Early Vanguard employees often left for small raises but quickly sought to return. The company's powerful mission-oriented culture proved to be a stronger retention tool than money, demonstrating that purpose can outweigh short-term financial incentives.

Companies mistakenly bundle management with authority, forcing top performers onto a management track to gain influence. Separate them. Define management's role as coordination and context-sharing, allowing senior individual contributors to drive decisions without managing people.

Leaders in investment organizations are often promoted for their exceptional technical skills—analysis, presentations—not for their management abilities. This creates a leadership deficit that requires deliberate focus and coaching to overcome.

Over a long career, great leaders accumulate a "snowball of talent"—A-players who follow them from one venture to the next. This becomes a powerful litmus test when hiring executives: if they have no network of past colleagues eager to join them, it's a major red flag about their leadership ability or the quality of their past teams.

A key, often overlooked, function of leaders in high-growth groups is to act as a shield against internal company interference. This allows their teams to focus on innovation and execution rather than navigating organizational friction, which is a primary driver of top talent attrition.

The transition from a hands-on contributor to a leader is one of the hardest professional shifts. It requires consciously moving away from execution by learning to trust and delegate. This is achieved by hiring talented people and then empowering them to operate, even if it means simply getting out of their way.

Unlike a functional manager who can develop junior talent, a CEO lacks the domain expertise to coach their entire executive team (e.g., CFO, VP of HR). A CEO's time is better spent hiring world-class leaders who provide 'managerial leverage' by bringing new ideas and driving their function forward, rather than trying to fix people in roles they've never done.

At the VP or C-level, a leader's primary role shifts from managing their function to driving overall business success. Their focus becomes more external—customers, market, revenue—and their success is measured by their end-to-end impact on the company, not just their team's performance.

To truly build a people-first culture, give the head of HR (rebranded as 'Chief Heart Officer' to change perception) more political clout and decision-making power than the Chief Financial Officer. This organizational structure ensures that employee retention and happiness are prioritized over pure financial metrics, leading to long-term stability and success.