Why does an organization often start feeling harder to lead just as it becomes more successful?
In this episode of Linch with a Leader, Mike Linch sits down with bestselling author and Predictable Success founder Les McKeown to explore the predictable stages that businesses, churches, nonprofits and teams experience as they grow.
Drawing from decades of experience building, advising and studying organizations, Les explains why growth inevitably creates complexity—and why the leadership practices that helped an organization succeed early can eventually begin holding it back.
Mike and Les unpack Les’s Predictable Success framework, including Early Struggle, Fun, Whitewater and Predictable Success, and explore the leadership roles of the Visionary, Operator, Processor and Synergist. Les explains why Visionaries need Operators, why organizations begin dropping the ball as complexity increases, why systems become necessary, and why too much process can eventually become its own problem.
They also discuss one of the most difficult realities of organizational growth: sometimes the people who helped build an organization aren’t the people who can take it into its next stage.
And for visionary leaders, Les offers a powerful challenge:
Do only what only you can do.
If you lead a business, church, nonprofit, ministry or team, and growth has made your organization feel more complicated instead of less, this conversation will help you identify where you are, why you’re experiencing it and what your leadership may need next.
Les McKeown is the Founder and CEO of Predictable Success and the bestselling author of Predictable Success, The Synergist, Do Lead and Do Scale. His work focuses on helping leaders build scalable, sustainable organizations and high-performing leadership teams.
