Are You the Culture Problem at Your Startup?

When a startup fails, people blame the idea, the market, the timing, the weather. Sometimes the economy. Sometimes fate. Sometimes traffic. Try leadership. That’s usually where it starts.

I’ve watched good startups with smart people and solid products come apart. It’s sneaky. But you can feel it: meetings kinda slow down. The startup energy fades into this inertia.

But hey – early on, everything works. Teams are small. Decisions move fast. Standards live in the founder’s head, and that’s fine because the founder is everywhere. When you’re small, you are the culture.

Then the company grows.

Pressure shows up. Maybe a missed number. A rough board call. A customer pulls a contract. A pandemic. That's when leadership habits stop being quirks and start becoming policy.

I once watched a founder talk about ownership. Real accountability. He hired strong leaders, gave them authority, and said the right things. For lack of a better term, he empowered them.

Then pressure hit. And trust me, it’s going to hit.

Instead of having hard conversations, he started quietly undoing decisions. A product call reversed after hours. A roadmap change slipped into Slack the next morning. No context. Just a correction.

People noticed.

Within weeks, no one decided anything without checking first. Leaders stopped leading. Ownership disappeared. Everything slowed down. Honestly, innovation stopped. Morale? Down the tubes.

Culture is a reflection of leadership. And leadership isn’t always about inspiration. It’s about clarity. And startups run on clarity. Clear priorities. Clear decision rights. Clear standards that hold when things get uncomfortable.

Fixing this isn’t complicated. Decide what matters. Say no sooner. When leadership gets clear, culture follows. When it doesn’t, well, you probably know how that ends.