The changes in leadership structures as you scale

Management is about persuading people to do things they do not want to do, while leadership is about inspiring people to do things they never thought they could.

Steve Jobs

I’ve been spending a lot of time over the past few weeks building out a clear structure of what progression and leadership looks like for Passionfruit .

We are 25 people, and growing. Historically (and purposefully) have chosen a very flat structure. Like most startups, up until now almost all of our people management and people efforts have sat with our 2 co-founders.

There always comes a point whereby people management focuses change, and as the only ops employee in the business, I can see the growing people oriented demands as we scale.

Today I’m going to run through what people management should look like as businesses scale, specifically from the perspective of:

• A founder
• A c-suite manager
• A middle or junior manager

*Maaaajor inspiration has come from Index Ventures and Dominic Jacquesson MBE - felt very inspired after meeting him this week ????

People management as a founder

As Dom so clearly indicates in Scaling Through Chaos:

You start off as Chief Building Officer. You then become Chief Decision Officer, and ultimately, the Chief Inspiration Officer.

I love this explanation because so often founders try to do all 3 at one time, or just stick to one forever. As with all scaleups, there is a continual shift in your focus, your teams, and your evolving day to day responsibilities - founders need to be fluid to this too.

In the early days (0-10) founders should generally be the only people managers in the team. This helps keep the focus really narrow for finding PMF. This means being the go-to person for all 1:1s, driving progression through non-structural processes (ie. no real framework in place), tracking all individual OKRs and of course hiring.

Once beyond this point slight levels can be introduced between the 10-25 stage. For us at Passionfruit this looks like around a 70/30 split between founder managers and other managers throughout the company. Management for founders here looks like:

• Hiring people managers in (or up-skilling current staff)
• Hiring a people officer to focus efforts on team progression and wellbeing
• 1:1s for your direct reports whilst still focusing on GTM and building

Once you hit the 100 person mark, that’s when the founders should have taken a big step back from day to day people responsibilities, including hiring decisions, direct management (beyond the c-suite) and ongoing GTM efforts. Leadership team alignment and hiring of the more senior members of the team should be the core focus of your people responsibilities at this point.

As a C-Suite manager

When your company reaches that all important 50 person mark the necessity for a slightly more hierarchical structure comes into play. Often as you scale further towards 100, there is a good chance that you’re expanding into new regions with the team getting more and more disparate.

At this point c-suite become responsible for:

• GTM drive in new locations
• Ensuring there are clear team objectives in place for individual reports
• Dedicating time to c-suite alignment

Often at this point you’ve established your GTM fit which means rapid growth in team size will be happening. For managers hiring, budgeting, planning and direction will be a huge chunk of the responsibility here. This type of leader is what Dominic calls “the scalers” - more experienced people managers who have experience in taking a company from a startup to a major scaleup.

A great example of someone like this is Sheryl Sandberg , VP of 谷歌 for over 6 years from 2001, and went on to become COO of Meta /Facebook for 14 years - she’s a clear example of bringing in passionate people leaders at exactly the right experience and influence level needed at the early stages of immense growth.

Remember the leaders you bring in at this point will be the vessel for the changing culture you’re experiencing, so don’t undervalue how important they are!

As a middle or junior manager

With founders and c-suite taking a step back from day to day management, more junior people managers can shine. Whilst reporting into c-suite/executives, day to day focuses such as:

• Onboarding new team members
• Team wellbeing
• Progression, mentorship and guidance
• Task management

This is also where a really solid progression framework comes into play. For a lot of startups your business will be very Individual Contributor (IC) heavy, as opposed to People Management. Over time this balance will shift and more junior people managers will need clear guidance from a progression perspective. The way we have set up our levels is to have a percentage focus at each level for amount of time dedicated to People management.

We start with a 10% focus at a level 3 stage on people management - then this increases by 10% each level you go up by. The main reason for this is pressure can intensify as you scale and your managers will be more and more measured on team success as opposed to just individual.

What we’re reading

• From startup founder to scaleup CEO
• Scaling through Chaos - The real star of the show ??
• A varying (and slightly controversial) list of management styles