Question: Is one style of leadership appropriate for all individuals and all phases of an organisation, from start up to maturity?

Answer: Yes, leadership style is (that is, the intent to give). However, it takes a high level of different skills in my opinion to be a start-up leader to a cash-cow leader. Start-ups require massively high energy, risk taking and passion to do anything at any time to ensure the business gets to the next step – so there might be times where empowering the people around you has to take a back seat because if we don’t act then, there is no business anyway. In a cash cow, the leader needs to be skilled at efficiency and cost saving, have a passion for continuous improvement and be comfortable making big decisions – you may have to move manufacturing to China and shut down a few factories. When the cash cow value starts to decline, you need to be comfortable with change. New business opportunities may come up and need to be managed as well as the current business – so you have a foot in both camps (entrepreneur and efficiency). I have found most businesses tend to change their senior leadership when the business moves from start-up to maturity just because these two types of people are interested in different things.