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Founder mode is the latest trend making waves in the business world. While some have voiced their agreement, others claim it’s merely a buzzword that justifies toxic leadership behavior. To recap, co-founder of Y Combinator Paul Graham penned an essay advocating for “founder mode,” which entails a founder-CEO being involved in all aspects of the business. The opposite approach, manager mode, emphasizes delegation to an executive team and mid-level managers.
While Graham acknowledged that founder mode has no clear definition, he described it in contrast to manager mode, which inevitably leads to disastrous results.
“You tell your direct reports what to do, and it’s up to them to figure out how. But you don’t get involved in the details of what they do. That would be micromanaging them, which is bad.”
Research suggests that founder-led companies perform better than companies led by professional managers. In my opinion, this success doesn’t hinge on the CEO being involved in every decision and touching every project, but rather, strategically micro-managing certain aspects of the business.
Related: What Is Founder Mode? Here’s Why the Phrase Is Everywhere This Week.
A hand in every hiring decision
Speaking on the Smartless podcast, Mark Cuban shared one of his best pieces of advice for aspiring entrepreneurs: hire slow. The serial entrepreneur explained that early in his career, he hired fast, figuring he could make it work, even if the person wasn’t a perfect fit. But this approach was flawed.
“I [made] a lot of mistakes in hiring that cost me money,” said Cuban.
As I’ve learned in nearly two decades as founder-CEO, each newcomer counts. Hiring is one area of the business that I never fully delegate because it can make or break the company. Without full confidence in our employees, I wouldn’t be able to delegate. If I couldn’t delegate the execution of countless daily decisions, I couldn’t do my job as founder, a role I see as more wide-reaching, or loftier, than the CEO title. Being a founder requires having a growth mindset. It demands continually learning, discovering and figuring out how to carve out the future path of your company. Careful hiring gives me the time and peace of mind to dedicate myself to this role. That doesn’t mean hiring good people and getting out of their way. I am deeply curious about what goes on in every aspect of our business. But I wouldn’t be able to do my work if I had to sign off on every decision.
Overseeing hiring keeps me accountable as a leader. It reminds me of something the late Anthony Bourdain once said, speaking about his days as executive chef of the restaurant Les Halles:
“[I]f something goes wrong, whether I’m in the kitchen or not, I will never, ever blame anyone else. I delegated a job to them. If they’ve screwed up, it’s my fault. I return loyalty with absolute loyalty.”
Micromanaging the culture
Based on their research, Harvard Business Review contributors concluded that companies that maintain a “founder’s mentality” over time are four to five times more likely to be top performers. Founder’s mentality is the attitudes and practices in place from the start — for example, a business’s purpose. In my experience, micromanaging the company culture is the only way to maintain a founder’s mentality.
You might wonder: How can a founder closely guide shaping the corporate culture? For starters, be very, very explicit about it. Communicate in public forums, like company newsletters or all-hands meetings, the expectations for employees on subjects like work environment attitudes and behaviors, and the company’s core values and larger purpose. For example, a founder might take advantage of the weekly newsletter to highlight a recent employee accomplishment that exemplifies how the company is delivering on its promise to customers. At our company, I try to promote a culture of innovation and strategic risk-taking and remind employees how that serves our greater purpose of making users’ lives easier. So I encourage employees to experiment and I share my own exploits with exploring new ideas — even when it doesn’t pan out as I hoped.
This leads me to another key aspect of shaping a company’s culture — leaders must model the behavior and attitudes they hope to see. As Harvard Business Review notes, culture is learned behavior, not a by-product of operations or an overlay. You can’t, for instance, expect employees to fully return to the office, claiming it fosters more innovative thinking, and not show up yourself. Leaders must be prepared to walk the walk.
Related: A True Leader Doesn’t Just Talk the Talk — They Walk the Walk. Here’s How to Lead from the Front.
Obsessing over the vision
If the purpose is what your company does, your vision is where it’s going. As Total Alignment authors Riaz Khadem and Linda Khadem explain, the value of a vision statement lies in its clarity and its ability to motivate your people. Leaders must distill the company’s longer-term goals into a concise statement that clearly outlines where they’re headed and inspires everyone to work toward that destination.
Founders have an inherent advantage when it comes to obsessing over their company’s vision. Having painstakingly formulated the company’s original vision, founders are uniquely invested in its future. The parent analogy is apt. Just as I intuitively get each of my three kids, I understand the ins and outs of my company like no one else because I’ve been there, nurturing it from day one. My company’s success is closely tied to my own.
At Jotform, shaping our vision requires focusing on tomorrow’s most pressing demands. For me, that means advancing in the areas of AI and enterprise growth while my executive team handles day-to-day operations.
My approach to founder mode is about designing our team and culture to ensure our company’s ongoing success. Your approach will depend on your company and its unique challenges. Still, at its core, founder mode is about staying deeply involved in what truly matters.
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