Calgary’s tech founders and technical leaders are incredible innovators with world-class skills. You have vast knowledge and to outsiders what looks like the ability to see the future. So why do so many technical founders and leaders struggle to run their companies?
Simply put, being great at innovating isn’t the same as leading an organization.
I often have clients who use Steve Jobs as an example of how a founder can be mind-blowingly successful as a leader, despite being brutal to work for when it comes to more human skills.
My reply is that they likely don’t have a Reality Distortion Field so they should rely on developing their own leadership skills instead. They aren’t Steve, they shouldn’t try to be Steve. Here is what you can do to build a team while reducing stress, overwhelm and frustration:
First, some grace. Chances are you’ve been heads down being excellent at what you do. That drive is all consuming and that’s okay. It’s just not an excuse to be a tyrant.
Leadership becomes an issue when you start to scale beyond the technology. Once you have a team that’s bigger than a single employee who isn’t your brother-in-law, you need a leadership foundation. Without one, the work that actually energizes you will keep getting pushed to the bottom of the day. So how do you build the foundation?
Leadership is fundamentally one thing: Creating understanding
You’ve tried explaining concepts and priorities to your team and they’ve nodded, indicating the “got it” when they didn’t. At its basic level, most leadership frustration is rooted in an understanding problem.
The ROI of Understanding™ is a framework built specifically to develop as a leader while building a team that can start making decisions without relying on you every step of the way. It’s designed for tech founders and technical leaders who want to lead with the same precision as the tech you’ve created. Here’s a breakdown…
The ROI of Understanding™ is based on three pillars: Relationships, Organization and Information.
Relationships determine how your leadership is actually experienced. Trust – real reciprocal trust – shapes how your team shows up for you as well as how much you can empower them. When trust is strong, people are more loyal. They are more invested in your vision and they’re more honest with their feedback.
A solution for relationships is training in emotional intelligence. Often I work with clients who start by thinking EI is just about feelings. It’s not. It’s a leadership superpower.
EI gives you the ability to read a room, understand how your behaviour lands with others, and adjust your approach so your message actually gets through. For tech founders and technical leaders, it’s one of the most effective and practical tools available. It directly shapes how trust gets built, how conflict gets managed, and how your team experiences your leadership day to day.
Organization is your structure. Not your org chart, but how information is set up to flow within your company. This includes things like meeting cadence, communication methods, and who is expected to know what. Spending time being deliberate about how you organize information flow internally goes a long way to reducing assumptions, automating decisions and reducing stress for you and your team.
Information is the message itself. Three types of information matter and communicating each type should be deliberate: There’s awareness (what’s happening and why), action (what needs to happen next), and accountability (who owns it and what success looks like). When all three are flowing well, your team stops bringing you problems and starts bringing you solutions.
Tying them all together, by using relationships, organization and information, you create understanding. And honestly, leadership doesn’t need to be more complicated than that. I see books and courses out there selling “20 leadership principles” or “50 ways to be a better leader”. Essentially all of them boil down to relationships, organization and information.
So while you remain focused on innovation and disrupting, keeping the ROI of Understanding™ in mind, perhaps through executive coaching can help make your innovation become something people can access and get behind.
When shared understanding improves, your ability to lead grows with it.
C.J. Wilkins is a leadership coach, executive advisor, and team facilitator with more than 25 years of experience in communications and leadership. He is the creator of the ROI of Understanding™ framework and works with tech founders and technical leaders who want to lead as well as they build. If you want to lead with less frustration and more results, reach out today.
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