Ah, leadership styles — the vast spectrum between “Make sure I’m CC’d on every email” and “Wait, we hired a VP of What”. People love to give leadership advice, warranted or not. After years in the CEO role, here’s my two cents. Let me save you (and your blood pressure) the trouble: it’s a constant balancing act of knowing when to hold the wheel... and when to get out of the way.
The Micromanager
Let’s start with the micromanagers — bless their Inbox-clogging hearts. These are the CEOs who schedule daily reviews, color-code Asana boards, and have strong opinions on font choices. They're deeply involved. So deeply involved that progress drowns under the weight of their new ideas. I’ve watched brilliant teams become glorified note-takers for their CEO’s “shower thoughts.” Spoiler alert: nothing scales when the bottleneck is the person with the corner office. To paraphrase General James Mathis (USMC Ret), CHAOS stands for “CEO Has Another Outstanding Suggestion”.
The Detached CEO
On the other hand, there’s the Detached CEO, the ghost with a CEO title. They trust their team to “figure it out,” which is great — until culture rots, direction vanishes, and their top people flee to somewhere with, you know, actual leadership. Turns out unstructured independence doesn’t build high-performance teams either. Who knew?
So, what’s the golden middle path? I call it: “Guide those you trusted enough to hire.”
Set the Vision, Then Let Your Team Execute
My job as CEO isn’t to be the smartest person in the room — it’s to make sure the smartest people are and that they want to be there with me. That means offering clear direction, setting a vision that’s actually exciting, and then stepping back and letting people do their jobs.
I’m there when it matters: hiring, culture-building, strategic shifts, and reminding the team why we started this chaotic journey in the first place. The rest? I entrust to my team. Radical, I know.
My goal is simple: build a place where top-tier talent thrives, not where it survives daily meetings or drowns in ambiguity. A place where smart, driven people have direction and ownership — not oversight.
So if you're leading a startup, set the vision, empower your team, and resist the urge to hover like a confused helicopter parent. Trust me, your team will thank you. And so will your inbox.
