Leaders are as susceptible to the belief that the “grass is greener” over there as anyone else. The place I most often see this show up is when leaders talk about growth.

The winters are long in Alaska. Years ago, I decided I wanted to start an indoor kitchen garden. Because I travel and don’t enjoy routine maintenance, I decided to set it up on a drip irrigation system.

On paper, an irrigation system was easy to draw. The garden shop that sold me the kit made it sound easy to put together too.

I was dreaming of weed-free, bug-free, no-work gardening, with abundant, fresh, nutrient-packed harvests. My wife would be overjoyed. My children would be impressed. My friends would envy me.

Then I turned the water on…

Pressure reveals all

Many leaders equate growth with removing pressure or problems.

It won’t do that.

Growth is pressure on the system. It will reveal what needs to become stronger. Where there are single points of failure. Where we’ve overextended. Where we skipped a step. Where our informal workarounds can’t carry the next stage.

And, if we prepare for it well, growth will offer us better and more interesting problems to solve.

Of course, some leaders are growth-averse because they believe all growth will do is create problems and make their lives miserable. But that’s also incorrect.

Growth, when done well, should actually make life easier. My clients in small businesses often work harder than my clients who’ve built businesses many times larger. But an easier life doesn’t mean a life without maintenance, challenges to solve, or problems.

Growth should translate into leadership and organizational maturity, along with an increase in sales.

When it does, you spend less time dealing with the fussy maintenance problems and leaks some leaders spend all their time on. You are able to focus on solving challenges that are directly related to the future of your business.

Better and more interesting problems

Most strategic plans focus on normal business metrics: more sales, more hiring, more locations, more capacity, more market share.

That all matters.

But those plans often miss what holds growth together. Which is mostly people: the leader, relationships, systems, and culture.

The pressure on my irrigation system did expose problems. And I learned how to fix those. Once plants started to grow, I learned that the grow lights seemed to work great with some plants and badly with others. This was true for the soil as well.

One of my main lessons was that gardens still take work. For my garden to grow, I had to grow. And as I grew, the more my garden could grow.

You will too as you grow. And there are four areas where you should expect pressure to help identify where you need to grow:

Personal: As a leader, you will be challenged. With my clients, I often see a direct correlation between personal growth and organizational growth. Mindsets, habits, and attitudes are all challenged. When engaged, one drives the other upward in a virtuous loop.

For example, personal self-management drives disciplined leadership, which decreases conflict and increases focus and productivity. That creates new growth opportunities, which push the leader out of their comfort zone and expose a new opportunity for personal growth.

This is one of the things I love most about my work.

Relational: Growth is change. And change challenges relationships. It challenges trust and communication. Pressure in the organization pressurizes expectations. It changes people’s relationship with accountability. It creates wider power differentials and more room for communication challenges and conflict.

This pressure exposes where relationships are strong and weak. Where is patience needed? Urgency? Clarity in communication? Accountability? Comfort? Encouragement?

These are all relational words. And relational skills.

Systemic and structural: Small companies do not sustainably become mid-sized companies until they learn to appreciate, build, and protect structure. For most leaders, building structure is not the exciting part of the job. But doing well here is what allows companies to grow.

It also protects relationships. Many workplace relationship problems are due to poor system design.

Clear roles and responsibilities, standard operating procedures, consistent and simple lines of authority, well-designed policies, appropriate software, technology, facility space, and layout all contribute to either carrying more weight well or creating more opportunities for problems.

The difference is usually whether the systems and structures are intentionally designed, maintained, and updated, or reactively thrown together, inconsistently applied, and rarely reviewed.

Cultural: Your organizational culture is how your company applies its values to decision-making and behavior. When you have consistent alignment to your values in decision-making and behavior, across departments and locations, the effect is powerful. It becomes easier to both manage and participate on the team.

Culture will always be formed, even if by accident. Small companies are often informal about culture. But as you grow your team, expand locations, and need to trust people to make decisions and manage resources independently, the need for cultural design and leadership increases.

Growth creates growth

Growing in one area creates the need and opportunity for growth in the others.

Don’t pursue growth if you are only looking for that happy utopia where there are no more work problems.

Don’t avoid it because you think it will only bring problems.

Instead, understand what growth is asking of you. Growth is not an escape. It is pressure on the system. Done well, it helps you and your organization become strong enough for better and more interesting problems.

Take good care,

Christian