There’s a moment that catches many founders off guard.
Your company is growing. Headcount is up. Revenue’s tracking. The product is getting traction, maybe even pulling ahead. But instead of feeling energized, things start to feel… slower. Heavier. Meetings take longer. Decisions stall. People start complaining about “communication,” but no one’s quite sure what’s wrong. You find yourself putting out fires you thought were already solved. It’s frustrating — and a little disorienting.
This isn’t failure. It’s growth.
More precisely, it’s what happens when the systems, habits, and leadership style that got you this far aren’t built to take you further. It’s a common inflection point — and it’s exactly what Larry Greiner described over 50 years ago in his still-relevant model of organizational growth.
Growth Comes in Surges, Not Lines
In 1972, Greiner published a framework that broke with the common myth of smooth scaling. He suggested that companies don’t grow in a straight line — they grow in phases, each marked by a predictable crisis that demands a different way of operating.
In each phase, what previously worked begins to break down. And what gets you through isn’t just operational change — it’s a shift in leadership. For founders, that often means confronting the uncomfortable truth that you might be the very bottleneck you’re trying to fix.
Let’s walk through the phases, not as an academic exercise, but as the lived reality of what it means to build and scale a company.
Phase 1: Hustle Works — Until It Doesn’t
- Early stage: All hands on everything. Informal, fast, flexible.
- Founder’s role: Visionary and executor. You’re in every detail.
- The challenge: At some point, you can’t do it all. Chaos sets in.
- What’s needed: Basic structure, clarity, and someone to help run things.
Phase 2: Direction Brings Order — and Bottlenecks
- Now with teams: You have functions, budgets, and middle managers.
- Founder’s role: You start managing instead of building.
- The challenge: Managers get frustrated — they have responsibility, but no real autonomy.
- What’s needed: Delegation. Let go of control. Trust others to lead.
Phase 3: Delegation Requires Real Letting Go
- Decentralized: Teams make decisions. The company runs in parts.
- Founder’s role: Strategy, not operations.
- The challenge: Fragmentation. Everyone’s rowing, but not in the same direction.
- What’s needed: Coordination. Systems that align, without slowing people down.
Phase 4: Structure Aligns — Then Slows
- Cross-functional: More process, more planning. Structure supports scale.
- Founder’s role: Leader of leaders. You manage complexity, not tasks.
- The challenge: Bureaucracy. People spend more time following process than solving problems.
- What’s needed: Simplification. A focus on outcomes, not rituals.
Phase 5: Collaboration Is the New Control
- Mature org: Teams work together fluidly. Culture matters more than hierarchy.
- Founder’s role: Coach. You create the conditions for others to succeed.
- The challenge: Fatigue. Sustained collaboration can lead to burnout.
- What’s needed: Clarity, purpose, and space to recharge and reinvent.
Scaling the Company = Scaling Yourself
Each transition point demands a different kind of leadership. And often, the hardest part isn’t organizational — it’s personal.
You go from:
- Doing → Managing
- Managing → Delegating
- Delegating → Coordinating
- Coordinating → Coaching
Most founders hit friction when their instinct no longer matches what the company needs. What used to work stops working. That’s not a bug — it’s the point.
The companies that keep growing are the ones where the founder grows, too.
No Maps, Just Evolution
What makes Greiner’s model so useful isn’t just its organizational insight — it’s what it reveals about founders themselves.
In every phase, the company needs something different from you. At first, it needs your drive. Then your clarity. Then your ability to step back. Eventually, your job becomes enabling others to lead better than you ever could alone.
That’s not a natural shift for most founders. Many get stuck clinging to the leadership style that once made them successful. But the truth is: your ability to evolve is often the biggest constraint or accelerator on the company’s next chapter.
You don’t need to have all the answers. But you do need to recognize when it’s time to ask different questions.
Every company that grows hits points where the old way stops working. That tension is inevitable. It’s not a problem to be avoided — it’s a signpost that you’re heading into new territory.
Your job isn’t to have a map for the whole journey. It’s to recognize the phase you’re in, understand the kind of leadership it demands, and be willing to let go of what no longer serves the company.
The best founders don’t just scale companies. They scale themselves — one phase at a time.