Management. Leadership.
In today’s fast-paced business world, successful innovation and transformation are the keys to long-term success. However, these do not happen in isolation—a strong, cohesive leadership team is essential to guide an organisation through complexity and change. As your organisation grows, so do the demands on leadership, making the need for a versatile leadership team increasingly important.
The days when a single person could steer an entire company are long gone—not just due to VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) but also because of the sheer scale of organisations. To successfully navigate growth and transformation, you need a leadership team that collaborates effectively, makes informed decisions, and drives strategic initiatives.
But how do you get there?
No matter how capable an individual may be, there is only a limited amount of complexity they can manage alone. At a certain point, the ability to make sound, strategic decisions must be distributed. The best strategies emerge when diverse perspectives are included, ensuring that decisions are both well-founded and realistic.
The much-discussed agility in organisations is only possible when decisions are made at the lowest effective level, empowering employees to act without waiting for top-down directives.
If collaboration is to be a cornerstone of your company culture, it must start with your leadership team. They must model the behaviours they want to see throughout the organisation. A true leadership team is not simply a group of department heads—it consists of leaders who think beyond their immediate responsibilities and have a company-wide perspective.
To drive strategic progress, you need to free up your top leaders, enabling them to lead transformation initiatives. Real leadership is not defined by title, salary, or privileges—it is about influence, vision, and the ability to inspire others toward shared goals.
We distinguish different levels of management and leadership teams, outlining the characteristics of each stage and identifying the mindset, skillset, and toolset required to reach and master them. We accompany a CEO on their growth journey and the evolution of their organisation.
Levels of Management and Leadership
If your organisation is small, perhaps up to 25 people, all decisions run through the CEO. This centralisation works well in the early phase but can reach its limits as complexity increases. At the end of this initial phase, the CEO faces a crucial question: “Am I willing to continue making all decisions myself, or when is the right time to build a team that can take on responsibility?”
As the organisation grows, it can now establish a management team that reports on key performance indicators (KPIs). However, many decisions still rest with the CEO, and a considerable amount of time is spent in meetings that focus on past events. Reporting management would be the term here. The challenge at this stage is: “How could this time be better utilised, and what does the management team need to fully step into its role?”
At around 100 to 150 employees, dynamics come into play. The CEO remains the sole decision-maker but is increasingly influenced by discussions within the management team. The foundation for better decision-making is being laid, but agility is still lacking. The CEO must reflect on whether they are ready to let others make strategic decisions and consider how to strengthen the organisation’s decision-making capabilities. Discussion management is an appropriate term here.
In the next phase, the team begins to discuss and make decisions collectively. Meetings may start to feel endless, as focus is often divided between immediate operational actions and long-term strategy. The CEO, now part of a team of decision-makers, must evaluate whether too much time is being spent on operational decisions and determine what needs to change for the team to focus more on strategic discussions. By this stage, the CEO should also act as a coach and mentor. We can refer to this as a decision-making team, and for the first time, we are truly talking about a leadership team.
As the leadership team matures, individual members begin making independent operational decisions that align with the organisation’s strategy. Leadership meetings shift focus toward strategic and cultural discussions, balancing past, present, and future. The CEO’s role now is to ensure that sufficient time is dedicated to future-oriented initiatives and to drive succession planning to reduce reliance on key individuals. We now have a strategic team, and the CEO’s role is often akin to that of a conductor.
The highest level of leadership maturity is reached when the team operates with minimal focus on operational issues, instead channelling its energy into strategy, innovation, transformation, and leading its own teams. The organisation becomes future-oriented, and leadership is prepared to take on new strategic projects. At this point, the CEO must consider when key individuals should be released to lead new initiatives, ensuring that the organisation continues to innovate, transform, and grow. A defining characteristic at this stage is that many members of the leadership team could themselves be suitable CEOs. An autonomous strategic team.
The journey through these management and leadership levels is not just a growth path for the organisation but also for the leadership team. There is no right or wrong at each stage, only what is appropriate at the right time – and that requires mindset, skillset, toolset, and practice. By understanding and actively navigating these phases, a leadership team can develop and mature, not just reacting but becoming proactive; not just operating but increasingly acting strategically. Not staying in the past, not just managing the present, but actively shaping the future.
Explore Our Portfolio – For Leadership That Delivers
Our work revolves around one core principle: strengthening leadership to future-proof organisations, teams, and individuals.