12MinuteLeadership

Episode 7: An Overlooked Solution for Accelerating Organizational Growth | 12MinuteLeadership

• Elise Boggs Morales • Season 1 • Episode 7

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What's truly holding back your organization's growth? While most leaders focus on revenue metrics and headcount, the real accelerators often hide in plain sight. Leadership expert Elise Boggs Morales draws from 17 years of experience to reveal the overlooked solution that can transform your growth trajectory.

Growth is multidimensional, extending far beyond financial indicators. Four critical internal leadership factors determine whether your organization can reach its full potential: clear vision/strategy, leadership maturity, effective talent management, and a strong aligned culture. When leaders lack clarity or alignment in these areas, even the most promising companies stagnate. As Jack Welch famously stated, "An organization's ability to learn and translate that learning into action rapidly is the ultimate competitive advantage."

The key breakthrough comes from recognizing that you can't improve what you don't measure. Leadership 360 assessments provide the data-driven insights needed to identify specific growth barriers. Organizations that embrace this approach gain remarkable advantages—especially during uncertain times. During the pandemic, Elise observed firsthand how companies utilizing Leadership 360s stabilized and pivoted with significantly greater agility. By collecting feedback from diverse stakeholders and translating it into actionable priorities, these assessments eliminate guesswork from your growth strategy.

Ready to discover what's truly holding back your organization's potential?

Visit eliseboggs.com/leadership-360s to learn how our team of experts can facilitate this transformative process. Subscribe to the 12MinuteLeadership Podcast for more practical wisdom to increase engagement, inspire performance and retain your best talent—all in 12 minutes or less.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the 12-Minute Leadership Podcast where, in 12 minutes or less, I'll share small things that you can put into immediate practice that will make a big difference in your leadership effectiveness. I'm your host, elise Boggs-Morales leadership professor, consultant and coach. For the last 17 years, I have helped thousands of leaders level up their influence and achieve remarkable results. If you want to trade compliance for true commitment and create your dream team, you are in the right place. Get ready for a quick hit of practical wisdom to increase your team's engagement, inspire top performance and retain your best talent. Ready to level up your influence and get better results. 12 Minutes starts now. Hi everyone, elise here, welcome to episode seven an overlooked solution for accelerating organizational growth. I'm gonna start with a quote by the late Jack Welch, the former chairman and CEO of General Electric, who said an organization's ability to learn and translate that learning into action rapidly is the ultimate competitive advantage.

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As leaders, we all want to be leading organizations that are growing, so when we experience unexpected dry seasons or stagnancy, it can sometimes be challenging to know where to look for clues for why this might be happening. While revenue and headcount are two obvious indicators of growth, they don't tell the whole story. Growth is multi-dimensional and there are additional marks of growth that signal your organization is moving forward in a healthy and sustainable way. In this episode, I'm going to share the key indicators every leader must look at to continue growing and offer an overlooked solution for accelerating your organization's growth. It's a solution you're probably not expecting. So let's start with the key indicators for growth. I like to break these up into three categories. The first is internal leadership factors, which is my specialty and where I will spend most of our time today. Number two internal operational factors. These have to do with your systems, processes, financial management, marketing, customer service, etc. And then, finally, external factors, which include any economic or industry challenges. All three of these areas play a role in your organization's ability to grow, but since everything rises and falls on leadership, I'm going to focus there. If we can get the leadership piece right, everything else flows from that alignment. So what are the internal leadership factors that have the biggest impact on growth? I'm glad you asked. Here are four major factors. Number one having a clear vision and strategy for your organization. This means a long-term direction and focus. Leaders are proactive instead of reactive, carving out time to work on the business versus just in the business. Strategy is also adapted quickly as market conditions change. I'm always surprised that even at the highest levels of leadership, oftentimes a clear vision isn't being articulated. And if that's the case, that means the leadership team is not aligned. And if the leadership team is not aligned, the organization can't grow.

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Growth factor number two is leadership maturity. Leaders are no longer micromanaging, but they're delegating effectively and not just creating more followers, but more leaders. Decision-making is data-informed and values-aligned. Leadership also actively seeks feedback and is able to adapt to change. When leadership isn't mature, great talent is lost and the strengths of a team aren't fully leveraged to meet the client and customer needs. And if those needs aren't met, the organization can't grow.

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Growth factor number three is effective talent management. This means leadership is hiring the right people and developing the existing talent. It means that there are high levels of employee engagement and low turnover. It also means that there's an investment in strong leadership development programs and succession planning. And also a key indicator here is that employees demonstrate ownership and growth in their performance reviews. Employees demonstrate ownership and growth in their performance reviews.

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Organizational growth is dependent on the right people being hired, developed and retained. And finally, growth factor number four is a strong and aligned culture, and this is reflected in teams. They understand and live the mission, the values and the vision of the company. There's a sense of psychological safety where ideas can be shared and feedback can be given without fear. There's also a breakdown in silos and there's a sense of camaraderie among departments for that cross-functional collaboration. Organizations with a strong cultural identity have the alignment needed to grow. So, to recap, the four internal leadership indicators that determine growth are number one, having a clear vision and strategy. Number two, leadership maturity. Number three, effective talent management. And number four, a strong and aligned culture.

Speaker 1:

So let's go back to the quote by Jack Welch I shared at the top of the episode. He said an organization's ability to learn and translate that learning into action rapidly is the ultimate competitive advantage. So your competitive advantage comes down to two things your ability to learn and your ability to translate that learning into action quickly. So in order to learn what's needed in these four areas, you need feedback and data. The quickest and most efficient way to get that data is by doing a Leadership 360, which provides an opportunity for feedback to be collected from a cross-section of sources on these specific competencies. This is an overlooked solution for accelerating organizational growth.

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In my work, I often see leaders trying to put the pressure on fixing things without any kind of hard data to guide their efforts. Leadership 360s provide the data needed to productively focus your actions and efforts. So for those that haven't yet done Leadership 360s, here's what the process looks like. First you select the executive and senior leaders to be rated the ones that you want to receive feedback. Then you handpick the leadership competencies you want to measure, especially those most related to growth. Then you pick a cross-section of people from inside and outside of the organization to provide quality feedback. Typically, these groups include a supervisor or board, peers, direct reports and other support staff or clients. That data is then compiled into a comprehensive report and then a trained consultant can help you debrief your report and translate the data into measurable actions by priority. In working with thousands of leaders over the last 17 years, this is the quickest way I know to get the information you need to address needed areas of leadership growth that may be stunting your overall organizational growth.

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During COVID, I noticed that the organizations I work with that have embraced Leadership 360s were able to stabilize and pivot fairly quickly because their leadership was strong and aligned. So has your executive and senior leadership teams completed a Leadership 360? If not, it may just be an overlooked solution for accelerating your organizational growth. Many organizations do 360s internally, but if you're looking for the support of an outside consultant, my team of experts can help. We can facilitate the process for you, start to finish, ensuring you get exactly what you need to accelerate your growth. To learn more about 360s, you can go to my website, wwweliseboggscom. Forward slash leadership 360s.

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I hope you enjoyed today's episode and felt inspired and empowered to grow your organization through your leadership. I'll see you next time. Like what you heard on today's episode and want to go deeper, subscribe to this podcast so you never miss an episode. You can also pick up my book Lead Anyone on Amazon. Then go to my website to check out ways that we can support your leadership goals. From executive retreats to customized training and coaching, my team of experts will help you level up your leadership. And From executive retreats to customized training and coaching, my team of experts will help you level up your leadership and accelerate your results. Go to wwweliseboggscom for more info.