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>driving down micromanagement and all that, all it is is a fear response. I completely agree, I've seen micromanagers like this. It's fear, and driving the fear is lack of trust. For a good and honest employee, if the founder steps down and says "hey I don't trust you" the instinct is to say "screw you, I'm coming at this honest and fair, working my tail off, now I don't really trust you either" and now it sucks for all parties. A good leader in "founder mode" -- that's a school principal rolling up their sleeves, picking up a mop, and working shoulder to shoulder with the janitor. "This task is key, let's knock it out together". Maybe they don't have trust yet, maybe they have fear, who knows - but there's an open mind. They'll work together and the founder will figure it out through working together. If all goes well at the end there will be trust, respect, good culture. If it goes poorly now the founder can have a great sense that this was not a good hire. This leader understands that now the janitor will feel "seen", understood, that their work is very important, that leadership is supportive. And will work harder. A poor leader in "founder mode" -- the school principal asks the janitor to check in every 30 minutes with mopping updates. The mopping will suffer due to the overhead, and constant adjustment to principal feedback. The principal will think "I'm going to put the heat on this guy, then that will make him work MUCH harder!" But in fact it will backfire, the janitor now thinks of the principal as a clown who knows nothing about mopping. The mopping update system changes every week, from every 60 minutes to every 15 minutes, then a mopping update app to increase efficiency. Then the IT department is asked to develop a mopping monitoring app. Ultimately the whole thing collapses and morale dies. Both these allegorical stories are based on real YC founders I have worked with. Guess which company is wildly successful. The irony for me is that the "let me put the pressure on this guy, he'll work harder" guy - actually on a personal level a very kind, compassionate, caring guy. Really means well, genuinely cares about his fellow man. Just has this model in their head that generally people don't work unless pressured to do so, like external pressure is a requisite to get anything done at all. My own view is that if a leader showers their people with kindness and respect -- builds loyalty -- then their reports will do anything to please that leader, granted this requires screening for good people during hiring. Anyway, I think founder mode can be good or bad. It just intensifies either the toxic traits of a bad micromanager leader or it intensifies the positive traits and goodwill of a strong leader. |