_00 3:00

I want you to imagine a scenario. Rockstar employee Betty, right? She's always learning, always wanting to get better. You hire a company, you bring them in, she's always the first to implement it. Right? She's coachable, she wants to learn, right? She sincerely, passionately wants to see the business succeed. That makes her feel proud. Okay. Then you take Timmy, right? Low trust employee, could care less, fights everything. If it's not his idea, he poo-poos it. He's uncoachable. He has no interest in improvement, yet he's the one always asking for a pay raise, right? You're getting my drift here. Okay, if you are investing in their development, right? Betty, I think that was the make-believe name I used, she is going to be more loyal to you. That is how you engage and develop rock stars into becoming even better. That is also how you take somebody that has the potential, like an athlete. They're not there yet, but they have the potential to be a rock star. And that's how you take a rock star and turn them in, or somebody that wants to be a rock star and turn them into a rock star employee. Okay, now those same things that get those people to be loyal to you are the same things that are gonna drive, and I think Timmy was the name I use, right? Drive Timmy's gonna quit. And this is the exact culture through leadership that you want. Right? The great people are those that want to become great or the ones that aren't today, they don't even know they want to become great, but you can transform their mindset into making better decisions, look at their career different, right? You can become the role model and their hero, and you can turn them into your rock star. Now, that's the minority of the time, of course, but it's possible. So it's so funny here. Looking at this, you're saying to yourself, How do I keep my good people? How do I retain them? How do I find them? Right? How do I motivate them? How do I make sure they don't leave? All that boom's right here. Now, everything we're teaching around leadership and in the second one that we're gonna be diving into is culture goes into that. But look at me, your great people are those that want to become great, they want to learn. They want you to push them, they want you to make them feel comfortable, bring them outside their comfort zone. That's what they want. Otherwise, they're gonna get bored and they're gonna leave, right? If you're not investing in them to get better and better and better, they're gonna get bored and they're gonna leave, right? But those same things are gonna take your low trust employees, ones that probably have no chance of ever becoming high trust because low trust in that side of the aisle, Navy SEALs team six training, typically is not trainable. There's exceptions, but typically it's not trainable. So the same great leadership drives one person out your organization, and it drives your rock stars to stay, be loyal, be resilient, and develop them into high-performing teams. So a lot of a lot there for

Coaching Skills Beat Job Skills

SPEAKER_00 5:52

sure. And and and people development is coaching others, cultivating trust, and building an environment where people grow and take initiative. You know, this is why all of you know how I feel that anybody in your organization can be a leader. Okay. Again, not position of rank and title. And this is one reason. Just because you're a great clinical assistant, just because you're a great doctor, just because you're a great chef, just because you're great at sales, just because you're great at answering phones, doesn't mean that you can coach it. Those are two totally different things. It also doesn't mean that you sincerely, passionately want to coach it and want to see other people gain the same knowledge as you so they can thrive in their career. Okay? That kind of stuff has nothing to do or little to do with how good people are at their role. This is why you have promoting people into leadership roles, position of rank and title, right? This is why you have it all

Live Webinar Invitation

SPEAKER_00 6:49

backwards. Hey everybody, Brian Wright of the Brian Wright Show. Let's step away for a moment and I want to talk to you about a live webinar. I'm gonna be delivering all the details and the date, the time, everything you're gonna need to register, it's all linked below. Just click that and you're gonna have everything you need to come and enjoy something that's gonna be awesome. I'm gonna dive deep into Five to Thrive. So no matter what your goals are, if you're somebody that's wanting more new patients, more new customers, more new clients, if you want to increase sales conversion, offer a better patient experience, client experience, learn more about leadership and culture, how to build and set your business up for success so all the ideas get implemented at the highest levels. Whatever your goals are, this webinar is gonna cover some pretty amazing things for you. It's gonna be interactive. Come with your questions. We're gonna have live QA. Make sure to come with your questions because I want to make sure to give my expertise to you, help you out in whatever direction you want to go. Our clients are gonna be there. We'll have some podcast followers. It's gonna be interactive and you're gonna learn a lot. I'm gonna be giving away a couple free on-demand courses on that webinar, as well as some other special offers. It's gonna be a great time. Come and see me. Look forward to seeing you there. And let's get back to today's episode.

Why Promotions Create Bad Bosses

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Just because Joe leads your team, it's all this sales training, lead your team in sales, you promote Joe. That doesn't mean Joe is now, he's in the hardest position of his life and you don't train him how to be a leader. This is how we get managers, supervisors, advisors, micromanagers, people that don't motivate, inspire. This is how we get bosses rather than leaders. Right? So it goes back to what look at sports. Who are the greatest Hall of Fame legendary coaches? Almost always, it was the guy or girl that couldn't get in the game. So they weren't even as good as the people they're now coaching to get better. This is no different for your business. And this is going back to if you're so finite-minded and you make every decision based on data, you've got it all screwed up. Okay? Business is about people. This is why 75% of billionaires have no college degree, right? They're brilliant with people. They make decisions based on people. They don't make decisions based on data that you cannot control and that is lying to you. So coaching others, that is a huge part of leadership, everybody. Coaching others, not telling people what to do, that's very different. It's coaching others, educating others, inspiring others, motivating others. Cultivating trust and building an environment where people grow and take initiative. Now, part of cultivating trust is if I spend time, I put my arm around you, I say, look, you're struggling. I know it. I'm gonna stay late today. I'm gonna train you, I'm gonna spend extra time every day for the next three months, and I'm gonna get you up to speed because I want to see you blossom in your career. Okay, that's coaching. Going the extra mile, and guess what? That's also gonna cultivate trust.

Build Trust Through Real Coaching

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Develop your people, everybody. Develop your people and let your people go grow your business. You don't grow your business. You don't grow your sales, your production, your money, your patience, your customers, your clients. You don't grow that, right? You grow your people, and in turn, you let them go grow it. And that is one of the reasons why our clients kick everybody's butt because everything you learn in this podcast and everything else, right, they are passionate about doing. And meanwhile, you're spending money on pay-per-click ads. Meanwhile, they're developing their people internally to represent their brand in a way so they have higher conversion, they can hard charge higher prices, they have more repeat buyers, they have more loyal clients because they're turning everybody into a fan rather than a customer, client, or patient. It's all about people development. Now, this is also the core of our leadership training, right? Placing the personnel and profess the personal and professional development of your people over statistics, right? That's the start of transformational leadership. Going back to if you have an opportunity to advance your cause and invest in a company that can help advance the cause, help advance the vision, you make that investment. It's literally that simple. If you if the company doesn't advance your cause, doesn't advance your vision forward, you don't. That's the difference. You're not making that decision based on data. You're making it based on people. And you all are a people business.

Grow People To Grow Revenue

SPEAKER_00 11:12

So placing the personal professional development ahead of or of your people over stats, metrics, lag measures, and other uncontrollable and uninspiring benchmarks. And before I get to the last part, which I've already I've already talked about, is that there's so much there. Like this goes back to my gosh, if you're a corporation, we have a lot of corporate executives that listen to this podcast and that I work with. And this is one of the biggest flaws in college teaching, in MBA teachings. It's one of the biggest flaws I see in business, is you focus so much on the numbers rather than focusing on people that control the numbers. Do you hear how crazy, ridiculous, backwards that is? You're focusing on the

Stop Worshipping Lagging Metrics

SPEAKER_00 11:54

numbers that you can't control. Your meetings are all about numbers, quarterly quotas, sales goals, these targets, these targets. You're obsessed over it. Meanwhile, you can't control any of it. And the people that are actually going to get those things to go in the direction you want them to go, you're not invested in them. Right? Going back to, you know the numbers, but you don't know a damn thing about Susie, how many kids she has, who she's dating, what her issues in her personal life are. These are people that bust their butt every single day to represent your brand the best way they know how, and you owe it to invest in them. And like I said, going back to the ones that have no interest in personal development, they're just gonna be where they are in their career and they're cool with that. Those people are gonna weed themselves out of your organization. It's exactly what you want. This is the culture you want. And people development represents a big part of that. Because going back to, you see this last thing here, like I've said before in this episode, invest in your people, grow your people, and they will grow your business in return. Don't you see that? By investing in the people and advancing their skill sets forward in leadership and culture and sales and hospitality and in marketing, right? Those are the controllables. That's how you inspire people. It's how you motivate people. We've been talking about this throughout this series of four that we're in right now. But can't you see it? Can't you see it, everybody out there? And small businesses and entrepreneurs, you sometimes make the same mistake as these corporations where your meetings are all about this lag measures that you can't control, they don't inspire anybody, they don't motivate anybody. And it goes back to the baseball coach that says, damn it, you're hitting 270, you're behind. I want you hitting 300, and then that's all they say. We've got to commit to developing our people.

Next Pillars And Closing

SPEAKER_00 13:41

And you may say, Brian, okay, I'm in, I'm bought in. How do I do it? Well, that's what we're gonna call the core pillars of people development, and that's what's coming up next. I'm gonna link it below, and we'll see you over there.