Most leaders chase growth the wrong way. They push harder for profits, demand more efficiency, and squeeze every ounce of performance—only to see burnout, disengagement, and stalled progress. The truth is, the fastest-growing companies aren’t the ones obsessing over bottom-line numbers. They’re the ones investing in their people.
In this episode, Ryan Heckman, Co-Founder of Colorado Impact Fund and Managing Partner & CEO at Rallyday Partners, breaks down why growing your people is the smartest business strategy you can implement today to grow your business exponentially.
“If you invest in the growth of the people, the growth of the business is exponentially greater than you ever imagined. But if you grow at the cost of people, you create a drag on performance.”
– Ashish Kothari
The Mindset Shift From Perfection to Progress
Perfection is a trap most leaders fall into in the name of growing their people—expecting flawless execution, immediate results, and constant wins. But in reality, success in leadership, much like in competitive sports, is rarely about winning every time. Instead, it’s about progress over perfection.
If your team measures success only by outcomes like hitting an EBITDA target or achieving a specific business goal, what happens when they fall short? Morale drops, innovation slows, and fear of failure stifles growth.
As Ryan Heckman puts it, in individual sports, “you pretty much lose all the time.” The same is true in leadership. If leaders and teams don’t learn to embrace the process and focus on moving the ball forward—even an inch every day, they risk burnout and stagnation.
The best leaders create a culture of continuous progress. Instead of demanding perfection, you can do these:
- Encourage effort over outcomes – Measuring progress keeps teams motivated even when immediate wins aren’t visible.
- Normalize setbacks as learning opportunities – Failure isn’t the end; it’s an input for growth. Leaders must help their teams detach from being “seen as a winner” and instead focus on building resilience.
- Invest in growing your people – The most effective leaders, like the best coaches, believe in their people’s potential more than their present state. When employees feel that belief, they perform better.
Research backs this up: A study from the Harvard Business Review found that teams who track small progress daily feel more motivated and engaged. This compounding effect leads to significant long-term growth.
Creating a Culture of Emotional Safety and Growth
In traditional business environments, many CEOs hesitate to share bad news with their investors or bosses. No wonder why progress often stalls in many organizations. This hesitance stems from a lack of emotional safety, leading to strained relationships and missed opportunities for growth.
“In business, success isn’t about being the smartest. It’s often about who can outlast the critics, who can endure discomfort the longest.”
– Ryan Heckman
There are often scenarios where every interaction with your investors feels like a critique session—where instead of support, you receive pressure to “do more.” It creates a culture of fear and defensiveness, which stifles open communication and ultimately hinders growth.
Growing your people requires creating a safe space where your team can share challenges openly and where they know that their trust and honesty will lead to collaboration. There are two things you can do as a leader:
- Leading with empathy: Show that you believe in your team’s potential more than their present state.
- Encouraging vulnerability: Reinforce that bad news is not a failure but part of the journey toward growth.
Leadership is About Elevating People, Not Managing Assets
Traditional leadership often focuses on functional control and management, but today, we need to rethink that. Leadership is more about heart work, not just mind work.
Many organizations still operate under outdated leadership models, where success is measured by numbers—assets under management (AUM), revenue, or headcount. But calling a collection of human beings a “collection of assets” is a flawed way of thinking.
Instead of “managing” people, you can focus on growing your people by creating a culture of trust, purpose, and development. Here’s how you can apply this approach:
- Shift from control to trust – Building trust early accelerates transparency, making it easier for leaders and teams to work together.
- Align strategy with purpose – Growth for growth’s sake is meaningless. Companies must first ask, “Why do we exist?” before determining strategy. Purpose-driven organizations, like Southwest Airlines, create environments where employees go above and beyond—not because they have to, but because they want to.
A Gallup study found that companies with high-trust cultures outperform low-trust organizations by 286% in shareholder returns. The best leaders create emotional safety, invest in their people, and develop leadership at every level—not just at the top. Here are more ways you can make this happen in your leadership, too:
- Develop leadership at every level – Leadership isn’t just for the C-suite. Middle managers are the connective tissue between vision and reality, yet many are promoted without proper training. Investing in their development ensures strategy execution doesn’t fall apart in the middle.
- Invest in the frontline – Frontline employees shape customer experience, yet they’re often overlooked in leadership training. There are 104,000 leadership books for executives but almost zero for hourly workers. Companies that invest in their frontline workforce create a culture where leadership exists at every level.
By redefining leadership as people-first rather than asset-driven, your organization won’t just scale—you’ll build a legendary business where culture gets stronger as you grow, not weaker.
How Leaders Can Unlock Human Potential
Traditional business models focus on performance at the cost of well-being, but research and experience show that the most successful companies achieve performance through well-being.
At McKinsey, a study revealed that 85% of senior leaders find meaning in their work, but only 15% of frontline employees do. That means most organizations are only getting their people’s arms and legs, not their hearts and minds.
Without purpose, work becomes just a means of survival. Instead of growing your people, you’re leading them to disengagement, stress, and stagnation. To unlock human potential, here’s what you can do:
- Make purpose more than words on a wall – Companies that align performance with well-being create workplaces where people thrive. As Alex Edmans puts it, “If you want to reach the land of profit, follow the road of purpose.”
- Invest in flourishing – Instead of measuring success by financial results alone, focus on creating an environment where employees flourish. The most innovative leaders understand that unlocking human magic leads to sustainable success.
Build a culture of trust and ownership – When leaders give people the skills, trust, and autonomy to take ownership, they no longer need to drive performance from the top down. Instead of executing six leadership initiatives, an empowered team will own a thousand.
Conclusion
At its core, my conversation with Ryan Heckman was about rewriting the playbook on leadership—moving beyond rigid, outdated models to create environments where people come first before business. As a leader, you play a crucial role in unlocking human potential and it takes your proper guidance, belief in progress, and trust in your people to drive your teams to high performance.
Are you leading in a way that makes people want to call you on their worst day? Or are you just another name on the list of people they avoid? Because at the end of the day, real leadership isn’t measured by quarterly returns or boardroom victories—it’s measured by the impact you have on the people who trust you to guide them forward. So, how are you growing your people?
Great leaders don’t just build businesses—they grow people. In this interview, Ashish Kothari and Ryan Heckman, Co-Founder of Colorado Impact Fund and Managing Partner & CEO at Rallyday Partners, explore why investing in your people is the key to long-term business success.
Learn more about Ryan at his LinkedIn.
Listen to the podcast with Ashish and Ryan below.
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