Your startup exploded out the blocks. Your metrics rose impressively. You bootstrapped your way to growth, or super-charged it with external funding. You’ve reached 30, 50, maybe even 150 people. The opportunity is still enormous, but your growth rate is slowing and your early agility is showing signs of strain. Scaling laws are taking hold. The team is stressed. True leadership is now needed, but it’s at this point that it so often fails. Written for CEOs and other leaders in high growth technology leadership teams, this article identifies the factors that commonly cause team dysfunction, conflict and other tensions. I offer up some advice about how to avoid them based on my experience helping senior management and executive teams navigate this critical stage of growth.
It borrows from Patrick Lencioni’s book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, which quickly become a best seller after it was published in 2002. Although it wasn’t based on robust scientific research, and its recommendations lacked empirical support, it provided a helpful framework for thinking about how to improve leadership team dynamics and performance.
Startup growth is never linear, it’s a rollercoaster, but similar challenges are observable on the ride. The Five Dysfunctions of a high growth technology leadership team that I most often see are:
- No clear Vision for what leadership looks like across the business
- Lack of basic management and leadership skills at the individual level
- Lack of alignment
- Low psychological safety
- ‘Tension in the machine’
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