It sucks she had to go through that, and it’s impossible for anyone to know how they will respond to a management position without actually being in a management position. It then takes a lot of self awareness or some really honest people that you trust to know the results of that test.

Almost every founder that isn’t well suited for management has held on for too long before giving up the control. When starting out, it’s just them doing it all, then you add a few people, then it keeps growing. Almost no one is going to take an objective step back to question if they can no longer run things unless there is some kind of issue that shows they can no longer run things once the business gets to a certain size.

I used to be the person on my team who knew how things “should” be and it all sounded so easy. I ended up in change and while the team was happy (according to them), I was miserable and couldn’t handle the balancing the conflicting responsibilities of the job. Maintaining high standards, keeping people happy, and delivering. I felt like I had to lower my bar to keep people happy, but depending on the person they wanted the hard truth feedback that I would often hold back. I ended up stepping back into a tech role and have tried to stop worrying so much about how things “should” be. People are usually doing the best they can and when they fall short, it likely isn’t due to malice. It’s easy to sit back and judge in hindsight. It’s much more difficult when you’re in the thick of it and making it up as you go… which is pretty much what every company is doing.