Week 4 – The Role of Founders: Leading the Team Without Being the Entire Team

As the founder of a business, I believe one of your most important responsibilities is setting the tone for the organization. The founder establishes the vision and purpose, keeps goals at the forefront, and reminds the team what everyone is ultimately working toward. However, being the founder does not mean having to control every aspect of the business. As a company grows, I believe founders have to become comfortable relinquishing some control and trusting the people they have intentionally placed around them.

In How to Hire A-Players, Eric Herrenkohl emphasizes that entrepreneurs who want to build substantial businesses must move away from trying to control everything themselves (Herrenkohl, 2010). Instead, founders should recruit A-players and allow those individuals to use their abilities to help build the business. Herrenkohl also compares effective business leaders to successful coaches: the best coaches recruit talented players, incorporate their individual abilities into the team’s system, and ultimately build a winning team. I believe this is an important distinction because a founder’s responsibility is not to be the entire team but to build, guide, and lead one.

At the same time, relinquishing control does not mean disappearing into the background. I think of leadership similarly to a shepherd leading sheep. A shepherd must be among the sheep to properly guide them. Likewise, founders should remain involved, accessible, and known by their teams. Employees should understand the founder’s vision and know that their leader is available when direction is needed. However, once capable people have been placed in their respective roles, they also need room to use their strengths without being micromanaged.

Research supports this balance. A study of new venture top management teams found that both leadership from the formal leader and shared leadership among team members contributed to understanding new venture performance (Ensley et al., 2006). To me, this demonstrates the value of a founder providing direction while also allowing other capable people to exercise leadership.

Building the right team also requires being strategic about where talent is placed. Organizations should identify positions that have the greatest impact on executing strategy and concentrate talent and resources accordingly (Huselid et al., 2005). This complements Herrenkohl’s argument that leaders should stop simply filling positions and instead view each hire as another piece of the puzzle in building a great, valuable team.

My mom, Bethel Smith, has always said, “Teamwork is the key to great success.” I believe that applies perfectly to entrepreneurship. A founder may begin with the original vision, but growing that vision requires other people. The founder’s role is to keep the mission alive, establish expectations, and guide the team while trusting others to contribute their expertise. Strong founders do not have to control everything to remain effective leaders. Sometimes leadership means building an A-team, giving them room to succeed, and being present enough to keep everyone moving toward the same destination.

References

Ensley, M. D., Hmieleski, K. M., & Pearce, C. L. (2006). The importance of vertical and shared leadership within new venture top management teams: Implications for the performance of startups. The Leadership Quarterly, 17(3), 217–231. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2006.02.002

Herrenkohl, E. (2010). How to hire A-players: Finding the top people for your team—even if you don’t have a recruiting department. John Wiley & Sons.

Huselid, M. A., Beatty, R. W., & Becker, B. E. (2005). “A players” or “A positions”? The strategic logic of workforce management. Harvard Business Review, 83(12), 110–117, 154. PubMed record