Episode 50 : When Startups Scale Up: Adapting Your Leadership Strategy
Featuring: LYNDA APPLEGATE, BAKER FOUNDATION PROFESSOR AT Harvard Business School
Co-hosted by Endeavor Detroit
Today on the show, Lynda Applegate, Baker Foundation Professor at Harvard Business School, sits down with Diana Callaghan, Managing Director of Endeavor Detroit to share what high growth companies should do when scaling their leadership team and how founders can preemptively solve some of the most common growing pains in the face of significant industry, technological, and regulatory turbulence.
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EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
(04.37) Diana asks, “During your presentations for Endeavor and HBS, you often talk about the issues that entrepreneurial leaders face as a start up to scale up. Can you talk about these issues a bit?”
(04.47) Lynda says, no matter what size of business you are running today, today’s leaders need to cope with the dramatic pace of change that only intensified during the global health pandemic. But even before the pandemic, the pace of change was increasing rapidly. This requires that all leaders must be entrepreneurial leaders.”
(11.11) Diana asks, “How important is it for leaders to stop delegating and start teaching?”
(11.40) Lynda says, “I ask people on a typical week, one percent of time do you personally spend on each area (leading & transforming, leadership role, internal focus, and managing & executing)? And think one percent of time you should spend on it. The area that is neglected is the building capabilities and talent management for leading in the future. The role of leaders as teachers inside your organization is the most important thing.
(15.11) Diana asks, “How can entrepreneurs build leadership teams that don't conflict but instead compliment each other and what would you say the best practices to ensure leadership teams are effectively achieving changing strategic and operational goals of the company?”
(16.01) Lynda says, “As you scale you are enhancing and scaling your current position. Leaders need to be aligned to do that. You need managers who are actually helping to manage different teams. That’s scaling. First thing that you need to do is to decide whether you need a management team. When you expand, your strategies become much more complex. So, you need to add leadership teams.”
22.01)Diana asks, “if you are already a leader with a formal authority and you have the appropriate structures and place, how can you be a successful changed agent and how important is the network and informal influencer and establishing this perfectly?”
(22.10) Lynda says, “Leading change starts with helping people understand why we need to change. So involving them in the decision to change is important. You need as leaders to be involving people why we are changing and helping them through the analysis and understanding where we are going.”
(24.01) Diana asks, “How critical is it to build a company culture? How important is it to establish values and comeratory earlier on your journey to scale?”
24.25 Lynda says, “That’s really what I was referring to earlier. It is important to involve people in the decision that you are making. That involvement what’s required to start getting people to think differently. You need to have a relationship that shows ‘we are in this together’.”
ABOUT LYNDA APPLEGATE
Lynda Applegate is the Baker Foundation Professor at HBS and also serves as the Chair of the Advisory Committee for Harvard University’s Masters’ of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies degrees in finance and management. She also plays a leading role in developing and delivering HBS Executive Education Programs for entrepreneurs and business owners. In addition to serving as the head of the Entrepreneurial Management Unit and chair of the HBS Owner Managed Executive Education Programs, Lynda has held a variety of leadership positions at HBS, including serving as Co-Chair of the MBA program, Chair of Field Based Learning and as a founding member of the HBS Technology Board. She has also held a number of Harvard University leadership positions, including serving as the Co-Chair of the Harvard Policy Group on Networked Government Services and on the Harvard University Provost’s Technology Advisory Board. Prior to joining the HBS faculty, Lynda was on the faculty of the University of Michigan, University of Washington and University of Arizona. In addition to her academic positions, Lynda also held a variety of leadership positions in the health care industry.