With over 10 years experience in management and an expensive management education, I thought I knew everything about being a leader and running a company. So when I was about to start my startup with couple of colleagues, I thought it is going to be a peace of cake being the CEO. Well, I was proven dead wrong!
Unlike your employees, co-founders have a major stake in the company and they have voting rights to vote you out :). So the typical management styles do not really work, because they simply cannot be managed. The point which I was missing and took me sometime to understand is you cannot manage your co-founders, you need to co-lead with your co-founders atleast in the beginning until you are big enough that, formal roles take more meaning.
Obviously democratic way of decision making is not as efficient as the single leader approach, but I guess it is good to vet your execution, specially when you have limited resources that you cannot afford to fail.
I am still learning to co-lead with less than 1 month into the startup, so hold on for more thoughts as I document the startup journey.
Unlike your employees, co-founders have a major stake in the company and they have voting rights to vote you out :). So the typical management styles do not really work, because they simply cannot be managed. The point which I was missing and took me sometime to understand is you cannot manage your co-founders, you need to co-lead with your co-founders atleast in the beginning until you are big enough that, formal roles take more meaning.
Obviously democratic way of decision making is not as efficient as the single leader approach, but I guess it is good to vet your execution, specially when you have limited resources that you cannot afford to fail.
I am still learning to co-lead with less than 1 month into the startup, so hold on for more thoughts as I document the startup journey.
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