The Leadership Gap That’s Bleeding Your Bottom Line with Gene Hammett

Have you ever considered how a hidden Leadership Gap could be draining your company’s profits and potential? In this episode, I dive into the subtle yet costly Leadership Gap that shows up when your leaders lack the clarity, skills, or confidence to drive the business forward. I break down how to spot this issue early and give you the tools to close that Leadership Gap before it impacts performance and morale. I'm Gene Hammett, an executive coach with over ten years of experience working with CEOs and their executive teams. After studying the leadership of fast-growth companies, I’ve developed frameworks and insights to help you and your company grow—starting with the leadership habits that truly move the needle.

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  Learn more at mastercard.com/smallbusiness. Very few companies have any kind of leadership development program. But 77% of companies say that there's a shortfall of strong, effective leaders. I know I'm repeating myself with this because I wanted to sink in. This is what we call a leadership gap. There's a huge need for leaders in our businesses, but yet we're saying we invest in them. Because I talked to a lot of leaders at smaller companies that might have 20 employees or 100 employees or maybe 200 employees. So they are smaller and that doesn't exclude you, though, from leadership development. I could give you more stats and more stats, but the leadership gap is for real.

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  I've been thinking about, you know, what you really want to understand as a CEO of a company. And as you scan across your company and you have performance issues or you have a retention problem, typically you can come back to not one person, but do you have the right leadership development across your company? Welcome to Growth Think Tank. This is the one and only place where you will get insight from the founders and the CEOs of the fastest growing privately held companies. I am the host. My name is Gene Hammett. I help leaders and their teams navigate the defining moments of their growth. Are you ready to grow? I want you to take this in. 77% of companies say they don't have enough strong leaders.

• 1:54Speaker 00

  77%. Now, I don't know how big your company is. I don't know how many leaders you think you have, but 77% of companies say they don't have enough strong leaders. Now, this comes from Apollo Tech and doing some research. Around this now FLARE HR says that only 5% of companies actually have a leadership development across all levels. Now, that's a pretty big difference. Seventy seven percent don't have strong leaders, but only 5% of companies have them. And those 5% are usually the bigger companies that have these formal programs that have been around for a long time. And, and some of them are probably not even that good, in my opinion.

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  Some of them are really good, but very few companies have any kind of leadership development program. But 77% of companies say that there's a shortfall of strong, effective leaders. I know I'm repeating myself with this because I wanted to sink in. This is what we call a leadership gap. There's a huge need for leaders in our businesses, but yet we're saying we invest in them because I talked to a lot of leaders, smaller companies that might have 20 employees or 100 employees or maybe 200 employees. So they are smaller and that doesn't exclude you though, from leadership development. I could give you more stats and more stats, but the leadership gap is for real. I've been thinking about, you know, what you really want to understand as a CEO of

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  a company and as you scan across your company and you have performance issues or you have a retention problem. Typically you can come back to not one person, but do you have the right leadership development across your company? I'm not saying everyone should be leaders, but what I am saying is that those that are asked to be leaders, those that are asked to, to truly develop the, the people around them, that they get some kind of formal training. I don't think books are enough. I don't think online programs only where you just take these videos passively are going to really help you move the needle on that. But I do believe that CEOs should be scanning across their company.

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  And one of the major initiatives, not just this year because of uncertainty, but all years, we should be developing those leaders. And this leadership gap is hitting the bottom line hard. In some cases, it's retention. Many people, I think it's over 80% of people. That are looking for a new job are not looking for a new job because they want more money. Some are, but most of those people are moving away from a bad leader situation. Someone who is micromanaging them, someone who makes them feel unheard, someone that doesn't understand them. And that to me is just very painful, very painful to the bottom line of businesses and to the morale and culture that that we want to have in our businesses.

• 4:47Speaker 00

  Now, I've been sharing with you a lot of stats today. I don't normally do that, but my name is Gene Hammett. I'm a CEO coach. We do executive development. We do leadership development. We help managers become leaders. And if you are curious about some of the work we do and you don't want to schedule a call, I get it. You can send me an email, [email protected] and schedule that quick call and get to know each other and see if there's some kind of fit. But if you just want to put your toe in, you can get a free training about stopping the bottleneck of your business. Just go to training.corelevations.com and the next time we offer the training, you will get reminded. You will be able to come and engage with me about leadership, the leadership gap, and really how you need to evolve as your company continues to grow.

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  Just go to training.corelevations.com. Now, I've been talking about the leadership gap. A lot of clients that I have, even though we are working on their own leadership, we are working on different strategies to help them become AI proof, if you will, or help them navigate through certain challenges as they continue to grow their businesses. And eventually something comes back to, you know, what about the people around you? And constantly I get, well, there's a huge gap between our executive leaders and our younger frontline managers. And it's not just an age gap, it's a skill gap. And that leadership gap is really something that I would love for you to pay attention to and love for you to lean in. And when the time is right, address it.

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  I think the time is right now. I think the time is urgent. If our companies don't have the right leaders, we're not going to ride the AI wave the way we need to. We're not going to innovate inside of our businesses. We're not going to create the Kind of force that that thins off our competitors. And so then we'll be scrambling, then we'll be reacting to what's going on. Leadership is a very proactive approach to not just company strategy, but people development. And when you look at it that way, it really is an opportunity for you to decide what's right for your company. It may be hiring our company to help you or just understand that the problem, or maybe you need to go outside that. Maybe it's in industry.

• 6:57Speaker 00

  I have a client right now who is in construction and they're most likely going to look at an industry-specific leadership development program. And that's great, but for some industries, they don't have that available to them. And for some industries, they'd rather have something a little bit more customized, which is our approach. All that aside, if you have a leadership gap, what you want to do is start to really assess this. What is it costing us? What is the real cost to of turnover? What is the real cost to disengaged employees? What is the real cost to a toxic culture? Or maybe it's a toxic person. Now, that can be fixed, you know, kind of surgically.

• 7:39Speaker 00

  But if you're looking across the company and you want to make sure that you close this leadership gap or you address it, then you've got to have a plan. And so if you are curious about how we work with people, happy to help you. But I'm just curious, are you curious about your leadership gap? My name is Gene Hammett. I operate a CEO coaching, executive coaching and leadership development company. And I would love to serve you if you're interested. If you are curious, let's hop on a call, [email protected] or get that free training, training.corelevation.com. When you think of growth and you think of leadership, think of growth thinking. As always, leave a courage. We'll see you next time.

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