I can’t tell you how many times I have heard my career transition clients say, “The founder is crazy.” This can show up in a number of ways, and it wreaks havoc in the company. The tone truly does come from the top, and when the founder (or one of the co-founders) is unpredictable, or is constantly changing their mind, the productivity and profitability of the company suffers.

Below are some ways this can show up. 

Dogmatic 

Command and control leadership or “my way or the highway” is one way a founder can try to maintain control of their company, even when it has outgrown their expertise. It’s understandable that the founder would want to steer the ship, but “we’ve always done it this way” is the most toxic phrase in any business. 

Dismissive

Innovation is what keeps companies competitive and growing. One way to stop employees from sharing creative ideas is to be dismissive of any new strategies and potential process improvements. When you are the top executive, you are usually removed from the day-to-day friction within the business and the feedback from customers. A good leader will seek input from all staff levels within the company. 

Unboundaried

Can you imagine a founder texting an employee at 6:30 AM on a Saturday and expecting an immediate response? Or at 10:30 PM on a weeknight? This happens all the time, I am sorry to say, and it makes employees nuts because they don’t feel like they can set and maintain boundaries.

Please don’t do this. Your staff will be calling me to help them find a new opportunity. 

Explosive

Have you ever reported to someone who had anger-management issues? I sure have. It’s terrible. You find yourself walking around on eggshells. You never know what will set this person off. Your anxiety skyrockets and your body feels like it is in constant fight or flight – because it is! 

This is an especially terrible situation when you are reporting to the person who owns the company because you truly have no one who can help you fix it.

Indecisive 

While being open to different ways of doing things is a great quality in a leader, not being able to commit to a direction for a specific time period is miserable for everyone trying to execute on the business plan. 

If you’re the type of leader who comes away from a conference or from reading a book with new ideas, that can be wonderful, but take some time to consider what would work well for your business and phase them in gradually over time. You will make your employees nuts if you keep changing the strategy and the goals constantly because nobody will know what they are supposed to be doing. 

What I hear from my high-achieving career transition clients is that a crazy founder makes their life miserable. They may love the company and their colleagues, but without stable and predictable leadership, they cannot achieve what they want, and may also have trouble sleeping at night. 

What the founder will find is that their best people will leave for new opportunities because they know they can. The founder will suffer a brain drain when their best employees leave with their knowledge.

And the company may even experience a mass exodus because of the toxic work environment. 

The moral of the story? Don’t be the crazy founder. 

Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash