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Identifying team leadership problems, and solutions for those problems, is one of the most important functions that any entrepreneur, CEO, or founder will need to see to.
The reason for this is simple.
Without effective leadership, your organization will struggle to grow in all of the most important ways.
Creating processes and solutions to help you scale your business to 7 figures, 8 figures, and beyond is really only possible when you’ve properly selected, vetted, trained, and deployed an effective leadership team.
But here’s the challenge.
Putting the leadership team in place isn’t always going to go without a hitch.
Unfortunately, it’s very common to run into a range of challenges and pitfalls.
But the good news is that there’s a solution for every problem.
So in this blog post, you’re going to learn 13 team leadership problems and solutions for business owners.
As a certified business coach who’s built, scaled, and sold multiple high-performing successful businesses, I can tell you from experience that there’s no such thing as a perfect business leadership team deployment.
One of your most crucial duties as a CEO, business owner, or founder is to solve problems and put out fires.
And in this post, you’re going to learn about 13 of the most common fires that you’ll probably encounter while deploying a leadership team—along with solutions to help you fix them as you go.
13 Team Leadership Problems And Solutions For Business Owners
1. A Lack Of Direction
Of the many different leadership challenges in the workplace that business owners and CEOs need to face, a lack of direction (especially on the part of your leadership team) is probably one of the more fundamental and crucial issues to tackle.
It’s vitally important for everyone on your team to understand the goals and direction of the company. If they don’t, you’re going to struggle with efficiency and cohesion.
Simple tasks will suddenly (sometimes randomly) work against the very objectives you’re trying to achieve.
The solution for this, thankfully, is pretty simple.
First, as the owner and founder, you need to be 100% clear on your company’s direction.
Secondly, it’s crucial that every member of your leadership team understands this direction as well.
Then, working from the top down, your leadership can deploy and reinforce these values amongst your team and employee base.
This top-down approach to communicating company direction tends to work very effectively when deployed as a sustainable company process.
2. Failure To Understand The Vision
Along with a lack of direction, failure (on the part of team leadership and employees) to understand the company’s vision is one of the challenges of leading a team that can quickly lead your organization off track.
In order for a company to succeed, there must be a clear vision and plan for moving forward toward a series of objectives.
Once again, as the owner, CEO, and founder, it’s crucial for you to have clarity about your company’s vision. It’s also essential for you to communicate this vision to your leadership team.
As a business owner, it’s also important to pay attention to how efficiently your leadership team conveys the depth and detail of this vision to your employee base.
If this communication isn’t handled in an efficient enough manner, you’re definitely going to run into problems.
3. A Lack Of Efficiency
A lack of efficiency is one of those business leadership challenges that can be tricky to tackle—mostly because it can be difficult to pin down the specific reasons for it.
Therefore, in order to fix this specific type of problem, you may need to do some investigating to back engineer the source(s) of the inefficiency.
The reason I say ‘sources’ is because there’s usually more than one cause.
Regardless of what type of inefficiency you’re dealing with, this particular problem can generally be traced back to either confusion about company processes or a lack of sustainable operational systems altogether.
The solution for this problem is to institute company processes, policies, or systems that’ll help to tie up those inefficient loose ends and tighten up your operation.
4. Poor Communication
Communication within your leadership team and employee base is crucial.
This is a requirement not only for cooperation and cohesion, but also to keep everyone on the same page and operating in the same direction and context.
Sometimes, poor communication can be traced back to a human resources issue.
In other instances, it can be traced back to a lack of company-wide education or a failure on the part of leadership to properly train employees in crucial company policies.
Regardless of the specifics of the situation, it’s important for you to make your leadership team aware of the issue—and to set them to the task of solving the problem.
If the communication problem exists within your leadership team, then it may be up to you (or another senior member of leadership) to trace the problem back to its source.
More often than not, instituting a training process or system can help to clear up systematic instances of ‘communication issues.
5. Team Members Aren’t Growing And Developing
If team members aren’t growing and developing, your organization will be in danger of ‘employee base stagnation.
This is another one of those team leadership challenges that’s important to address sooner rather than later.
As a CEO and business owner, you’ll definitely want to make sure that everyone on your team—from the employee base all the way up to senior management—is growing and developing at a rate that’ll facilitate real company growth and scalability.
Remember, businesses aren’t just bottom lines, departments, and products.
They’re made of real people who have real hopes and dreams.
And when you contribute to the growth of your team, you’ll also contribute to your company’s overall success.
6. Leadership And Personnel Changes Lead To Chaos
Organizational leadership problems like this will definitely require your attention. Otherwise, the ‘chaos’ will threaten to undermine the efficiency of your organization’s day-to-day processes.
If you’re a perfectionist at heart, then you don’t need me to remind you that there’s no such thing as a ‘perfectly optimized business.
There’s always a little bit of chaos in the mix.
With that being said, it’s really important that you set up your business to handle the everyday ‘wrenches’ that invariably tend to get ‘dropped’ into the machine.
For example:
Employee turnover can lead to a certain amount of chaos if the proper training policies and onboarding systems aren’t consistently deployed and enforced.
Managerial turnover can have an even broader, more chaotic impact on the day-to-day running of the company—especially if the proper policies aren’t in place to ensure smooth personnel transitions (and a means to deal with temporary leadership vacancies).
The key to all of these things lies in strategic company processes that prevent chaos in the future.
In fact, one of the more significant secrets to 8 figure business scaling and success is the creation and deployment of efficient company processes and systems that give the organization the ability to run itself with as little managerial oversight as possible.
This may seem like a super simple solution. And in theory, it is.
But it’s really effective, and serves as a basic building block to not only private company success, but also corporate success.
This is true for 6-figure businesses, 7-figure businesses, and even larger enterprises doing 8 or more figures in revenue per year.
7. Policies, Procedures, And Processes Aren’t Being Followed
What happens if you institute awesome company processes—only to realize that people aren’t actually using them or following your well-thought-out protocols?
This problem can usually be traced back to either an education issue or a team leadership issue.
Either your employee base isn’t being properly trained in the company processes that aren’t being observed and followed, or leadership is failing to enforce the systems and protocols in an effective manner.
In either case, pulling your leadership team together and performing some strategic training will usually serve to bridge the gap—and is usually the fastest and best solution.
8. There Are A Lack Of Integrated Company Processes
Perhaps your company has instituted processes to help deal with various different bottlenecks and problems that have arisen in the past—but maybe now you’re running into an issue where these processes aren’t really working together in a cohesive and structured manner anymore.
Sometimes, this problem arises as companies mature and outgrow some of their former systems.
Listen, here’s the thing.
Sometimes, the solutions you deploy when your company is doing 6 figures in revenue aren’t going to withstand the added pressure as your company grows to 7 and 8-figure levels.
Sometimes you need to do away with outdated processes and integrate new ones that fit the scaling model of your business in a better way.
Generally, if processes and systems aren’t integrating together well, the solution is to identify the ones proving to be the most problematic, and to start reworking them from the ground up.
Sometimes, business coaching can be especially useful when dealing with these types of leadership problems and solutions.
It can be a challenge to identify such hiccups when they’re sitting so ‘close to home.
9. As The Business Owner, You’re Bottlenecked And Overwhelmed
Management problems in organizations tend to multiply when efficient processes haven’t been developed to deal with managerial bottlenecks.
And unfortunately, one of the first and most significant bottlenecks that’ll tend to develop in any growing company is the business owner/CEO bottleneck.
Listen—as the founder of your company, you probably carried a lot of the burden associated with growing this company from the ground up squarely upon your own shoulders.
You’ve probably been the one to spearhead solutions for all of the significant problems, challenges, and pitfalls that you’ve thus far faced.
You’ve probably been the one tasked with building all of these different infrastructures from the ground up as the business has grown.
The good part about this is that you probably deserve a great deal of credit for how well the company is doing today.
The difficult side to this is that, at some point, as your company grows and scales, you’re going to have to train yourself to let go of responsibilities and delegate them out to your leadership team.
This is the only solution that’s sustainable in the long term for solving business owner/CEO bottlenecks.
10. The Company Struggles With Cooperation And Collaboration
When your employee base fails to collaborate effectively, efficiency and forward momentum will feel like a struggle.
And when your leadership team struggles with cooperation and collaboration, your entire employee base is going to struggle with it as well.
Remember—once again, at the core, a company/business is a human endeavor.
Humans are incredibly gifted cooperative creatures.
However, as the business owner, the ball is in your court to kick off such cooperation with initiatives, processes, and in-training protocols that’ll facilitate this crucial mechanism at the team leadership level—so that it trickles down into the ranks of your employee base.
Your leadership team will be instrumental in either the success or failure of this endeavor—so that’s where the solution is.
11. Training Issues
When a company struggles with training issues, the cause is usually found in one or two different areas.
- A lack of sufficient invested time, attention to detail, and/or training materials within the training process itself.
- Your leadership team either isn't following the proper protocols for training, or they haven't been adequately trained to deploy business training materials in the first place.
The first step to solving this problem is to figure out which of these two areas (or both) is causing the issue.
Then, the second step is to deploy a targeted solution to fix it.
12. High Turnover
Once again, keep in mind that the business is only going to be as strong as its employee base—and the employee base is only going to thrive when the company has provided an infrastructure and leadership team that facilitates it.
Therefore, if you’re experiencing an especially high turnover rate, it’s important to look at the quality of life experienced by your employee base, and to try to detect which specific holes or deficiencies are causing people to walk away at such an accelerated rate.
- Sometimes this is a payscale issue.
- Sometimes it's actually a communication issue.
- Sometimes, employees struggle to interlink their own vision for the future with the vision and direction being executed by the company.
- Sometimes, employees don't feel supported or provided with sufficient aid in the day-to-day processes of the organization—and this can lead to frustration and stress.
One of the best ways to figure out why this is happening is to institute an exit interview process where you attempt to collect honest and legitimate information from ex-employees as they leave the company.
You can also (and this is actually highly recommended) question existing employees who haven’t left the company—and just ask them point blank what could be done to ensure their continued future service within your organization.
The same process should also be conducted across your leadership team, especially if you tend to experience a higher than average turnover rate amongst your management team and leadership staff.
Turnover rates tend to vary across industries.
However, a higher-than-average turnover rate for your industry is almost always a sign of a deeper underlying problem.
And the faster you identify the specific issue and institute a solution, the better off your company is going to be in the long run.
13. Company Resources Are Often Wasted
As a business owner, you doubtlessly hate the thought of wasting valuable company resources.
Hey, I get it. This company is your baby.
You’ve worked tirelessly to create this incredible organization from the ground up. And the last thing you want is to see the fruits of your hard work wasted on effort, energy, and resource expenditures that aren’t directly contributing to scaling and furthering its success.
As someone who’s grown multiple businesses in my own life, I can sympathize with you 100% on this point.
But here’s the thing.
More often than not, the problem of ‘wasted company resources’ can almost always be traced back to a lack of efficient company processes and systems.
And sometimes (though generally less often) it can be traced back to a failure of oversight on the part of your leadership team.
The best way to start sorting this problem out is to identify where the waste is occurring, and to figure out what new systems could be deployed to help prevent such waste in the future.
Once again, employing the help of a certified business coach can sometimes speed up this process.
It isn’t always obvious how to fix these types of issues when they’re happening directly in front of you.
This is one of those ‘blind spots’ that business owners can sometimes struggle with.
It’s just the nature of the game.
Sometimes, you need an outside opinion to help you see what’s going on right under your nose.
What Causes Poor Leadership?
There are a number of factors that can lead to leadership issues in the workplace.
But specifically, there are 3 areas that you’ll want to really watch out for.
1. Not Selecting The Proper Leadership Team Candidates
Selecting the proper leadership team candidates is an important part of the process of building effective leadership teams.
You’ll want to make sure that each member of your management team is displaying and embodying the types of qualities you’d want to see in an effective leader.
2. A Lack Of Adequate Team Leadership Coaching And Training
Leadership isn’t necessarily an intuitive skill set for humans.
Even people who are born with what appears to be ‘natural leadership ability’ can benefit greatly from coaching and training to further hone their skills.
This is one of the crucial areas that I focus on in my team leadership coaching program — and the results are always extremely positive.
When you equip your leadership team for success, they just tend to become a lot more successful. And coaching is a big part of this process.
3. A Failure To Create Processes That Facilitate Compartmentalized Business Growth
Even if your leadership team is amazing—they’re still going to need your support to succeed.
And part of this support needs to come from implementing compartmentalized processes and systems that’ll equip them to run the individual parts of the business that they’re responsible for.
This is the part of the process that I tend to focus on the most when helping 6 and 7-figure businesses scale to 8-figures and beyond with my Scale In 5 Method business coaching program.
Business Coaching Can Help To Solve Organizational Leadership Problems
Fixing leadership problems and solutions within your business can sometimes seem overwhelming.
After all, you already have so much on your plate.
But don’t panic.
Team leadership problems and solutions may not be your specialty—but that’s ok. We all have our own individual strengths and weaknesses.
If you need some support to help you come to grips with exactly how to tackle these issues, you may want to consider enlisting the help of a certified business coach.
This can give you a much-needed fresh perspective, help you to hold your leadership team accountable, and also give you some effective strategies and tools to help you fix the problems and move on to continue scaling and succeeding at the things that really matter (like growing your business and increasing profits).
If you’re ready to take the leap, click here to book a free discovery call with me today.
