Your Network Will Never Outperform Your Leadership
- jantimms3
- Apr 19
- 8 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Your franchisees are watching you. Closely. Every day. Not for your strategies, your slide decks, or your conference keynotes, but for your behaviour. Because the truth is, your network will never rise above the level of the people leading it.
This isn’t about whether you have the right people on the bus.
Dare I differ with the legendary Jim Collins? His iconic metaphor from Good to Great about getting the right people on the bus, in the right seats, and the wrong people off the bus has shaped leadership thinking for decades, and yes, it applies.
But franchising isn’t a bus ride. It’s a complex, interdependent system, and much as I agree with Jim Collin’s concept, to achieve the extraordinary in franchising, we need to fly starships rather than drive busses. So, rather than use the bus metaphor, I prefer to think of a successful franchisor as a mothership navigating through a galaxy of shining bright stars.
To build a thriving, high-performing franchise network, you need exceptional people in every role from franchisees and their teams to the franchisor leadership team, franchisee support managers, all support office staff, suppliers, and even clients. Everyone plays a role. Everyone contributes to momentum. And everyone either adds to or subtracts from your success.
The real question isn’t “Do you have the right people on the bus?” It’s “Do you have high-performing people in every key role and are you leading by example?”
This blog draws on my research into franchising success factors and introduces a powerful tool for building a high-performance network from the inside out.
Let’s take a closer look.
Who Are Your High Performers?
Let’s call out what every franchisor, franchisee, supplier, and support team member has quietly said at some point:
"It’s hard to find good people."
Franchisees say it about their team. Support office teams say it about franchisees. Employees say it about their bosses. Customers say it about suppliers. Suppliers say it about customers.
But have we ever stopped to define what we mean by "good"?
Here’s the reality: the people in your franchise system will either accelerate or stall your growth. And the difference between the two often comes down to behaviour. Not qualifications, not years in business, not personality, but consistent, observable, high-impact behaviours that drive success.
Your most valuable assets aren’t just the people in your system. They’re the right people. The ones who:
Step up when it matters most
Drive progress rather than resist it
Demonstrate commitment to the success of others
Role model behaviours that lift performance across the network
When you identify the attributes of your highest performers, you unlock the key to replicating them. You can:
Recruit others with similar attributes
Develop underperformers by transferring knowledge and mindset
Recognise and reward the right behaviours
Make informed decisions about who to keep developing and who to let go
And this isn’t limited to franchisees. You need high performers across your entire network, including support teams, field managers, suppliers, and clients.
This is where high-performance replication begins: with clear visibility of who your current stars are, what they do differently, and how you can learn from them to lift the standard across the board. |
Let’s explore how you can begin identifying these standout behaviours, starting with a process I call “stargazing.”
Looking Around and Within
Stargazing is where franchisor leadership sets the tone by deliberately identifying what great leadership looks like in practice. It’s part outward observation, part inward reflection.
Start by looking around you, both within your own network and across the broader franchising sector and business cosmos. Who are the standout performers that consistently deliver results, inspire confidence, and elevate those around them? These aren’t necessarily the loudest voices but they’re the ones creating real, lasting impact.
Who in your executive team leads with clarity and purpose?
Which field support managers create real traction with franchisees?
Who do your franchisees trust and why?
Which leaders demonstrate behaviour you'd be proud to see mirrored throughout the network?
Which external leaders or respected peers do you admire and what do they do differently?
Which behaviours would you be proud to see reflected consistently across your network?
Then, shift the lens inward. As a franchisor leader, how do you stack up?
What do you consistently do that drives results?
What behaviours from past mentors or colleagues have stayed with you and why?
Are there ideas or practices from previous roles that could serve you well now?
Have you let old good habits fade or missed opportunities to apply new ones?
The goal isn’t to create a theoretical ideal, it’s to surface real, grounded behaviours that define what strong franchisor leadership looks like in your system.
Capture everything. This is a brainstorming process. Later, you can organise, refine, and distil what matters most. But for now, cast your net wide.
Because the effectiveness of your network starts and is limited by the example you set. Stat with yourself!
The Star Builder Tool
Once you've captured the leadership behaviours that matter, it's time to organise them into something practical. That’s where the Star Builder Tool comes in.
A Star Builder is a simple but powerful framework for defining and developing high-performance behaviours. Think of it as a blueprint for what ‘great’ really looks like, not in abstract terms, but in tangible, observable actions.
Here’s how to create one:
Group behaviours into categories for example, ‘Franchisee Success Focus,’ ‘Collaboration,’ or ‘Leadership Visibility.’
Reword them as actionable statements, behaviours that can be seen and rated.
Keep it behaviour-focused, not traits or attitudes, but what people actually do.
Here’s a sample structure:
Star Behaviour | Rating (1 = Never, 5 = Always) | |
Proactively supports franchisees in goal setting and planning | 1 2 3 4 5 | |
Demonstrates empathy while maintaining commercial discipline | 1 2 3 4 5 | |
Shares learnings across the network to lift performance | 1 2 3 4 5 | |
Seeks feedback and responds constructively | 1 2 3 4 5 | |
Invests time in understanding field realities firsthand | 1 2 3 4 5 |
Start with your own role. Build your personal Star Builder and rate yourself honestly. Then, share it with your leadership team and encourage them to do the same.
Because if you want a high-performance network, you need to lead like a high performer first.
Leadership Mindset Makes or Breaks It
One of the most significant findings from my 7-year research study into franchising success factors was this: high-performing franchise networks don’t just invest in capability; they embed the right leadership mindset across the system.
High-performing franchise networks don’t just use tools like Star Builders, they apply them within a system built on shared values and a unifying vision.
Everyone involved in the franchisor team of a successful franchise network understands the unique, interdependent nature of franchising. They see the franchising relationship as a group of equals pushing toward a common goal, united in their commitment to developing successful franchisees above all else. That commitment drives their behaviour and decision-making at every level.
They also recognise that franchisees go through different stages in their journey, and they equip their teams with the strategies and skills to lead effectively through each one.
By contrast, lower-performing franchise networks often say they understand franchising, but their actions reveal a different story. They fall into command-and-control patterns, make top-down decisions, and fail to apply the franchisee-success litmus test (⚠️ Silent Killer #10).
Worse, they lack rigour around onboarding (⚠️ Silent Killer #8) and in tough times, may even offboard high calibre, but expensive people for short-term financial gain (⚠️ Silent Killer #9). High-performing brands don’t make those mistakes. They’re disciplined in both who they bring in and how they manage performance. They stay the course, even when it’s hard.
This is what separates high-performing leadership: vision, rigour, and unwavering commitment to building a thriving franchisee network.
These observations aren’t just anecdotal, they are grounded in research study findings. The highest-performing networks demonstrated a clear understanding of the interdependent nature of franchising, and their leaders consistently made decisions that aligned with a shared vision of franchisee success. By contrast, networks that ignored this interdependence, or prioritised short-term fixes, were far more likely to experience the kinds of cultural and operational breakdowns that I define as Silent Killers in my book The Ultimate Franchising Success Formula.
A Real-World Example: Carla’s Star Builder
Let’s say Carla is the newly appointed Network Marketing Manager in a franchisor leadership team and wants to lead with impact, not just oversee campaigns, but genuinely drive franchisee success.
To get clear on what great looks like in her role, Carla starts stargazing.
She reflects on standout leaders she’s worked with in the past, marketing directors she’s admired at conferences, and peers she’s seen excel under pressure. She also thinks back to her own high points, moments when she truly made a difference. She captures all of these behaviours and organises them into categories.
Here’s a simplified version of what one of Carla’s Star Builders might look like:
Category: Focus on Franchisee Success
Star Behaviour | Rating (1 = Never, 5 = Always) | |
Spends time in franchise locations to understand challenges | 1 2 3 4 5 | |
Co-creates local area marketing plans with franchisees | 1 2 3 4 5 | |
Tracks marketing outcomes and adapts quickly | 1 2 3 4 5 | |
Demonstrates both empathy and commercial understanding | 1 2 3 4 5 | |
Shares relevant marketing wins across the network | 1 2 3 4 5 |
Carla now has a practical performance guide she can reflect on, share with peers, and refine over time. More importantly, she’s modelled the process of self-leadership and that mindset spreads.
Imagine the impact if every franchisor team member had one of these.
Avoiding the Silent Killers
The Star Builder Tool is more than a development resource, it's also a powerful defence mechanism against the systemic issues that derail franchising performance.
My research identified twelve widespread common issues that quietly undermine franchise networks from within. I call these the Silent Killers of Franchising, because they often go unrecognised until it's too late. They're not dramatic blowouts; they're slow leaks that drain performance, trust, and momentum.
Franchise leaders need to be aware of them in order to prevent them from causing harm and holding back success. For example:
When you lack clear performance expectations, you allow inconsistency to creep in, that’s ⚠️ Silent Killer #5: Lack of discipline following systems.
When decisions are made without aligning to a franchisee-success vision, that’s ⚠️ Silent Killer #10: Not applying the unifying vision litmus test.
When high performers are overlooked or offboarded during financial pressure, you’ve got ⚠️ Silent Killer #9: Quick-fix gains at the expense of long-term strategy.
Star Builders surface these issues early by making expectations visible and encouraging self-accountability at every level.
When you use them to recruit, coach, and assess your leadership team and then extend them to franchisee support roles and beyond you’re not just creating high performers. You’re building a system that’s designed to resist the cultural and operational breakdowns that stall franchise growth.
Ready to Lead Like a High Performer?
If you’re serious about lifting performance across your network, it starts with leading by example and giving your leadership team the tools to do the same. A great starting point would be to purchase the Franchise Growth Bundle, which is a great DIY Power Pack for Success!
For only $97 you get $647 of value!
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