A Complete Team Beats a Heroic Individual

A Complete Team Beats a Heroic Individual

By Patty Sipes, Managing Director, Alder Brooks

One of the best leadership lessons I ever learned came long before I ever led national sales teams or sat in the CEO seat.

It came from my father — an executive coach at a Fortune 100 company.

He told me:
👉 “Hire the smartest, brightest people you can find — especially the ones who are better than you in specific areas. Never fear that. That’s how you actually win.”

That stuck with me forever.

Hiring Mini-Me’s Doesn’t Scale

A lot of leaders hire people who think like them, act like them, and even sound like them.

It feels comfortable.

But it doesn’t scale.

👉 It creates sameness, not strength.
👉 It creates validation, not velocity.

The Best Teams Are Not Mirrors — They’re Multipliers

The highest-growth teams I’ve ever built — and the ones I now help our clients build — are filled with people who exceed my abilities in different areas:

• Someone was a stronger strategist than me
• Someone was better at analytics
• Someone was a better storyteller
• Someone could see around corners I couldn’t see yet

And that’s the whole point.

A complete team beats a heroic individual.

Scaling Is a Team Sport

When CEOs and Founders make the shift from doing to building, everything changes.

• The business compounds
• The weight isn’t on one pair of shoulders anymore
• The organization begins to mature

You don’t lose power by hiring people better than you.

You gain altitude.

The Bottom Line

Elite leadership means hiring with courage and clarity.

It means valuing complementary strengths over comfort.

And if you're wondering whether your commercial team has the right architecture for where you're going next — it might be time for a conversation.

These decisions set the trajectory.

Getting them right early matters.

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Save Time. Grow.™

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