How to Lead Growth

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I want everybody to mentally picture a rocket ship sitting on a pedestal. You’ve got this just cylinder with a pointy top. At the base of the cylinder is fuel.

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And supporting the base of the cylinder is usually four fins. And I’m talking toy rocket, go to the toy store, get your kid a rocket. I’m talking about mid-range rockets.

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But fundamentally, a rocket ship is sitting on a stem, but the four fins, one on each side at the bottom, and the fuel at the bottom, that’s what propels the rocket and what stabilizes the rocket. If any of these fins bend, crack, or fall off, the rocket’s obviously not going to go straight, not going to hit the target. If it doesn’t have any fuel, it can’t go anywhere.

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Leadership is the fuel and the fins that guide rockets along. And when leadership has a challenge, so do businesses. Today’s businesses, they have to grow, they have to think faster and think smaller.

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They have to think faster and smaller. So let’s jump in. I love calling this leadership factors for growth because everything, as Dr. John Maxwell poignantly has written for 30 years, everything rises and falls on leadership, everything.

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Leadership is the trigger for all growth. Now watch this. Educated leadership equals growth.

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The moment the leadership of any company of any size stops personally improving, they are done. The industries for every one of these 439 companies still exists. Why did the biggest companies in the spaces of 439 industries go under? It almost doesn’t make any sense.

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If you’re the biggest, shouldn’t you have enough intellectual property in your management to keep something going for another 5 years, 10 years, 5 years, 10 years? I mean, to me, it just says one thing. Leadership stayed behind mentally. They got lazy and they got comfortable.

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So the next 4 principles of leadership that I’m going to cover, right now, please take a note. If any company of any size adopts these principles of leadership for growth, if these are applied, it can ensure growth in almost any company of any size. And no question, it can resurrect growth of any company of any size in any industry.

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I don’t care. So here we go. Leadership principle number one.

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Leadership growth principle number one. You ready? Does leadership, meaning does the leadership in your company, if you’re a one-person shop, it’s you. Does your leadership have a growth-centered culture or a profit-centered culture? Think about this for a minute.

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If it’s just you, are you growth-centered or are you profit-centered? Okay? Are you growth-centered? Is your company, if you have 5 managers, 5 leaders, 5 C-levels, are they growth-centered or are they profit-centered? Now watch this, guys. Individually as a person, you’re only built to be one or the other. You’re not built to be both, right? People have 4 main personality types.

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It is what it is. Nobody can dispute this. People are either wired for growth or they’re mentally wired for profit.