The cellular structure of any truly great organization is the well-led unit, for this is where great things get done. Great leadership at the top doesn’t amount to very much without exceptional leadership at the unit level. If you want to build a truly great company or social-sector enterprise, you need to cultivate legions of unit leaders who, in turn, create unit cohesion in pursuit of audacious objectives. If you want to scale your culture, if you want to make the journey from great company to enduring great company, you must invest in building a pipeline of the right unit leaders.

A caveat: we don’t mean to imply that vision is necessary only if you want to become big. We understand that you might want to remain a small company. If that’s what you want, then you still need a vision. Why? Because if you’re good, there will be opportunities to grow. The only way to remain small (if that’s what you want) is to have a clear vision about what you want the company to be in the first place.

To be effective, a vision must fulfill two key criteria: it must be clear (well understood) and shared by all the key people in the organization.

Every good-to-great transition in our research began with a Level 5 leader who motivated people more with inspired standards than inspiring personality. Every 10x entrepreneurial success in our research had founders and leaders who, while sometimes colorful characters, never confused leadership with personality; they were utterly obsessed with making the company truly great and ensuring it endured beyond themselves.

Successful institutions almost always develop strong cultures that reinforce those elements that make the institution great. They reflect the environment from which they emerged. When that environment shifts,it is very hard for the culture to change. In fact, it becomes an enormous impediment to the institution’s ability to adapt.

This is doubly true when a company is the creation of a visionary leader. A company’s initial culture is usually determined by its founder’s mindset—that person’s values, beliefs, preferences, and also idiosyncrasies. It’s been said that every institution is nothing but the extended shadow of one person.