In Stage 5, the leader ideally spends 30 percent of their time and energy wearing the Visionary Face, 60 percent wearing the Manager Face, and 10 percent wearing the Specialist Face.
Stage 5 is characterized by a strong management team that is the organization’s driving force. It also marks the return of a significant focus on the Visionary Face. With a strong management team in place, the leader is now tasked with presenting a clear, compelling vision that engages these managers, so they can in turn guide the staff with a clear vision and common language. In Stage 5, the leader is responsible for painting the picture of the future but should be empowering the management team to get the organization to that destination.
The leader is still spending the majority of his or her time wearing the Manager Face. As in Stage 4, the leader is no longer managing the staff and the work, but rather managing the managers. One specific priority in this Stage is integrating the strong, siloed departments that were created in Stage 4. A united management team in Stage 5 is well-positioned to grow into a strong leadership team in Stages 6 and 7.
Amidst these priorities, the leader must still find time to be involved in the operations of the business. Many businesses still have work left to do from Stage 4 in implementing and advancing the organization’s processes and systems. It is critical that these foundational components of the business leverage the expertise of the leader.
While the Three Faces allocation in Stage 5 is similar to Stage 4, the biggest change is with the Visionary Face, which increases from 10% to 30%. The most common misalignments come from this change. Leaders can find they lack the confidence to provide a compelling vision for this large of an organization. They were fine with setting the vision for 20 or 40 people, but now the organization can have 70 to 90 people. Many leaders instead turn their energy to the Specialist or Manager Face. Over time, this leads to a stale vision and stagnant strategies, as the energy that should be directed to working on the business is absent. The 30% allocation of time to the Visionary Face is crucial in setting up the organization to advance into Stage 6 and beyond.
Three Faces of a Leader Misalignment
The CEO of an office supply company is the primary source of new business. He spends much of his time pursuing leads, closing on big clients, and interfacing on important projects. As his company enters Stage 5, he stays focused on sales to continue to bring in new business. He’s pursuing large commercial clients in particular, which is a new direction for the company, and he’s excited about the potential increase in revenue.
The company doesn’t have a well-developed leadership team. There are managers, but despite the increase in overall employees, no director-level or executive positions have been filled. As a result, most of the managers are overwhelmed by the combination of a high volume of work and a lack of direction from the CEO. Being a sales-heavy company, there is a Senior Sales Manager who oversees two Sales Managers and is successful at both bringing in work and providing direction and guidance to the sales team.
The Senior Sales Manager is growing increasingly frustrated, however. She has no room for advancement due to the lack of organizational structure, and her ability to earn commission is severely limited by the CEO’s heavy involvement in sales. Just as the CEO launches his commercial client campaign, the Senior Sales Manager resigns, stating that she’s leaving to join a competitor. Not only will she get the title she deserves (director as opposed to manager), but she’ll also have more opportunity to earn commission. After she leaves, it becomes readily apparent that she has left a big gap to fill. The sales team feels completely disconnected from the CEO without her to serve as a bridge, and chaos soon follows, with more people leaving and the ones who remain unsure about their roles.
The CEO is heavily over-weighted in wearing the Specialist Face, leaving the Manager and Visionary face to lack needed attention. By failing to invest time into his top talent, he has lost the opportunity to delegate responsibility. As a result, he can’t grow the company in the way that he knows best—through sales—and doesn’t have people in place who are equipped to take on that responsibility. He has also failed to cast a larger vision for the company, which results in a loss of enthusiasm and cohesion from the staff.
The concepts from this article were taken from The Integration Stage: Organizational ReWilding Rules for Business Growth. Available through The ReWild Group and Amazon, the book explores this and other concepts in-depth while providing illustrations to help business leaders incorporate the ideas into their organizations. Get your copy today to learn the rules for growth for companies with 58-95 employees.