This is commmon in organizations who have their founding leaders still active. Because they built the operation ground up and have the trust chains in place.
The moment you have significant turnover of these leaders (any overall as a result of flagging growth) you are in reorgs territory
We all agree how important these founders are. But founders can't be in the company and working so hard forever. To me the more interesting question is what kind of structures the founders should leave to ensure good management even after the founders have left.
The leader/management dilemma is a dilemma and so far has evaded any solution. Some countries like Singapore explicitly tried to solve for it and still are, objectively failing.
Cycle:
- Great Leader arises from a group of aligned leaders, more equal than his peers
- Competing non aligned leaders are purged, creating strong execution momentum
- The fellow leaders start hiring managers to take care of the day to day
- Eventually leaders churn and managers take their place because they know the organization and finding aligned leaders is close to impossible.
- Rinse and repeat
- Eventually the Great leader (if he does not expire / retire) is surrounded by people who know how to run the organization within the box, but have never been allowed to think out of the box. All their success was in fact knowing how to maximize the inner workings of the box and not rocking the boat.
- Leader leaves, game of thrones ensues.
This is in full display in most political parties. Take Germany or the UK: the qualifications to become leader are entirely different from the skillset to run the country (Hence the endless supply of prime ministers in the Uk who seem increasingly mediocre or downright incompetent). They absolutely know how to play the game to take the throne (chiefly loyalty to the cause) - but once on the throne, having to lead, requires entirely different skills they don’t possess.
The moment you have significant turnover of these leaders (any overall as a result of flagging growth) you are in reorgs territory