Leadership is an increasingly popular topic, and whenever we explore this subject, several questions arise, with one consistently standing out above the rest: capacity-first leadership. And that is precisely what we’ll be discussing in today’s post, where we’ll explore how leadership can impact your company’s growth if not executed properly.
What is capacity-first leadership?
Starting with the basics, we need to understand what lies behind this title. This term simply refers to the ability to make decisions based on what your company can actually handle—not just generate. In other words, it’s how your system can support growth within a framework designed and developed for that purpose. And to identify whether you’re leading and growing without the capacity to do so, here are some very clear signs:
- You’re constantly available: no matter the day or the time, you are always there, afraid of something happening.
- Decisions always come back to you: you always need to lead on decisions? It could be a problem!
- Your team depends on clarification: your team is working but they always come back to ask you what you exactly want or how to do it, it certainly means you have no clear process.
- Growth creates more problems, not results: growth doesn’t mean problem, so if it comes to your mind when you think about it, there is something wrong.
- You feel operational pressure increasing: you are growing and your operation now looks a mess, the pressure is each time more visible day-to-day, you then realize, you are growing without capacity due to your leadership.
Where are the bottlenecks in my operation? What is draining my capacity?
Digging deeper into the issue, you already know there’s a problem, but how do you solve it? To resolve these issues, you first need to identify the main factors at play before you can develop an action plan. As for the points we mentioned above, the biggest problems are usually:
- Undefined processes
- Lack of ownership
- Decision overload
- Poor delegation (for more on this, you can learn more here at this link, where we discuss what delegation is and how to do it correctly)
And finally, how do I resolve the bottlenecks in my operation? How do I lead from a position of capacity?
- Define your operational limits: How many customers can you handle? How many requests per week can your team handle?
- Structure before scaling: The process of how things will work must come before volume, and this applies to every department in your company.
- Eliminate repetition: if you’re repeating yourself and you always have to be there, you don’t need to be there! You need to document, create an SOP, and delegate.
- Build decision filters: it’s hard not to be involved in decisions, but some don’t need you, and that’s the price you pay to grow your business.
Ready to get started?
Now that you have a good understanding of this topic, it’s time to figure out where you’re going wrong and what you can fix. Start by asking yourself the following questions to kick off your action plan:
- Where am I over-available?
- What decisions still depend on me?
- What tasks repeat weekly?
- Where does work slow down without me?
- What creates the most operational friction?
And now, it’s all up to you! Your business is growing, and we’re here to help—you’ll find plenty of posts here to guide you on your journey, as well as our trained virtual assistants. If you’d like more information, just reach out to us so we can be part of your journey and make it a little easier.