After you leave the room, chances are someone on your team has thought, “Why did they even hire me if they’re going to want to change everything I do?”
It’s a fair question. But they’re probably not seeing the full picture.
As founders, we see and anticipate things others can’t. That’s why we speak up when something feels off. It’s not about control. It’s about care. And most of the time, we’re not reacting to what’s there, but what it could become if we don’t say something.
Of course, that’s not always obvious to the team. To them, it can look like micromanagement, or worse, a lack of trust. But when we step in, it’s usually because we’ve seen the pattern before.
If you’ve ever struggled to explain why you stay so close to the work, send this one to your team.
PERSPECTIVES
“The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves." — Ray Kroc, Founder of McDonald’s Corporation
MARK MY WORDS
I’ve absolutely had those moments where I could tell I was making the team a little nuts. Rewriting key messages or rethinking the strategy one more time. Asking a cascade of questions nobody really wanted to field. But almost every time, I was responding to a tension I couldn’t afford to ignore.
As founders, we carry the burden of seeing the whole picture, and we know what it looks like when standards slip. That instinct to lean in, to push, to keep raising the bar? It’s not a switch we can just turn off. But we can get better at explaining where it comes from.
It’s not just about helping your team understand why you press so hard, but turning that intensity into something constructive. In the long run, it makes the whole company stronger.
TUNE IN
You Can’t Delegate the Hard Stuff feat. Audra Stanton I sat down with Audra Stanton, our Head of People at Ninety, to talk about something I’ve learned the hard way — there are parts of leadership you just can’t delegate. We covered the messy middle of culture, escalation, and team alignment.
You’ll learn:
Why escalation starts with you and how it affects your culture
What it looks like to model alignment, not just expect it
How a founder’s misalignment shows up in the team (and how to catch it early)
In case you missed it, here’s more from Founder’s Framework:
Teaching Mastery: How to Build Cultures of Excellence
At some point, every founder realizes their intensity won’t scale, but their standards can. In this article, I share what it takes to turn obsession into something others can learn from, build with, and carry forward.
