Calling People to Their Greatness: How Mosby Building Arts Crafts Leaders

I have a friend who's a futurist—one of those people who's always asking, "What's next?" Not in a crystal-ball kind of way, but by posing a simple question about the long-term impact of your daily choices. It's a question worth asking yourself today. Imagine 10 years ahead. Two versions of you exist.

The first version is still doing the same job, leading in the exact same way. The second version has spent those 10 years intentionally mentoring and developing the people around them. Now, here's the important part: Which person would you rather have coffee with 10 years from now?

That's the core question that drives me and my team at Mosby Building Arts. We're a full-service home remodeling company founded in 1947. We handle everything from design-build projects and exterior renovations to kitchen and small-project remodels (photo 2, jobsite with Mosby sign). With 140 employees and over 400 projects a year, we're a premium service provider in the St. Louis area, projected to hit $29 million in revenue this year.

Before I came to Mosby, I spent 17 years in the music industry as a producer and engineer. That's where I learned the power of collaboration and fell in love with helping people achieve big things. It led me to develop a personal mission statement: to call people to their greatness.

That mission is what drives our approach to leadership. Developing leaders isn't just a nice-to-have; it's the engine of our growth, our culture, and our long-term succession plan. It's the only way to move from the day-to-day operational muck to focusing on the future.

"It's my job to develop people and produce results—and I can only produce results through developing people."—Mark McClanahan

Mosby's Five Tactics for Building Leaders

We define leadership as anywhere there is influence. Leadership isn't a concept reserved for managers or directors; it applies to every single person at our company, from the newest hire to the most senior veteran. The reason is simple: your behaviors dictate your outcomes. If you demonstrate poor behavior, you'll get poor outcomes. If you demonstrate good behaviors, you'll get positive outcomes. By defining leadership in this way, we make it clear that everyone's influence matters and everyone is responsible for their behaviors.

Leadership isn't just a definition we post on the wall; we post it on a t-shirt and we all wear the t-shirts. It's a mindset we've embedded into our daily operations. We talk about it, we live it, and we make it central to how we develop our team. We develop leaders with a five part system.

"It's not their job to make my job easier—it's my job to make their job easier."—Mark McClanahan

1. Create a Vision of Leadership

In 2018, I had to fire one of my direct reports. She just wasn't a good fit, but as I reflected on what went wrong, I realized the problem was mine. I hadn't clearly defined what leadership looked like at our company. She was a bad leader, but I had failed her by not providing a clear vision to follow.

That experience taught me the need for a shared vision of leadership. We used a brainstorming method similar to Zingerman's, gathering key people to talk about what the future of our leadership team should look like. We then drafted a statement, refined it together, and made it our standard.

Our vision is to be a distinguished, servant-based, cohesive, and effective leadership team. Distinguished means we stand out—if you were to sit in on one of our meetings, you'd see something special. Servant-based means we work for our people, removing friction so they can succeed. Cohesive and effective comes directly from Patrick Lencioni's work on building teams based on trust, healthy conflict, commitment, and accountability—all of which lead to results.

2. Host Leadership Round Tables

I believe peer discussion is one of the most powerful ways to accelerate learning. That's why we hold leadership round tables.

These are one-hour, voluntary or assigned meetings with 12 to 15 people. I facilitate them, and the format is a true round table format—it's not just me talking. We use content from books, articles, and podcasts, with topics ranging from Manager Tools fundamentals to books like Extreme Ownership, Radical Candor, and Crucial Conversations. We create worksheets to guide the discussion, and the real magic is seeing our team discuss and learn from one another.

3. Build One-on-One Relationships

Nothing is more powerful for developing a leader than the "one-on-one" relationship. Every manager and supervisor at our company—myself included—is required to have biweekly, if not weekly, one-on-ones with their direct reports. These are non-negotiable and can range from 15 to 60 minutes.

During these meetings, we provide timely feedback to address behaviors, both good and bad. We delegate whenever possible—a core principle from Peter Drucker. We also use these sessions for coaching; helping people create plans to improve their skills.

This is all reinforced through formal reviews. We're required to do at least two a year, but I do three with my direct reports. Before each meeting, I spend a full hour preparing so I can provide the most useful feedback and coaching possible.

"Which of the activities on my time log could be done by somebody else just as well, if not better?"—Peter Drucker

4. Offer Leadership Workshops

Not everyone is ready to commit to a monthly round table, so we created leadership workshops as a "taste test." These are open to all 140 of our employees—anyone can attend, no matter their role.

We host six to ten workshops a year. They're an hour-long presentation. We use worksheets and, to make sure the information sticks, we give a short, open-note quiz at the end. We collect these quizzes and give them to the attendees' managers so they can follow up and reinforce what was learned.

5. Tool Up the Newly Promoted

Every new supervisor or manager, whether they're promoted from within or hired from outside, goes through a self-directed 90-day onboarding program with guidance from me and our managers. The content focuses on manager basics, communication skills, and key leadership principles. A crucial part of this process is assigning a mentor, either internally or externally. A mentor ensures that new leaders have someone who can provide guidance and support as they step into their new role.

"When you call people to their greatness, great things can happen."—Mark McClanahan

The results are clear

So, what's the payoff for all this? It's thriving people, a thriving culture, and a thriving bottom line. Our greatest proof point is our founder, Scott Mosby. He retired in 2018. The reason he was able to retire and move away from St. Louis is that he and I spent years developing the leadership bench. We created a succession plan that worked, and the company is stronger for it.

My proudest success story is Sarah Tabaka (photo 4), our Director of Operations. Sarah started at the company 19 years ago as an accounting clerk. She participated in every round table and workshop we offered and embraced our leadership principles. When we restructured our leadership team, she was one of 25 candidates—and she got the job because she deserved it. Today, she is my right hand, and the company is measurably more profitable because of her leadership.

I'm also living the results myself. I'm taking my first two-week vacation in my entire adult life, and that's because of Sarah and the rest of our leadership team. If that's not proof of a strong bench, I don't know what is.