Company development is the result of every decision you make as a leader. So, when it’s going well, you get the credit. But when it’s not, you’re in the firing line.

However, this kind of pressure should excite you, because you’re in complete control of the outcome. And if things aren’t going to plan, it’s probably a leadership lens problem, a leadership alignment problem, or a bit of both.

This article will look at each of these to help you understand what company development is, how it falls apart, and the habits you can build to keep everyone aligned.

What Does Company Development Mean?

Company development is the building of a business that can keep growing, adapting, and ultimately, hold its shape under pressure. So, everyone pulls in roughly the same direction toward the same goals.

When it works, it’s bliss, but when it doesn’t, it’s a breeding ground for pressure, particularly if there’s a lack of leadership team alignment.

When Company Development Drifts

The vision, mission, and goals of your organization should stack like Russian dolls. Goals sit inside the mission, the mission sits inside the vision, and each one shapes the next.

However, in many organizations, each of these is built in isolation. So, the dolls stop fitting, everything gets frustrating, and everyone pulls in different directions. This creates a company development problem, and the solution is leadership control that centers around direction and alignment.

Which is something you can only master when you can see things clearly.

Leadership Alignment and Finding Your Lens

Great leaders don't lead through a single leadership lens. They switch between four, and they know when each one earns its place.

The microscope, for example, is where urgency lives, so today, tomorrow, and this week. It’s useful, but dangerous when it's the only lens leaders use.

The glasses cover the next four quarters. It’s all about campaign planning, hiring cycles, strategic reviews, that kind of thing. It’s more sailing than steering.

The binoculars help you look even further. Where are customers going? What are competitors doing? What's shifting in the market? Think less this week’s agenda, and more next year's radar.

The telescope goes furthest of all, so five, ten, fifteen years out. It’s predictive, imaginative, and occasionally uncomfortable. Jeff Bezos loves this one, because he thinks the next two years are already baked in by the last two. Which, in many organizations, is true.

The key to remember is that focusing on one or even two lenses isn’t enough, and they all rely on each other. So, the best leadership perspectives come from picking the lens the moment calls for, and being ready to switch when you need to.

Company Development In Four Habits

Whichever lens you're leading through, company development comes down to four repeated habits:

1.      Choosing your next move

At any given moment, a business is choosing between five directions.

• To industrialize (invest in repeatable systems)
• To scale (double down on what's working)
• To pivot (change direction)
• To refresh (reassess and reset)
• To hold, wait, and watch.

Take BMW, which has been an aircraft-engine maker, a farm-tool company, a motorcycle brand, a pots-and-pans manufacturer, and is now one of the most respected car companies in the world.

This shows us that there's no permanent right answer. There's only the next best move, and then the one after that. And after that. And you get the picture.

2.      Setting SMARTER goals

SMART goals are a strong starting point, but add Evaluated and Revised to the end to really change the game.

This is because teams tend to cling to goals if nobody reviews them. But the reality is that context shifts, priorities move, and goals should evolve alongside them all. Understanding this is a trait the most highly effective leaders have.

3.      Leading people through change

Company development is the other side of the coin to leadership change management, whether you enjoy that part of the job or not.

Every shift in direction affects real people with real feelings about it, and walking them through denial, resistance, uncertainty, and commitment isn't a job you can hand off.

Why? Because people want to hear it from you. You know, since you’re the leader and all.

4.      Reviewing vulnerabilities

Reviewing is the most important of the four, and it's the one that most leaders skip most often. Because the best leadership control isn't about micromanaging outputs. It's about knowing exactly where the business is most likely to break, before it does, and having a strategy to get out of it in advance.

Resilient Leaders Ask the Hard Questions First

Resilient leaders aren't the ones who avoid pressure. They're the ones who ask, out loud and often, where the cracks are already forming.

Things like:

• Where's the overdependence on one person, one product, or one customer?
• Where's the tolerance for mediocrity nobody wants to name?
• Where's the habit of waiting too long to course-correct?
• Where's the discomfort with healthy conflict that keeps bad news buried in the pipeline?

This delivers organization resilience that comes from leaders doing the hard bits when everything looks fine on the surface. Kind of like digging the well before you're thirsty or fixing the roof while the sun is shining but winter is coming.

Final Thoughts

Company development isn't the thing you get to once the urgent stuff is handled. It is the urgent stuff. And the leaders who treat it that way switch lenses on purpose, keep vision, mission, and goals properly stacked, and make a habit of finding the cracks before the cracks find them.

Find Out More

If you want to build company development into how you and your team lead every day, our My Daily Leadership Membership is designed to help you do exactly that. It covers Company Development alongside the other four levers of leadership, and is a complete leadership development system for leaders who want lasting change.