Listen instead on your Monday Morning Drive:

In my last post, I introduced the ALE model as a holistic alternative to the typical leadership-centric approach to challenges. Rather than fixating solely on leadership faults, ALE examines the interplay between Accountability, Leadership, and Execution.

When companies struggle with performance, they often default to leadership issues as the root cause. But as the ALE model illustrates, accountability, leadership, and execution are linked. An issue in one area signals problems in the others.

Let’s Break It Down

When the three components of ALE are balanced, they amplify each other, fueling a virtuous cycle:

• Strong leadership drives buy-in, commitment, and accountability
• Robust accountability propels execution
• Effective execution reinforces leadership

However, when one piece is off, the whole suffers. The ALE model helps diagnose these imbalances:

• Poor leadership → Issues with buy-in
• Lack of accountability → Issues with roles
• Subpar execution → Issues with processes

With this framework, anyone in the organization, from leaders to individual contributors, can use ALE to troubleshoot breakdowns. By focusing on the intersections between accountability, leadership, and execution, you can implement processes that empower the right people in the right roles to deliver consistent results.

Ultimately, when the trifecta of process, roles, and buy-in are solidly in place, “it’s working” becomes the team’s default state. Fire drills and heroic efforts are the exception, not the norm. Teams can direct their energy toward proactive improvements and innovations rather than reactive scrambling.

Why Scalable Companies Must Embrace ALE

The goal of a scalable company is to grow intentionally without sacrificing profitability or quality. But here’s the catch — even a scalable organization has to add people, modify processes, and adjust roles as it expands.

To support 400% growth, you might need to increase your headcount by 20%. For a small, close-knit team, that’s a major shift in dynamics. New people means new processes and new roles.

While the tactical elements of growth deserve attention, the cultural implications are just as important. The ALE model addresses this, showing us where to direct our energy to maintain a healthy culture as the company scales. It gives us a roadmap to expand without losing our superpower.

Imagine you’re experiencing significant sales growth — a good problem to have. But now your team feels the strain of the extra work. You know you need to add people, but you have to do it strategically.

We don’t add people because we anticipate our work is going to get harder; we add people to create easier solutions. However, if we expand our team without clearly defining roles and how they impact existing positions, we’re likely to trigger an accountability issue that can snowball into an execution problem.

As you’re scaling, you might also invest in new equipment, project managers, or other resources. While this affects your financial model, it also changes how work gets done, which can alter your culture. Adapting your processes is essential.

Growth creates pressure points. ALE shows us how to alleviate them by tending to our cultural infrastructure with the same rigor we apply to operations and finances. It’s how we scale without losing our edge.

Real-World Examples of ALE in Action

ALE is more than a theoretical model; it’s a practical diagnostic tool. Let me share a few examples of how I’ve seen it work.

Accountability Gone Awry

Early in my career, my company was developing warehouse quality control processes. Each team member was responsible for a specific area and had detailed packing lists to follow. Despite this, we kept sending the wrong type of projection screen fabric.

In two weeks, we had made two major errors — a crisis in my book. My supervisor wanted to place blame, offering no solution beyond replacing the individual who had made the mistakes.

I operate under the assumption that every team member is capable of great work, especially with something as straightforward as a checklist. So rather than place blame, we looked at the process.

It turned out that we had the right person in the right role, but the wrong process. The fix was simple — we updated our packing lists and reinforced our checks and balances. It wasn’t just one person’s misstep; there were two other points in the process where the error could have been caught.

The lesson? Don’t conflate blame with solutions.

Leadership Misfires

I once worked with a client who had some employees in managerial roles they had earned just by being at the company for so long. Their lack of leadership skills was obvious, and their direct reports were disengaged. The owner expected these managers to inspire their teams and get their buy-in.

But buy-in is a cultural issue, not a managerial one. If a team isn’t aligned with the company’s vision, that’s not the manager’s fault. The manager is just following the owner and/or executive.

Inspiration isn’t a replacement for collaboration. Real collaboration stems from buy-in. As the owner, it was my client’s job to articulate expectations clearly and secure buy-in from the entire team, including the managers. Only then could true collaboration occur.

Facilitating this was also the owner’s responsibility. They had to step in and lead the collaborative process. But once buy-in, processes, and roles were established, the managers could lead effectively without the pressure to inspire.

Execution Stumbles

Many companies conflate the destination with the journey. They pride themselves on delivering successful projects to the point where anything that gets the job done is considered successful — but that isn’t scalable.

I once worked with a client whose “process” for great results was to put their top people on every project. This brute force approach meant a lot of improvising on site, with skyrocketing labor costs, OT, and risk.

Their emphasis on the end goal blinded them to the importance of the journey. They didn’t realize that “we pulled it off” wasn’t a scalable business plan. How much luck can you bank on?

Using the ALE framework, we first got the team to buy into the need for a process. Then, we revisited roles and codified processes. None of that would have happened if I hadn’t shown them that throwing expensive people at poorly planned projects and hoping for the best was unsustainable.

Your Next Steps With ALE

Reflect on your biggest pain point this week. Where does the responsibility for this pain point lie in the ALE model? What’s one thing you can improve to shore up that weakness?

Remember, leadership problems have solutions — but they start with understanding the relationship between accountability and execution.

Need an experienced partner to help you work through your ALE challenges? Let’s talk. Sustainable, balanced growth is possible. The ALE framework can light the way.