Insights

By Todd Johnson | Principal at Strategic Talent Partners One of the hardest parts of growth is recognizing when the leadership model that helped build the business needs to evolve. That moment often comes before anything is obviously broken. The company is still growing. The team is committed. Long-tenured leaders know the business inside and out. But decisions start taking longer. A few key people carry more and more of the load. Strong individual contributors become managers without much preparation. The owner or CEO is still involved in decisions that probably should be happening elsewhere in the organization. These are common signs that the business has reached a leadership inflection point. In this three-part blog series, we’ll look at three distinct business scenarios adapted from a discussion exercise we use with leadership teams to explore the talent challenges that tend to surface across different stages of growth. The Emerging-Stage Challenge The first scenario focuses on a family-owned manufacturing business that falls within the Emerging stage of our Growth Leadership Model™. The company has reached $35 million in revenue with 140 employees and plans to grow to $50–55 million over the next five years. The founder is still CEO after 28

By Rick Rittmaster | Principal, Leadership Solutions at Strategic Talent Partners Most leadership teams have a clear picture of where they want the business to go. What is often less clear is what the organization will need to look like if those plans succeed. Who will lead the work? Which roles will need to change? Where will another layer of management be required? And what responsibilities should no longer depend on the Owner, CEO, or other high-level leaders? Can we do it? An Org Chart of the Future helps leadership teams work through those questions before the current structure begins to strain. The goal is not to predict every title or reporting relationship three to five years from now. It is to understand how growth may change the organization and whether the people, roles, and leadership capacity needed to support that growth will be in place. As leadership teams begin designing that future structure, three challenges tend to surface most often. Challenge #1: The Growth Dilemma Growing companies need to move quickly. People pitch in, take on responsibilities outside their roles, and help wherever the business needs them. That flexibility can be one of the company’s greatest strengths, especially in

Growth is rarely what breaks an ESOP company. More often, it’s the people infrastructure, or the lack of one, that creates the real friction. That was the central message from Todd Johnson of Strategic Talent Partners in a recent NCEO member webinar, and it’s a challenge that resonates across employee-owned companies at nearly every stage. Growth Breaks Structure Before It Breaks Revenue Not always, but one of the common trends as observed by our seasoned presenter was that companies tend to grow faster than their leaders are prepared to lead. Top-line revenue can climb steadily while the organizational structure quietly buckles underneath it. Leadership roles evolve before job titles do, and the person who was perfectly suited to close the books at $10M may be drowning in complexity at $40M — not because they’re not talented, but because the expectations have quietly outpaced the role. Todd framed this through a four-stage growth leadership model: foundational, emerging, scaling, and enterprise. Each stage demands a meaningfully different kind of leadership. In the foundational stage, leaders are still individual contributors at heart—player-coaches who are doing the work alongside their teams. By the emerging stage, they’re leading leaders for the first time. Scaling means

The National Center for Employee Ownership’s (NCEO) Annual Conference continues to be one of the most valuable gatherings in the employee ownership community, bringing together business leaders, board members, advisors, trustees, and employee-owners from across the country. The 2026 conference in Milwaukee was the largest in NCEO history, with nearly 2,500 attendees participating in over 150 sessions, workshops, and discussions focused on the opportunities and challenges shaping the future of employee ownership. Strategic Talent Partners was proud to attend, sponsor, and contribute to this year’s event. Our team had the opportunity to connect with clients, partners, and ESOP leaders from a wide range of industries while participating in conversations centered on governance, succession planning, leadership development, growth, and organizational strategy. While the conference covered a broad range of topics, three themes surfaced repeatedly throughout the week. 1. Leadership Transitions Cannot Wait Until They Become Urgent Few topics generated more discussion than CEO succession and leadership continuity. Many organizations recognize the importance of succession planning, but too often the process does not begin until a transition is already on the horizon. The most successful transitions, however, start years before a leadership change takes place. During his session, The Next Chapter: Critical

What is Talent Strategy? The term seems to mean different things to many different people. On one hand, the meaning is fairly intuitive. Let’s build a strategy for our talent like we do for our business. On the other hand, it can be endlessly complicated by cultural dynamics, budgets, growth projections, social inflection points, market shifts, and just good old-fashioned prioritization. In my experience, when small to mid-sized, privately held companies consider talent strategy, they think of it as a nice-to-have, but there are other priorities to focus on. Usually, these priorities revolve around short-term pain points rather than more strategic issues like “building business value.” But what if I told you talent strategy equals business value? In my role as Sales and Marketing Director for a Talent Strategy Firm working with small to mid-sized businesses, I have seen many success stories of companies implementing and practicing talent strategy to increase their business value. A quick Google search for “value levers in a business” will tell you there are many. Financial and operational levers like margin improvement, revenue growth, asset utilization, cash conversion; plus, strategic and market levers such as customer retention, differentiated offerings, and recurring revenue mix. Finally, there

By Tony Bednar | President & Integrator at Strategic Talent Partners Several years ago, after one of the very first conversations I had with our co-founder, Mike Frommelt, I sent him a letter. In it, I shared an experience from earlier in my career that has shaped how I think about leadership, growth, and the choices business owners have. At the center of that experience was a business owner whose story stuck with me because it reflects something I see all too often in privately held businesses: owners reaching a point where they feel they have run out of options, when the real issue is that the business has simply outgrown the leadership structure around them. A Strong Business with a Growing Burden In the letter, I described how this owner had built a small printing company in Massachusetts that served residential real estate agents across the country. By any outside measure, the business was successful. It had carved out a niche, built loyal customers, and developed a distinct personality in the market. A big reason for that success was the founder himself. He was the creative force behind the business. He understood his customers, knew how to connect with

By Rick Rittmaster | Principal, Leadership Solutions at Strategic Talent Partners As leaders, we’ve all heard the promise: “AI will change everything.” And in many ways, it already has. But before we get too far into tools and tactics, it’s worth stepping back and asking a few important, guiding questions: What is the role of AI in leadership? Is it “cheating” to use AI?  Are AI and leadership even compatible? Now, let me be clear – I’m not an AI expert. I’m a leadership expert who uses AI. And what I’ve learned is this: AI is not a replacement for leadership – it’s an opportunity to enhance it. On its own, AI doesn’t make someone a better leader. It only adds value when it strengthens the craft – the judgment, coaching, communication, and decision-making that define strong leadership. If it becomes a crutch – something leaders rely on to avoid hard conversations or replace their own thinking – AI won’t just fall short. It may actually cause harm. That’s why the real question isn’t whether leaders should use AI. Most will. The better question is how to use it in a way that expands impact without diminishing the craft. I

By Tony Bednar, President, Strategic Talent Partners I recently had a great conversation with an entrepreneur (Visionary) on the East Coast. I genuinely enjoy talking with Visionaries, and I’m fortunate to get lots of these calls. Over the years, I’ve developed a short list of questions I like to start every conversation with. The first is simple: “Please tell me about your business?” “I started the company two years ago, and we’re already doing $4M in revenue. We make high-end gardening supplies sold exclusively online, primarily through Amazon. I believe the business can triple over the next three to five years based on the uniqueness of the products – we seem to have found an untapped niche.” I congratulated him on the early success and then shifted the conversation where it often needs to go – his leadership team. “My sister is currently running sales and marketing,” he said. “She doesn’t really have a sales background. Most of her experience is on the advertising side, but she does pretty well. She’s also part-time.” “Okay,” I replied, “how about the rest of the team?” “My operations lead is almost full-time. He works two jobs, so I probably get about 30 hours

By Todd Johnson, Principal, Strategic Talent Partners Leadership hiring in an ESOP is never just about filling a role. Every decision carries long-term implications for culture, continuity, performance, and ultimately value creation for employee-owners. And yet, many ESOPs approach leadership hiring reactively – driven by urgency, retirement timelines, or growth pressure – rather than with a clear, consistent framework. Throughout my years working alongside employee-owned companies at every stage of growth, I’ve seen firsthand how the most successful leadership hires are the result of disciplined preparation, not rushed decisions. The difference isn’t luck or instinct. It’s structure. That’s why we use a practical leadership hiring framework designed specifically for ESOP organizations – one that brings clarity to roles, accountability to the process, and alignment across stakeholders. Whether you’re preparing for a key leadership transition or planning for future growth, this framework helps ensure your next hire strengthens the business instead of creating new risk. Why Structure Matters More in ESOP Leadership Hiring ESOP companies operate with a unique responsibility. Leadership decisions don’t just impact the executive team – they affect employee-owners across the organization. Without a defined process, leadership hiring can become: A clear framework creates shared ownership of the

By Mary Nutting, Co-Founder, Strategic Talent Partners At Strategic Talent Partners, we work with companies at every stage of growth – but some of the most complex leadership challenges we see happen at the top. Because once you’ve built a successful organization, the next step isn’t just maintaining it. It’s evolving it. That’s where the Enterprise stage of our Growth Leadership Model™ comes in. This is the stage of leading enterprise – when leadership must shift from managing scale to driving transformation. The model outlines four phases: Foundational, Emerging, Scaling, and Enterprise. In this final phase, companies move beyond departmental growth and focus on legacy, long-term value creation, and cultural alignment at scale. The Enterprise Stage: Leading Enterprise Enterprise-stage companies are often operating across multiple geographies or business units, with hundreds of employees and significant revenue. There is a full leadership team in place – but leadership doesn’t stop at structure. It must now support: The role of the CEO and leadership team now becomes one of renewal – reassessing strategy, evolving leadership models, and creating an organization that can adapt to what’s next. Leadership teams at this level are most successful when they treat talent systems, succession planning, and