As CEO, your attention should be focused on the questions that determine the future of your company: Where will growth come from? How will you protect profitability? Where should you invest? And how will your company continue to create value for customers in the years ahead? But your ability to focus on these strategic priorities depends heavily on what happens below you in the organisation. If operational decisions, people issues and performance problems are constantly escalated upwards, valuable leadership capacity is pulled away from strategy and into day-to-day management.

The stronger your middle and lower team leaders are, the more effectively the organisation can operate without constant executive intervention. That is why leadership development is not simply an HR topic. It is a business performance issue.
A useful framework for understanding what strong leadership looks like is Jim Collins’ Level 5 Leadership model from Good to Great. The model describes five levels of leadership development, moving from individual capability to leadership that creates lasting organisational performance.

Source: Collins, J. C. (2001). Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don’t. New York, NY: HarperBusiness.

1. Level 1 – Highly Capable Individual
   Delivers strong results through personal talent, knowledge, skills and work ethic. The focus is mainly on individual performance.

2. Level 2 – Contributing Team Member
   Works effectively with others and contributes to achieving team goals, rather than focusing only on personal success.

3. Level 3 – Competent Manager
   Organises people and resources effectively to achieve objectives. The focus moves from doing the work personally to delivering results through others.

4. Level 4 – Effective Leader
   Creates commitment to a clear direction and motivates people to achieve high performance. These leaders can drive significant business results and organisational change.

5. Level 5 – Executive Leader
   Combines personal humility with strong professional determination. Level 5 leaders put the long-term success of the organisation above personal recognition, take responsibility for results and build teams that can succeed without depending on them.

What every team leader should strive for

Moving up the leadership levels is not only about becoming a better people manager. It means taking greater responsibility for the performance of the team and understanding how everyday leadership decisions contribute to the wider success of the business.
Every team leader should therefore strive to:

• put company results before personal recognition;

• take ownership when performance falls short;

• develop capable and independent employees;

• combine humility with high standards and accountability;

• understand the impact of decisions on ROI, profitability and customer value;

• think beyond today’s operations and contribute to the future relevance of the company.

Getting your team leaders to Level 4

For most organisations, the immediate goal should be clear: get your frontline and middle managers consistently to Level 4.
Your team leaders may already be strong individual contributors or competent managers. But Level 4 requires more. They need to create direction, build commitment, develop their people and drive performance through their teams without senior management constantly stepping in.

The Skill Up Leader 5-week leadership program can be used to accelerate this development. Team leaders work on real challenges from their own teams, receive personalised AI coaching and practise important leadership conversations in realistic simulations. The focus is on applying leadership skills directly in day-to-day work rather than learning theory in isolation. This helps your leaders move:

• from doing to leading — achieving results through others rather than solving everything themselves;

• from reacting to taking ownership — addressing performance and people challenges proactively;

• from managing tasks to engaging people — creating commitment, accountability and stronger team performance;

• from knowing leadership theory to practising leadership — applying new behaviours to real situations immediately.
  The objective is not to turn every team leader into a Level 5 executive. It is to build a strong leadership layer across your organisation and help more of your managers operate consistently at Level 4: effective leaders who mobilise their teams to deliver results.

The CEO perspective

When your team leaders take ownership, make better decisions and build stronger teams, fewer operational issues need to reach the top. The organisation becomes more self-sufficient, accountable and effective in day-to-day execution.
That gives you, as CEO, more time and capacity to focus on the areas where your attention creates the greatest value: strategy, profitability, growth and ensuring your company remains relevant to customers in the future.