Building Startup Teams: The Challenge for Entrepreneurs

The Building Startup Teams: The Challenge for Entrepreneurs

Leadership is not a solo performance, but a partnership between leaders and their followers. No matter how visionary, charismatic, or competent a leader is, he or she will not get very far without followers willing to work hard and enthusiastically to implement the vision and create a great, even world-changing organization. The most important way this works in today’s world, in business as well as in almost every public sphere, is through teams.

Why Teams Are Important

According to an internal Google study (Project Aristotle), “The team is the molecular unit where real production happens, where innovative ideas are conceived and tested, and where employees experience most of their work.”
Skill in forming and leading teams is essential in leading any organization. It demands all of the competencies of an effective leader.
Teams are more than just a group of individual contributors working together. Teams utilize the experience, background, and expertise of a diverse group of people, each bringing his or her own contribution to the table.
Individuals possess varied talents and skills, different strengths and weaknesses. What one person can’t do well, somebody else may excel at. Bringing them together on a team helps to augment the skills and negate the weaknesses – as the saying goes, “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts,” or as leadership guru Ken Blanchard said, “None of us is as smart as all of us”.
Teams serve the leader’s decision-making process by putting forward multiple points of view, helping to avoid bias based on narrow or limited vision.
Effective teams have a shared purpose, interdependency, and skill in communicating and working together. This creates a shared identity and spirit of cooperation and collaboration that allows the team to work more effectively together.
One of the benefits of teamwork is that it divides up the tasks to be done and increases the chance of success. On a very basic level, a team divides up the tasks and responsibilities needed to get something accomplished, whether short-term problem-solving or a large-scale, long-term project. Most projects today are too complex for one individual to handle. If the workload is shared intelligently, allocating tasks according to people’s strengths, the work gets done more efficiently and effectively. That translates to higher productivity.
Working collaboratively in a group people can give and receive feedback and support to each other.
Collaboration can help solve difficult problems. Brainstorming in a team based in trust provides a perfect opportunity to surface ideas and bring up creative ways of doing things.
Teams unify the energy and intelligence of individuals behind a common goal.

The Critical Importance of Teamwork for Startups

Teamwork is important for any organization, but it is especially critical for a startup. Our research shows that as companies scale, different elements of leadership differentiate great leaders from the rest of the pack. Looking at all companies – small, medium and large – as one group, the qualities and behaviors of the Inspirational Role Model form the most important differentiator characterizing great leaders. However, for early stage companies Facilitating Teamwork stands out as the key to great leadership.

Why is this the case? In a small, scaling company the leader is often involved in everything. If this continues, the leader ends up creating a self-limiting organization that is too leader centric. He or she is involved in the details of too many things, tries to control too many decisions, and becomes a bottleneck. Such a leader has not figured out how to gain leverage by working through others. Micromanagement could become an issue. This style can dramatically impede the organization’s ability to scale.

Those leaders who learn to work through others by building high-performing teams stand out. They have learned to share leadership with strong function heads who balance their weaknesses and bring domain expertise to important decisions. They have learned that the best decisions often emerge from intense and productive dialogue that utilizes the perspectives and information provided by a diverse team of empowered experts who balance any biases the leader might have.

This type of leader gets the most out of the team by utilizing a motivating style that makes team members feel like partners with a shared sense of ownership in the team’s decisions and actions, rather than depending on fear and intimidation to get compliance and conformity. They have learned to gel a group of individuals into a cohesive team focused on a shared direction and acting in a coordinated and collaborative manner. For these and many other reasons that will become apparent, startup leaders stand out who have the ability and know-how to get the most out their team.

The Challenge for Entrepreneurs

The entrepreneurial leader needs a genuine and strong belief that the synergy of teamwork is powerful and real. They must make the transition to a different view of their role, as the facilitator of teamwork, who greases the rails to get the most out of the team. This attitude can’t be faked. They must really believe that better-quality decisions will result from utilizing the diverse views and expertise of team members – that together we can solve problems more effectively than any one of us alone.

This is especially important knowledge for entrepreneurs because, as our research suggests, many entrepreneurs, particularly tech entrepreneurs, are naturally independent loners who have strong needs for autonomy. Too often, they “don’t play well with others.” They tend to be non-conformists who resist restrictions on their freedom. Taking the time to get buy-in to their ideas and dealing with messy, emotional resistance doesn’t seem worth the effort. Their natural tendency is to go off to the mountain and talk to God and come down with the tablets. Making decisions by themselves is their default mode. They can be proudly – and stubbornly – self-reliant.

When they become leaders, their tendency is to trust their own judgment first and foremost. They aim to persuade people rather than engaging in open dialogue and getting all the facts and perspectives on the table. They try to control meetings and decisions, engage in micromanagement, and utilize a hub-and-spoke style of managing subordinates. Their long-standing pattern of independence keeps them from getting the benefits of teamwork and synergistic decision-making.

What they’re doing is trying to manage the team as a group of individual contributors whom they can control more easily. This translates into holding meetings one-on-one with Individuals rather than the whole team, giving individuals goals and following up with them privately. Secretly, they don’t really like group meetings and have little tolerance for open disagreement with their ideas. After all, in the past, they’ve done their best, most creative and productive work by themselves. They are skeptical whether group problem-solving and decision-making or strategic planning are going to add value.

Many tech entrepreneurs are very smart, but their IQs are higher than their EQs. In other words, their Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence need to be developed. They can rely on their intellect, see patterns, learn quickly and develop penetrating insights into problems, provided that the problems don’t require deep insight into people’s motivations and feelings or reading their impact on others. When dealing with team members they may lack empathy, tact, courtesy or sensitivity. They often damage relationships by trying to manage the organization as if it were a machine.

Just because they may be able to persuade investors or paint an inspiring vision to promote the interests of the company, doesn’t mean they have a nuanced understanding of how people work. In general, they are task and results-oriented rather than people-oriented and are often quite unaware of the individual personality differences and group dynamics that impact a team. They get so focused on what they are trying to accomplish that they don’t see how their behavior may hurt feelings or intimidate people. In short: Social astuteness is not their strong suit.

Both experience and research tell us that this style can make it difficult to create an effective, smooth-running team. It’s not enough to have a common goal. It also takes patience, perseverance, and attention to social dynamics. Because independent-minded entrepreneurs easily get frustrated with group decision-making and the need to work closely and build consensus with team members, they can become a roadblock to the creativity and effective decision making that teamwork can foster.

A related challenge for entrepreneurs – as it is for all leaders – is the need to balance empathy, trust, empowerment of team members and a generally supportive approach, with challenging team members and demanding that they do their best work and produce results. As the leader, you need to honor the imperative to deliver results while at the same time sustaining the awareness that you need to work through your people, so it’s vital to build and maintain good relationships.

< Older Post

Newer Post >

Why smart leaders are the hardest to to work for.

Why Smart Leaders Struggle with People

By Rich Hagberg • March 30, 2026

Some of the smartest leaders you will ever meet are also some of the hardest people to work with. They are fast, perceptive, and unusually strong at solving hard problems. They see patterns others miss. They cut through ambiguity. They grasp systems, strategy, and complexity at a very high level. In many cases, those gifts are exactly why they became founders, technical leaders, or senior executives. And yet many of these same people leave a trail of strained relationships behind them. Their direct reports feel unseen or intimidated. Peers experience them as dismissive, impatient, or controlling. Their bosses admire their intellect but hesitate to trust them with broader leadership responsibility. At home, partners often feel emotionally alone. Over time, the leader becomes puzzled. They know they are smart, committed, and often right. So why do people keep pulling away, withholding the truth, or failing to fully follow them? The answer is that many high IQ leaders are working from an incomplete model of effectiveness. They assume that if they think clearly, argue logically, work hard, and produce results, the rest should take care of itself. That model can work for a long time in school, in technical roles, and in the early stages of a company. But eventually leadership becomes less about the quality of your own mind and more about your ability to work through the minds, emotions, motivations, and limitations of other people. That is where many smart leaders start to fail. The Core Problem Intelligence is not the problem. It is an asset. The problem is that intelligence often creates distortions. It can make a leader overestimate the power of logic, underestimate the importance of emotion, and develop habits that quietly damage trust. It can also create a subtle arrogance. Not always the loud kind, but the quieter assumption that if other people are slower, less rigorous, or more emotional, they must be the problem. Once a leader starts living inside that assumption, interpersonal trouble becomes almost inevitable. Five Common Patterns 1. Overreliance on reason Many bright leaders treat relationships as if they are mainly cognitive systems. If there is disagreement, they explain more. If someone is upset, they analyze the issue. If morale is low, they offer strategy. If a direct report feels discouraged, they give solutions. In their minds they are being helpful and efficient. But the other person often feels bypassed. Their emotional reality is treated as noise rather than information. Their need to be heard is mistaken for a need to be corrected. This is a major blind spot in analytical leaders. They often do not realize that understanding is not the same as persuasion, and problem solving is not the same as relationship building. A person can agree with your logic and still not trust you. They can accept your decision and still lose commitment because the relational cost was too high. 2. Impatience High horsepower people often process faster than the people around them. They see the answer early. They get bored by slower thinking, frustrated by repetition, and irritated when others need more context than they do. This can make them decisive and productive. It can also make them hard to work with. They interrupt. They jump ahead. They finish other people’s sentences. They push past concerns before others feel understood. They make those around them feel slow, clumsy, or not worth listening to. This teaches the organization something dangerous. It teaches people that the leader’s mind is the only one that really counts. The safest strategy becomes speaking briefly, deferring quickly, or waiting until the leader has already decided. Then the leader complains that the team is passive or not taking ownership. What they often do not see is that the culture has adapted to them. 3. Emotional underdevelopment hidden by cognitive strength Very bright people can use intellect as a defense against emotional discomfort. They can analyze instead of feel. They can explain instead of reflect. They can argue instead of absorb. They can move to abstraction when the deeper issue is shame, fear, insecurity, hurt, or loneliness. They are often unaware this is happening. They do not experience themselves as defended. They experience themselves as rational. But leadership requires emotional range. Not sentimentality. Not therapeutic language. Real range. The ability to notice your own reactions before they control your behavior. The ability to tolerate feeling wrong, uncertain, criticized, or less competent than you want to appear. The ability to stay present when another person is disappointed, anxious, or angry without immediately shutting it down, fixing it, or counterattacking. Leaders who cannot do this often become brittle. They look composed until challenged in just the wrong way. Then out comes defensiveness, coldness, contempt, withdrawal, or overcontrol. 4. Low interpersonal curiosity Smart leaders are often highly curious about ideas, products, markets, and strategy, but not necessarily about people. They know how to interrogate problems, but not always how to explore another person’s inner world. They ask what happened, but not what it felt like. They want the conclusion, not the hesitation. They want the output, not the psychology. People do not trust leaders simply because they are competent. They trust leaders who show that they are trying to understand them. Interpersonal curiosity communicates respect. A leader does not have to agree with someone to make that person feel seen. But when the leader skips that step, people feel reduced to functions rather than treated as human beings. 5. Weak awareness of impact Many smart leaders are genuinely surprised by how strongly people react to them. They tell themselves, “I was just being direct,” or “I was only asking a question.” In their own minds, intent carries most of the moral weight. If they did not mean harm, then the reaction seems excessive. But leadership does not work that way. Impact matters because power magnifies everything. A passing comment from a founder can ruin a weekend. A skeptical look from a senior executive can silence a room. A blunt critique can stick in someone’s head for months. High IQ leaders often underestimate this because they evaluate themselves from the inside while everyone else experiences them from the outside. That gap sits at the center of many 360 feedback problems. The Identity Trap There is another layer here. Some smart leaders have been rewarded for being exceptional for so long that they quietly build their identity around being the smartest person in the room. They may not say it out loud. They may even dislike arrogance in others. But inside, being quick, insightful, and right has become central to their sense of worth. Once that happens, other people’s competence can feel threatening. Feedback becomes harder to absorb. Collaboration becomes more performative than real. The leader listens selectively, especially when they believe the other person is less capable. They become invested in remaining the mental center of gravity. That is a dangerous place to lead from. It turns intelligence into status defense. It makes humility feel like loss. It makes genuine curiosity harder. And it makes the leader lonelier than they realize, because very few people feel close to someone who always has to occupy the top intellectual position. The Shift That Matters The good news is that these problems are workable. In fact, smart leaders often improve quickly once they see the pattern clearly. Their intelligence then becomes an ally rather than a shield. But improvement requires a shift in model. Leadership is not just about being right. It is about creating enough trust, clarity, and psychological safety that the best thinking of the group can emerge. Your job is not merely to contribute your intelligence. It is to increase the total intelligence of the system. That means treating emotions as information rather than interference. It means becoming curious about your own interpersonal signature. What happens to people in your presence when you are under pressure. Do they get more open or more cautious. More honest or more political. More energized or more tense. Those are not soft questions. They are the real scorecard of leadership impact. It also means slowing down your certainty just enough to make room for other minds. Ask one more question before concluding. Stay with the other person’s frame a little longer. Notice when you are moving to solution because you are uncomfortable with uncertainty or emotion. Let people finish. Reflect before rebutting. And it means understanding that warmth and strength are not opposites. Many analytical leaders fear that becoming more emotionally intelligent will make them softer or less respected. The opposite is usually true. Leaders become more effective when people experience them as both rigorous and fair, both clear and human, both demanding and safe enough to tell the truth to. Practical Experiments A few simple practices can help. In your next one on one, spend more time understanding than advising. In your next disagreement, summarize the other person’s view in a way they agree is accurate before stating your own. In your next leadership meeting, track how often you interrupt, redirect, or signal impatience. After a difficult conversation, ask yourself not only whether your point was valid, but what emotional residue you likely left behind. Ask two trusted people what it feels like to disagree with you, and listen without defending. Final Thought Human beings are not engineering problems. They are not solved by superior reasoning alone. They need respect, steadiness, dignity, trust, and emotional attunement. That is why so many smart leaders struggle. Not because they are too intelligent, but because they have leaned on the wrong part of themselves for too long. At a certain point in leadership, your mind stops being the main differentiator. Plenty of people are smart. What becomes rarer is the ability to combine intelligence with self awareness, candor with sensitivity, high standards with trust, and authority with emotional maturity. That is when a smart leader becomes someone people actually want to follow.