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Episode Seven: Leading Organizations, Enabling the Organization to Both Scale and Sustain Itself

Welcome to Episode Seven of the Tensions of Leadership (the final episode of Season Four): Leading Organizations — Part 2, Enabling the Organization to Both Scale and Sustain Itself!

Discussion guide from the Tensions of Leadership, Episode Seven:

1. Navigating the transition from entrepreneurial leader to enterprise leader. Shifting from the individual to a team focus.

2. The classic struggle of working IN or ON the business. When IN the business, you don’t have the altitude to look towards the future.

3. Loyalty vs. performance. The talent focus and needs evolve as an organization shifts from entrepreneurial to enterprise. And you have to be mindful of that. Don’t be loyal to the wrong type of talent for the current lifecycle.

4. To build a sustainable organization, you now have to be a talent magnet.

5. It is unrealistic to think that all talent recruited at the launch of the organization can easily evolve and transition as the organization evolves into an enterprise.

6. Performance vs. potential.

7. A fifteen-year veteran of the organization might not have the necessary skills for the enterprise tomorrow. Don’t just give him the job because of the tenure.

8. To be a talent magnet, don’t just recruit when you have an open position. When you find the right skill set AND/OR good potential for growth, you should consider them now.

9. You have to focus very hard on building the right executive team – they are the leader of leaders.

10. A key tension is short-term vs. long-term thinking. It’s very easy to get into the weeds and be distracted by the details of the business. And “long-term” is defined differently depending on your business lifecycle.

11. Are you finding the right balance between being mindful that things are working today, and looking ahead to find the right solutions to scale to the next level.

12. If a leader says they cannot think ahead because they have to focus on running the business, they are the wrong leader. You have to balance today and tomorrow.

13. To resolve a lot of the tensions we’ve discussed in the series, it all comes down to a balancing act.

14. This process of finding balance, and resolving tensions, and focusing on both short and long-term thinking, NEVER ENDS. And the more you work on moving through them, the easier it does become to resolve them.

Click here to listen to all of Season Four!


Erica Peitler, intrepidNOW

About our host, Erica Peitler:

Erica is a Leadership Performance Coach who courageously partners with individuals, teams and organizations who want to realize their visions of success by transforming their leadership potential into visible, on the ground, breakthrough leadership performance!

With an engaging, provocative and straight forward approach, Erica inspires leaders to reach beyond their comfort level as they pursue becoming the performance based leaders they aspire to be in both their professional and personal life.

As a keynote speaker and author, Erica educates, entertains and enlightens audiences on leadership, transformational change and professional/personal growth initiatives.


Find Erica Peitler’s book here:

The essence of Leadership Rigor is creating change-ready leaders who can embrace challenges because they have the tools, models, and language to assess, structure, and facilitate aligned actions. They also have the mindset and emotional skills to lean into the change process despite its uncomfortable nature. By innovating on their preparedness first, these change-ready leaders are equipped to realize the growth in themselves and in their teams or organizations. Are you ready to take on your personal journey of Leadership Rigor?


Series co-host Todd Schnick is the Editor-In-Chief of intrepid.MEDIA and a media and content strategist. A former marketing strategist, lobbyist, and national political operative, Todd now lives and works in the Chicago Loop with his family. He is a writer, foodie, bibliophile, distance runner, and nearly full-time dog mom.



This series recorded LIVE from our Merchandise Mart studios in Chicago, Illinois! (Click on photo below for history of our studios!)

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