• leadership
• management
• founders

Dutch are known for creating flat organizations, while French are stereotypical architects of vertical structures. Regardless of style, there will always be people with enough influence to move the company in one or another direction. For many startups that turn into scaleups, they are the founders themselves who organically grow into those positions.

As a founder, I struggled to perceive the immense power that my words had, even when managing people with years more experience than me. I was a local authority when it came to strategy, setting directions, and establishing the work culture.

I was not a power hungry individual, I just grew into that role together with the expansion of the team.

For many founders, the transition from being in a small team to becoming a leader of an organization happens in a timeline beyond our control. We receive funding and the team grows from 10 to 20 in a matter of months. We need to professionalize our relationships, and some people will naturally emerge as leaders, perhaps of a niche (product development, sales), perhaps of the entire company (the CEO).

But leadership is an art that is hard to master. And even more so when the style needs to change to accommodate a growing number of people with various backgrounds and expectations.