Leader Self-Growth and Development

Key Insight

Exceptional leaders are not typically born with innate greatness; instead, they consciously grow into their capabilities, driven by a commitment to be worthy of those they lead. This principle suggests that to inspire improved performance and expanded capabilities in a team, leaders must first continuously enhance their own. Anne Bakar's leadership journey at Telecare illustrates this: inheriting a small psychiatric-services business at 29, she cultivated her own leadership, transforming from 'Anne Bakar 1.0' to '3.0' to scale the company into a great and enduring enterprise.

Bakar actively developed essential leadership skills, including hiring great people, fostering cohesive teams, and understanding that 'culture is strategy.' She learned to hire for values and temperament, delegate effectively, hold unit leaders accountable, make decisions prioritizing long-term greatness over short-term profits, and maintain composure in crises. Critically, she confronted organizational challenges by actively seeking external mentors and advice, consciously moving outward instead of inward for learning and growth. This continuous self-development allowed Telecare to grow to 85 programs in eight states and significantly outperform the S&P 500 in employee stock ownership value by its 50th anniversary.

The belief that founder-entrepreneurs inevitably reach a managerial limit and require replacement by a 'real' CEO is a destructive myth. Many of history's great companies were built by founding entrepreneurs who continuously grew into the leaders their enterprises needed to scale, such as Bill Gates (Microsoft), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), and Walt Disney (Disney), often serving for decades. Similarly, inherited leaders like Peter Lewis (Progressive Insurance) and Katharine Graham (The Washington Post) defied conventional wisdom by growing into exceptional leaders. Graham, for example, transformed a regional paper into a globally recognized institution by courageously publishing the Pentagon Papers and pursuing Watergate. The ultimate choice for any leader, at any level, is to commit to the ongoing journey of self-growth to meet the evolving demands of their organization.