Hardly anyone starts a company to “lead” it. They start it to build something. The growing pains begin the moment leading and orchestrating show up uninvited – usually right when you have the least time for them.
The trigger is almost always the same: growth. Five people become fifteen, then thirty, then fifty. And suddenly, lunch no longer works as your meeting room, and the coffee machine no longer works as your ideation room.
Things get left undone. Misunderstandings creep in. The new people seem less committed than the OGs. As founders, you’re everywhere at once – and nowhere fully. And you’d love to pull on the grass to make it grow faster. So everyone takes more ownership and innovates.
Welcome to the first crisis!
The phases and crises
Every phase that makes you successful, will eventually produce its own crisis. What worked yesterday becomes tomorrow’s obstacle. First smooth evolution, then stormy revolution. Back and forth.
The good news: these crises are predictable. If you know them, you don’t lose your nerve when things blow up. You just think: Ah. So this is where we are.
(1) Growth through creativity
→ leads to the leadership crisis
You can’t do everything yourself anymore. The quick word over coffee no longer reaches the new people. How do you give direction – instead of just pitching in?
(2) Growth through direction
→ leads to the autonomy crisis
Your good people want to run. Keep them on a short leash and they’ll leave. Where can you let go?
(3) Growth through delegation
→ leads to the control crisis
You let go – and suddenly no one knows what anyone else is doing. How do you coordinate without sliding back into control?
(4) Growth through coordination
→ leads to the bureaucracy crisis
Meetings on top of meetings. Processes breeding processes. The system manages itself. Where do you swap the next rule back for trust?
(5) Growth through collaboration
→ leads to the identity crisis
You work well together. But what for? Who do you actually want to be as a company? This phase and crisis come much later. We can safely ignore them for now.
None of these crises mean you did something wrong. They only mean this: you’re one phase further than yesterday. And the crises overlap – some come back even when they seemed long gone.
Three things that help in practice
1. No system lasts forever.
A good structure is like a kid’s shoe: it has to fit now, a little room to grow is good – and the moment it pinches, you throw it out. Build a system for 500 when you’re 50, and you’ll suffocate in your own complexity. Build for the phase you’re in, or the one you’re entering. Not the one you dream about.
2. You’ll always have problems. Pick the better ones.
A leadership crisis beats a product crisis. A bureaucracy crisis is the luxury problem of a company that has made it. The pain never fully goes away. It just gets fancier. And that’s okay.
3. Culture isn’t what’s on the wall.
Culture is the sum of what you tolerate. If you don’t create clarity in the direction phase, the gap fills itself later – with bureaucracy and people doing the bare minimum. Clarity now spares you exactly that.
So, now what?
Growth is a process of shedding your skin. If it feels hard right now, it usually just means this: you’re right on the edge of the next phase.
Maybe we should talk about where you’re at right now. No lecturing, no bullshit. Just a pragmatic observer.
