The challenge of leadership is to create change and facilitate growth.

As growth-minded leaders, they start with a belief in human potential and development — both their own and other people’s. Instead of using the company as a vehicle for their greatness, they use it as an engine of growth — for themselves, the employees, and the company as a whole.

Large or small, our actions forge our futures, hopefully inspiring others along the way.

Entrepreneurs must love what they do to such a degree that doing it is worth sacrifice and, at times, pain. But doing anything else, we think, would be unimaginable.

In times of adversity and change, we really discover who we are and what we’re made of.

Effective leaders share two intertwined attributes: an unbridled level of confidence about where their organizations are headed, and the ability to bring people along.

Fixing moments, like mopping a dirty floor, only provides short-term satisfaction. But take the time to understand the cause of the problem — like how to keep a floor from getting so dirty in the first place — solves, and maybe eliminates, a problem.

How leaders embody the values they espouse sets a tone, an expectation, that guides their employees’ behaviors.

While I would not want to constantly battle against the odds, the raw feeling of accomplishing something that others did not think possible, or leading people beyond where they thought they could go, is extremely gratifying.

real growth comes through intense, difficult, and challenging situations.

Initiating is really and truly difficult, and that’s what leaders do. They see something others are ignoring and they jump on it. They cause the events that others have to react to. They make change.

Companies that are made up of clusters of leaders will actually accelerate their growth by speeding up their rate of innovation as their competition pulls back, build better teams by investing in people while their rivals shrink training budgets, and pick up top talent as their industry peers lay people off. And so fast companies get that unsettling times are actually gifts for them and periods to get so far ahead of the competition that they can never catch up.

Great leaders aren’t the ones with all the answers. They’re the ones who create an environment where the best ideas can rise to the surface.

In general, growth is an intrinsic source of change with potentially unintended effects and some subunits are better positioned than others to protect themselves against such effects. Oligarchical tendencies are present in almost all membership-based organizations, such as unions and voluntary associations, and if unchecked, can lead to transformations. Organizations with diffuse goals or innovative leadership are sometimes able to survive the crisis of complementing their original mission by moving onto other goals.

Most [organizations] think the key to growth is developing new technologies and products. But often this is not so. To unlock the next wave of growth, companies must embed these innovations in a disruptive new business model.

growth is not about forcing understanding; it is about allowing it to grow organically.

We learn more from people who challenge our thought process than those who affirm our conclusions. Strong leaders engage their critics and make themselves stronger. Weak leaders silence their critics and make themselves weaker. This reaction isn’t limited to people in power. Although we might be on board with the principle, in practice we often miss out on the value of a challenge network.

The younger generations are agents of change and a bridge to a better future. This indeed is how I plan to shake things up- by equipping budding leaders with the requisite tools for growth.

Real leaders ask hard questions and knock people out of their comfort zones and then manage the resulting distress.

It’s easy to be distracted by the job of growing your business. But never forget that your job as a leader is also to grow people.