10 Practical Lessons for Building a Transformation Leadership Team
This past week I had the chance to speak to a group of super motivated CEOs on building transformational leadership teams on their journey to building greatness across their companies. Their energy was contagious and their focus on being great reverberated around the room. Our conversation revolved around the following 10 practical lessons for building transformational leadership teams.
Lesson 1 – Leadership Is the Foundation
Strategy, business models and investment thesis are very important as you embark on building a great company, but nothing is as important as having the right leaders driving the company’s future. Leadership is the foundation by which everything follows. Any company leader — CEO, executive director or head coach — your greatest focus is to make sure you have the right leaders in the right roles.
Lesson 2 – There Is No One Way
There is no one way to build great leadership teams. All companies are different and at different evolutionary points in their journey. A model that I have used for the past 15 years is to create a leadership team balanced between three types of employees: internal leaders that grew up in the company and were internal promotions, industry leaders that come from your biggest and toughest competitors that you can learn from as you mature on your growth journey and external leaders from fast-paced industries that will bring outside and asymmetrical thinking.
Lesson 3 – Leaders Get the Behavior They Tolerate
As a leader focused on transformational growth, you must drive outsized performance. To do this, you must drive the accepted behaviors and norms across the business, and just as important, the behaviors and norms that are unacceptable.
The challenge for most leaders is leaning into the difficult conversations with other leaders in their organizations. Why? They are not fun, they are uncomfortable, but they are vital to your transformational journey.
Lesson 4 – EQ Is More Important Than IQ
Emotional intelligence is quite possibly the most important soft skill you can develop as a leader of your organization. Being aware of yourself, of others and understanding the world we live in today in 2025 is so important. Most leaders focus on their IQ, and I can most likely tell you that you have the IQ to accomplish leading your team, but odds are you have some growing to do on the emotional intelligence front.
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Lesson 5 – A’s Hire A’s, B’s Hire C’s and C’s Get You Fired
Hiring top-tier performing leaders, A’s, is so important for the long-term success of your business. A’s have a strong tendency to hire other top performers. Often good leaders, but not great leaders. B’s hire people at or below their level — it’s just how it is. And average and below-average leaders, C’s, will get you on the unemployment line. When you look at your leadership team members, if they are not A’s, then you are most definitely on a journey to goodness, not greatness.
Lesson 6 – Your Journey to Greatness Is Uncomfortable
If you are comfortable in your day-to-day leadership role, then something is wrong. Most likely, you aren’t driving true disruption or transforming your industry. You’re not coaching up your team and having the difficult conversations to make them better. You are settling for the status quo and maintaining the business. Or maybe you are growing at the industry pace — but that’s not creating greatness.
If you are focused on being great, you are itchy and uncomfortable about big decisions you have to make, you are uncomfortable while leaning into people challenges and you are learning this is part of your transformational journey.
Lesson 7 – You Set the Bar, Tone and Trajectory
The bar you set for yourself and the tone you set in the office will determine the trajectory of your company. If you respond to emails in three days, you are allowing your team members to respond in three days. If you respond immediately, you are setting a culture of responsiveness. If you dive into the biggest challenges with positive vibes, your team will follow. Remember, the energy you put out is the energy that will be returned.
Lesson 8 – Teams Go Through Evolutions
The company you are today will not be the company you are in two years, three years or five years — you are evolving. With evolution comes a need for change. Companies that don’t change, die. A big part of evolution is constantly assessing your leadership team.
And one outcome of these assessments is the simple fact that you will outgrow some of your leaders. This doesn’t make them a bad leader. It just makes them the wrong leader for the next evolution of your company. This is true in every business across every industry. And what separates the top-performing companies from lower-performing ones? Proactively managing your next evolution.
Lesson 9 – Lead Teams ‘Get To’
Leadership is a responsibility, an honor and a privilege. As a leader, you get to lead. You get to take on additional responsibility. You get to solve the company’s biggest challenges. You get to use your brain power to solve problems. You get to lead. It’s not a burden, it’s a blessing; so take a step back when you catch yourself caught up in the daily stresses and remember, it’s an honor and privilege you get to do.
Lesson 10 – Be FEARLESS
If your path is transformational and disruptive, then you must approach your leadership role with a certain amount of fearlessness. This doesn’t mean doing crazy, risky things! It does mean creating a big vision, believing in your people and fueling a courageous culture. So, be FEARLESS.
Enjoy your fearless journey and remember these 10 practical lessons as you go about transforming the world and making a difference.
