Founder Syndrome

Author: Garth Nowland-Foreman, LEAD Director

It's been infecting non-profits long before Covid

As annoying and persistent as Covid has been, there is another malady as predictable as the common cold for non-profits - and perhaps even more damaging than the pandemic.

Rachel Muir describes it as “a common treatable disease. Frequently carried as a recessive gene by passionate, dedicated, dynamic, and visionary entrepreneurial leaders. Commonly found aired with groundbreaking new ideas to solve social problems. Often associated with new fledgling organisations...”

Even people who have never heard of the diagnosis, will often immediately recognise the symptoms and be familiar with the causes of “founder syndrome.” 

One blogger describes a range of common symptoms, including: constantly ignoring advice, refusing to have meetings with, or take direction from their board, interfering in mundane operational issues, dishing out meaningless tasks that can often be contracted soon after.  Any challenge by staff can be deemed a personal attack on both the founder and the cause itself.  In fact, the two (founder and the organisation and its cause) seem almost indistinguishable.

Sounds pretty ugly, eh? Why would you ever invite such a monster into your organisation? Well firstly, you probably didn’t – they may very well have come first and the organisation was formed around them. In the beginning was the founder... but even more importantly, founders are amazing people. They almost always have the magical skill of being able to build something out of nothing. The act of creation requires a very strong (almost God-like) personality, with great belief in themselves and their cause – they move mountains for their cause. They are passionate people, with great energy and determination. Their enthusiasm is infectious, and their commitment inspiring.

While most often seen among actual founders, ‘founders syndrome’  can also be found in strong, charismatic leaders (on staff or on the board) who have been in a leadership role with that organisation for many years. The difficulties are frequently most acute, however, with actual organisational founders, as it takes a special person...

So why is it a problem? Sure big personalities can be a challenge to deal with, but problems can run much deeper than that:

• In some cases the board is recruited by the founder, and operates more as ‘cheerleaders’ than as a strong and independent check or balance. The commitment can slip from the cause to the founder (especially as they are often indistinguishable), undermining the most important role of boards as kaitiaki o kaupapa (guardians of the vision).

• While high on creativity, and responsiveness, it can seem like there is no plan. The charismatic culture can feel reactive and powerless (for everyone other than the leader), rather than proactive, with important decisions constantly made in crisis mode.

• Leadership is routinely narrowed down to one person, and, as it's all ‘in their head’, it can be hard to ensure transparency or accountability to anyone or anything beyond the founder.  This can also make choices and priorities seem arbitrary and unpredictable.

• At the same time there can be resistance to doing anything differently. As one writer shrewdly identifies, the resistance “is towards those changes that will result in a (perceived or actual) loss of control, towards a change in the working environment – from the comfortable group of friends around a kitchen table to having all those ‘strangers’ messing with ‘our baby,’ toward the (perceived or actual) inevitable change into ‘something we no longer recognise.’”(Hank Lewis)

In fact, this is the crucial point. The organisation is the founder’s ‘baby’. The organisation’s ‘mother’ is naturally protective of it. Try and mess with anyone’s baby in human society or the animal world, and check out the consequences! The problem arises when the ‘mother’ won't let the baby grow up – when an organisation needs to grow or move on from the start-up phase to the second generation of leadership, or to greater formalisation and documentation, as it incorporates new or additional people, new or additional programmes, and new or additional supporters and funders.

The worst way to deal with this dilemma, is to try harder to wrest their ‘baby’ from the founder’s loving embrace. The more we pull away, the tighter most founders will hang on! Instead we need to take three simple steps to harness the power of our amazing founders:

1. We need to genuinely recognise and give credit to founders for all they have achieved in getting the organisation to this point. It’s no use faking gratitude, we need to dig deep until we find what we can genuinely appreciate. Celebrate their contribution, and the value of the organisation. This should not be too hard and most founders are amazing dynamo’s and achieve much.

1. Once they can see that you genuinely ‘like their baby’ and thus can be trusted to care for its best interests, it’s time to start talking about the founder’s legacy. Everyone recognises (deep down) that they will one day move on from this organisation – even if only because they will not live forever! And virtually all founders do not want their ‘baby’ to go away with them. Ask them what is the most important legacy that should remain long after they have gone. It's usually not too hard to lift this to a higher level of values or principles – as that is what we usually value the most (and in our heart recognise as most enduring). Find ways you can embed these values and principles in documents, training, orientation for board staff or volunteers etc etc.

1. Then you can get down to the nitty-gritty. Prompt the founder to develop a BUS file. You can pretend that BUS stands for Business Utterly Sustainable (or make up your own acronym), but it actually stands for what happens if the founder gets run over by a bus tomorrow! It's their ‘letter’ to the future. What do we and the next generation of leadership need to know to protect the legacy of this organisation and its cause. Sometimes this may be the first time that all the passwords are shared with another person! But it is always that important step of documentation or formalisation by putting in writing policies, plans and procedures that may have wholly or partly been confined to simply existing inside the founder’s head. Apart from the concrete value in writing down what needs to be passed on, this usually also has the indirect benefit of putting the founder more and more in the mind-set of moving on. It can help them mentally shift from it being a theoretical ‘one day’ concept, to a more real and immediate prospect.

There is one additional thing you should never do – despite how much you feel guilted into it - that is to appoint a founder to the board, after they retire from managing the organisation. This just stops them from moving on, and postpones the organisational transition to a new generation of leadership for another day. This usually makes life painful, if not impossible for the new manager in the meantime.

What defines a good leader is knowing when to move on. Keep repeating that, as you graciously decline offers to help out the board. There are other ways of recognising contributions with honorary appointments, such as (capital F) Founder or Patron or Life Member – anything ceremonial or symbolic, but do not let them serve on the board.

LEAD loves to help organisations grow and develop. We can support your organisation through difficult changes and transitions – including to the next generation of leadership, or the next step in the lifecycle of your organisation. We have specific support available to help you recruit the manager your organisation needs.

Contact us at info@lead.org.nz to talk about what is possible. In the meantime, here are some very helpful readings on founders and transitions:

• Founder's Syndrome (BoardSource)

• Getting Past the Glorification of the Founder (Stanford Social Innovation Review)

• Succession Guide for Founders and their Boards (Marcum LLP)

• When Co-Founder Transitions Collide (Stanford Social Innovation Review)

• Founder Transitions: Creating Good Endings and New Beginnings (Annie E. Casey Foundation)

• Making Founder Transitions Work (Stanford Social Innovation Review)

But what if I am a founder?

“The most extraordinary founders create an organisation that is so amazing, so strong, that it is sustainable even beyond the founder’s tenure.”

This blog has mainly been about founders as ‘other people’.  Perhaps you are one of those amazing people who have actually created something wonderful out of nothing? If you fear you might be falling into the ‘founder syndrome’ trap, that kind of self-awareness and self-critiquing already augurs well for a much better outcome. 

To help you further, here is a quick quiz from Blue Avocado, with some handy tips of what a leader can do about it: How to Cure Founder’s Syndrome - Blue Avocado and the fabulous confessions of a founder from our great friend, Hildy Gottlieb: Founder’s Syndrome? Who Me? (help4nonprofits.com).