Elon Musk is making the same mistake that thousands of founders of midsized companies make.  Trying to scale without enough leaders. This post outlines why such brilliant founders make the same mistake, and what to do about it.

Originally posted on Forbes online: https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertsher/2018/08/21/elon-musk-needs-help-scale-the-leadership-team-at-tesla/

Elon Musk is making the same mistake that thousands of founders of midsized companies make. It might seem surprising that a man as brilliant and exceptional as Musk would do such a thing. Yet it is not. The smartest and most driven founders are most likely to become seduced by the notion that they are the only one who can scale their business.

Until someone like Musk discovers a way to fit more than 24 hours in a day or to download experience into our brains, it will require teams of leaders to grow companies from startup, through midsized (defined as $10 million to $1 billion in revenues), and into large growing enterprises.

It is easy for the public to be critical of Musk’s ill-timed tweet about taking Tesla private, or lashing out at analysts, or having a breakdown on TV. Those aren’t good things. But as someone who coaches CEOs, rest assured, I know firsthand that the pressures are enormous. Add to that the scale of Musk’s companies and the exhaustion from trying to do way too much, it’s easy to see how human emotions overcome human logic.

This isn’t about feeling sorry for Elon Musk. This is about using this very public example of a highly talented but overwhelmed CEO to send a message to all the other talented CEOs in the world: Scale your leadership teams at least as aggressively as your business is scaling.

Here is what I’ve told many brilliant CEOs:

1. Smartness is not the same as experience. When you hire other leaders, they bring many lessons from diverse careers and experiences—know-how and perspectives that you can’t get from raw IQ. In many situations, especially high growth situations, experience can be more powerful than smartness.
2. Humans are not AI. We need to keep our bodies strong and energy high. Arianna Huffington pounds this point home. Getting out of balance decreases productivity and increases mistakes.
3. Many founders have unique talents and insights. Spending their time on management and scaling businesses may well not be their best use. Management can be hired. The fields of management and leadership are filled with known best practices. While it is still quite difficult, there are plenty of us who are teaching, coaching and developing the field. Those CEOs who are inventive and gifted in other fields should focus on their own unique contributions to our world and hire in management talent.
4. Founders, in conjunction with their leadership teams, must agree on targets and priorities in writing. And those managers/leaders must be held accountable to the targets and priorities. This is how CEOs avoid letting those leaders run amok. They work to a plan that the CEO has agreed to.
5. Surround yourself with people you respect who will tell you when you’ve been seduced by the perception that you need to do it all yourself. Leaders receive less and less honest feedback the higher they rise on the org chart. Add to that some hubris (perhaps well earned), and successful CEOs can wind up in an echo-chamber.
6. Use your success (and cash flow, if you have it) to attract an unfair share of top-quality leaders. I heard this from a top VC firm who asserted that when they invest in a startup, this is one of the key advantages they bring. And all professional investors (VCs and PEs) know that an incredible leadership team is crucial. Tesla, and arguably all of Musk’s companies, must be veritable tractor beams for the best and brightest leaders. Having too much run through the CEO can choke off growth.
7. Working hard is a good trait. Every investor in Tesla should appreciate that Musk is putting enormous personal effort into scaling Tesla. But working smart is required too. Such “smart” CEOs leverage every minute by working through an incredible c-suite, who in turn work through incredible VPs— and so it continues right down the org chart. They multiply their efforts rather than diminish their leaders.

Elon Musk already knows everything I’ve written. He has many companies which no doubt have many excellent leaders onboard. But when you create companies with rocketing growth, it’s easy to let the business out-scale the leadership team. I’m rooting for him to scale up his leadership team, set a more balanced pace for himself, then turn his energies to creating more incredible innovations for all of us.