4 management lessons for scaling your team
When my team consisted of 10 people, I could keep track of each team member’s tasks and their capacity. I understood the limits of people’s workload and even the circumstances that might affect their work. I hardly needed to delegate formally: if a task was difficult, I could redistribute the work myself, reinforce someone, or sit down and do part of the task with my own hands. But then we grew…
1. One cannot manage everything personally as a team scales. When the team grows from 10 to 50 employees, it becomes impossible to see all the dependencies and individual needs by oneself. Leaders must establish multiple ways to understand what is truly happening within the organization, such as regular check-ins with managers, project reviews, and clear escalation paths. Cultivating a culture where people feel comfortable sharing problems early is essential.
2. Leadership voice must be clear and consistent. As more layers of management appear, information flows through others, and leaders cannot directly explain decisions to the entire team. This can lead to different interpretations of priorities among managers. To avoid this, leaders must invest time in aligning their vision with their unit heads and explain the reasoning behind their decisions.
3. Heroic efforts do not scale. While individual team members may excel at last-minute heroics, this often masks management weaknesses. If deadlines are rescued by overtime, there is likely an issue with planning. Leaders should thank the heroic employees and investigate why the overtime was necessary in the first place. The focus should be on building clear processes rather than expecting individuals to sacrifice their free time.
4. Collaboration and consensus differ in large teams. In small teams, everyone can gather in one room and make decisions together. However, as teams grow, this approach becomes ineffective. McKinsey found that 61% of executives spend a significant portion of their time on ineffective decision-making processes, such as repeated discussions, prolonged approvals, and last-minute consensus.
Leaders need to distinguish between collaboration (involving the team in finding the best path) and consensus (seeking general agreement on a decision made by the leader). A balance between collaboration and decisive leadership is crucial for scaling an organization.
Written by urgent.news from Fast Company's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
