Growth
Whoever leads well grows people until they can take their place.
What it means
This is the half of the definition that gets forgotten most. Growing people is how you exceed goals. Whoever leaves it for when there is time to spare never gets to it. The test of good leadership is who remains when the leader leaves.
Artificial intelligence belongs here. It does in seconds the processing work that used to take up much of leading, and it frees up time. Whoever leads well puts it at the service of people: they use that time to be with their team, and they turn the tasks the machine takes over into chances for people to learn and take on higher-value work. The tool amplifies what its user already is.
How to recognize it
- Face 9They delegate real decisions, and people take on more responsibility every year.
- Face 10There are successors ready for the critical roles.
- Face 11People grow from within: internal promotions and mobility.
- Face 12With the time artificial intelligence frees up, whoever leads is more present with their team, and people do higher-value work.
What contradicts it
- Everything going through the leader: the team’s ceiling is the leader’s calendar.
- Asking for collaboration while offering only individual incentives.
- Leaving succession until there is already a critical vacancy.
- Using artificial intelligence to cut people without preparing those who take on their work, or to hide behind a data dashboard.
What it asks of the organization
Hiring, promotions, and incentives that reward those who grow others, and artificial intelligence adopted with a plan for people to grow with it.
What it rests on
William Muir (Purdue, Poultry Science, 1996): when he selected the groups that produced the most together, instead of individuals, mortality fell from 68% to 8.8% and production per animal rose 160%. Boris Groysberg (Harvard, Chasing Stars): star performers who change companies without their team see their performance drop for years. Castañer and Oliveira (Journal of Management, 2020): collaborating means contributing to others achieving their goals.
Sources
- Muir, W. M. (1996). Group selection for adaptation to multiple-hen cages: Selection program and direct responses. Poultry Science, 75(4), 447-458. doi.org/10.3382/ps.0750447
- Groysberg, B. (2010). Chasing Stars: The Myth of Talent and the Portability of Performance. Princeton University Press.
- Castañer, X., & Oliveira, N. (2020). Collaboration, coordination, and cooperation among organizations: Establishing the distinctive meanings of these terms through a systematic literature review. Journal of Management, 46(6), 965-1001. doi.org/10.1177/0149206320901565
Good Leadership (2026). Principle 4: Growth. Version 1.0. buenliderazgo.org/en/principles/growth/. License CC BY 4.0.