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.
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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.
Innovation requires psychological safety. When employees are afraid to speak up or make mistakes, they become "armored" and growth stagnates. To unlock potential, leaders must create environments where the joy of creation and contribution outweighs the fear of failure.
To avoid stifling teams with bureaucracy, leaders should provide slightly less structure than seems necessary. This approach, described as "give ground grudgingly," forces teams to think actively and prevents the feeling of "walking in the muck" that comes from excessive process. It's a sign of a healthy system when people feel they need a bit more structure, not less.
As companies grow from 30 to 200 people, they naturally become slower. A CEO's critical role is to rebuild the company's operating model, deliberately balancing bottom-up culture with top-down strategic planning to regain speed and ensure everyone is aligned.
Contrary to the popular bottoms-up startup ethos, a top-down approach is crucial for speed in a large organization. It prevents fragmentation that arises from hundreds of teams pursuing separate initiatives, aligning everyone towards unified missions for faster, more coherent progress.
Many leaders, particularly in technical fields, mistakenly believe their role is to provide all the answers. This approach disempowers teams and creates a bottleneck. Shifting from advising to coaching unlocks a team's problem-solving potential and allows leaders to scale their impact.
A manager's highest duty is to an employee's fulfillment, not just their performance. When a top performer is not personally aligned with their role, a leader should actively help them find a better fit—even if it means using their own social capital to place them at another organization.
People naturally start their jobs motivated and wanting to succeed. A leader's primary role isn't to be a motivational speaker but to remove the environmental and managerial barriers that crush this intrinsic drive. The job is to hire motivated people and get out of their way.
Leaders are often insulated from the daily operational friction their teams face. This creates an illusion that tasks are simple, leading to impatience and unrealistic demands. This dynamic drives away competent employees who understand the true complexity, creating a vicious cycle.
When making tough personnel decisions, leaders should frame the choice not as a personal or purely business matter, but as a responsibility to the rest of the organization. Tolerating poor performance at the top jeopardizes the careers and stability of every other employee, making swift action an act of collective protection.
