7 Critical Issues that Impact Successful Growth for Founders

7 Critical Questions Every Business Leader Should Know About Scaling Growth

By James Hardie | Course Correction Consulting

Scaling successfully isn’t just about growth, it is about sustainable performance and strategic clarity. These questions can help you find a way to true profitability measured financially and in other ways too. Use these seven questions to assess your comfort.

1. Are we solving a valuable problem, or just adding more noise?

Growth without purpose leads to wasted effort. Is your next move grounded in customer need and market fit? Have you understood the changing value proposition you offer and who it is for. Use value proposition design tools to understand customers wants, needs and desires.

2. Do I have the right people in the right seats, doing the right things?

Teams break at scale. What roles, responsibilities, and behaviours need to evolve? Not least your own as the boss. You can probably do many of the jobs, especially if you founded the business but what should everyone really be doing/. Tools like job crafting can help to better understand changing roles and responsibilities while providing clarity and adaptability.

3. What decisions should only I be making, and what must I delegate?

Founder bottlenecks are real. What are you still holding onto that’s slowing the business down? Are you making the £10 decisions or the £1m decisions and are they based on a sound strategy or reactive tactical responses. Get ahead of your decision making by finding strategic clarity and intent.

4. Are our systems designed for growth, or patched together?

From workflows to tech stacks: are your operations scalable, or are they duct-taped for now? You architected things to respond to issues arsing, now it is time to re-architect and let the people and the tech stack work together more effectively.

5. Are we proactively managing risk, or reacting under pressure?

Growth amplifies weak spots. How confident are you in your crisis response, compliance, and resilience planning? Is crisis after crisis becoming part of the culture?

6. Is our leadership team aligned on purpose, priorities, and pace?

Misalignment is the #1 killer of momentum. When was the last time you all challenged assumptions together? Founders intent may have changed as the business grew and new opportunities occurred. What business are you really in and does everyone understand how to manage the various constraints successfully and outperform the competition. Who is the competition and how close are they? when it comes to growth you cannot always know how fast things will happen but you can check you are on the right trajectory and direction of travel.

7. What does ‘success’ actually look like for me, and why am I doing this?

Growth without clarity can be exhausting. Revisit your personal goals and legacy vision. Are they still aligned with your path? What parts of the business do you love and what do you loathe

If any of these questions hit a nerve, good. That’s where the real work begins.
Let’s have a 20-minute clarity call to talk through your next strategic step.
www.coursecorrection.co.uk | James Hardie

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