A lot of first-time entrepreneurs discover that they’re botching one of the most important ingredients for a strong business: a motivated, aligned, and productive team.
I’ve worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs, and there are—admittedly—many ways to fail, but very few first-time entrepreneurs succeed at building a team of A-players.
For any CEO looking to grow a sustainable and scalable business, you’ll need to learn how to build a great team. It’s not just about hiring talented individuals; it’s about creating a culture where those individuals can truly thrive, collaborate effectively, and consistently deliver their best work.
In fact, your ability as a CEO to hire, retain, and engage your workforce is one of the most important things that only a CEO can truly do.
You can’t outsource culture.
This is where a leadership mandate comes in. It’s a clear, consistent, and motivating message to the entire business that certain cultural norms are good, other cultural norms are bad, and there’s a plan (with teeth!) to make that culture stick.
Examples of good cultural norms: High expectations for performance. Delighting customers.
Examples of bad cultural norms: Backchannel gossipy conversations. Blaming customers for their problems.
For example, plan with teeth: Promote your high-performance and fire that toxic personality.
Now, I know what you might be thinking: “A mandate? Sounds a bit rigid for a fast-paced startup or agency, doesn’t it?” But hold on! Think of a leadership mandate as a compass, guiding your team towards a shared vision and a culture of success.
It’s about setting clear expectations, fostering open communication, empowering your team to reach their full potential, and standing behind your values (even if that means letting people go). And trust me, when your team of A-players is firing on all cylinders, your business will be unstoppable.
The Power of a Strong Team Culture
In the summer of 2024, I sat down and interviewed 50 small marketing agencies on what they struggled with the most and what success looked like to them. It wasn’t shocking that several of them experienced similar types of challenges:
- Feast-or-Famine Growth: The constant struggle to balance existing client work with new business development.
- “Winging It” Syndrome: A lack of formal business training and strategic planning at the top left success up to chance.
Surprisingly, several agencies said their success was due to a “People-First Culture.” They intentionally nurtured a culture centered on embracing and holding team members accountable to values like “Be kind or be gone” and “We over me.” Focusing on the people and the culture elevated the quality of their work, brought more innovation to the table, and they ended up winning more business.
Even more interesting from that research was that the entrepreneurs earlier in their careers were naturally worried about landing clients and delivering projects. However, the more tenured entrepreneurs identified that having a strong team was the make-or-break factor determining the business’s success.
The ones who “made it” to over $5M in annual recurring revenue kept saying that their team and culture were the driving force behind every piece of their success.
This tracked with my professional experience: I’ve seen how a strong team culture is the secret sauce that separates good businesses from great ones. Over 15 years in talent development, I’ve seen organizations that had everything right except the culture, and they inevitably imploded. I’ve also seen businesses with a stellar team make a boring product or service into something transcendent.
A psychologically safe, engaged, high-performing culture is the foundation for everything, from brainstorming creative campaigns to navigating challenging client situations. A great culture shows up in so many ways:
Increased Productivity and Efficiency:
People work harder and smarter when they feel valued and supported. They’re more engaged, more focused, and more likely to go the extra mile.
Reduced Employee Turnover:
Happy employees are less likely to jump ship. This saves you time and money on recruiting and training and helps you retain valuable knowledge and experience.
Improved Communication and Collaboration:
A positive culture fosters open and honest communication. Ideas flow freely, conflicts are resolved constructively, and everyone feels comfortable sharing their thoughts and opinions.
Enhanced Creativity and Innovation:
A collaborative and supportive environment is a breeding ground for creativity. When people feel safe to take risks and experiment, you’re more likely to come up with groundbreaking ideas that set your agency apart.
Stronger Client Relationships:
A positive internal culture translates to a positive external image. Happy employees provide better service, which leads to happy clients, stronger relationships, and, ultimately, more business.
Creating Your First Leadership Mandate
As mentioned above, a leadership mandate is a clear set of messages and an action plan around an intentional team culture. The simplest and most effective format is a document that outlines the strategic plan for achieving your cultural transformation, best crafted during a corporate offsite.
We’ve outlined the comprehensive guide to resetting a team culture and all the FAQs around creating a leadership mandate. Still, I’ll summarize the step-by-step guide and call out specific places where first-time entrepreneurs tend to stumble with their first leadership mandate.
1. Set a Personal Mission and then a Collective Mission
Before you get started with anything, take a few minutes to reflect:
- Are there communication breakdowns in my business?
- Are roles and responsibilities clearly defined?
- Are there any underlying tensions or conflicts that need to be addressed?
- What do I want my business to stand for (beyond making money)?
A first-time entrepreneur has to set a baseline expectation, and what you tolerate is what you endorse. If there are problems, you’ll have to identify them and call them out. If you don’t call out the problems, you’ve sent a message that you consider them acceptable.
Once you have your personal Mission, repeat the process with your leadership team. Ask them, “What is our leadership team’s purpose?” and then, “In the past six months, on a scale of 1-10, how have we done as a collective leadership team in upholding that mission?”
Getting your leaders bought into the leadership mandate is critical: if your top lieutenants are not aligned with each other, the rest of the business will fracture.
2. Define Your Ideal Culture
With your leadership team, envision the kind of team you want to build. What values are most important to you? How do you want your team members to interact with each other and with clients? What kind of environment will foster creativity, collaboration, and a sense of shared purpose?
There are many creative ways to define a team culture, but a whiteboard and an afternoon is a great way for a first-time entrepreneur to start!
Here’s some avenues to describe your ideal culture:
- Mission and Values: Define your team’s purpose and the principles that guide your work. What do you stand for? What are your non-negotiables?
- Communication Protocols: Establish clear guidelines for how team members should communicate with each other and with clients. What tools will you use? What are the expectations for responsiveness and transparency?
- Decision-Making Process: Outline how decisions will be made and who has the authority to make them. How will you ensure that everyone feels heard and that decisions are made collaboratively?
- Accountability and Feedback: Set clear expectations for performance and provide a framework for regular feedback. How will you measure success? How will you provide support and address performance issues?
3. Crafting the Actual Mandate
Once you and your leadership team have had rich discussions about your team’s current and ideal culture, you have to package the messaging in a way that’s sticky, transmissable, and effective. Making sure everyone understands the expectations and their role in creating a positive and productive team culture will determine if this mandate sticks or evaporates into a cloud of good intentions.
This is a big stumbling block for first-time entrepreneurs: the execution! You will be surprised at how simple and concrete you will need to be for your leadership mandate to work, but don’t worry: you don’t have to nail it on your first try. The blessing (and curse) is that culture change is gradual.
As you turn conversations with your leadership team into documentation, figure out how you will practically put the mandate into action:
- Will you share the document with your team, host a Q&A session, or do a teambuilding training?
- What’s the follow-up process? How long will you give the first round of change?
- How often will you revisit the mandate? Can you embed it into the day-to-day work, like on the walls of an office or to kick off all company-wide meetings?
- What incentives can you offer to drive the change? Positive ones, like bonuses or recognition, should be offered alongside negative incentives, like difficult conversations or even layoffs.
Learning More About Leadership Mandates
If you’re still a little lost in creating a leadership mandate for the first time, “The Comprehensive Guide to Resetting a Team Culture” that’s linked above has a full outline for a leadership offsite that includes several activities and discussion questions to guide you.
Bottom line: a killer team is what makes a killer business, so building and enforcing a leadership mandate will always be one of a CEO’s top priorities.
