Issue No. 649 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting has this warning about founders: “When it comes to founder weaknesses, you’re not trying to get from good to great. You’re trying to get from terrible to average.” Plus, click here for recent eNews issues posted at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog, including my recent review of How to Get Along with Anyone: The Playbook for Predicting and Preventing Conflict at Work and at Home. And, check out the 20 management buckets (core competencies).
The authors of Founders, Keepers describe a startup founder: “Whereas the regular employee can detach and go home and focus on their family…they get to leave it behind. That’s not the case for him. He has no off button.”
46 Competencies of Successful Founders!
Are you a founder? Do you work for a founder? Serve on a founder’s board of directors? Got fired by a founder? Wanna be a founder? I’ve got a book for you!
FOUNDERS, KEEPERS:
Why Founders Are Built to Fail,
and What It Takes to Succeed
by Richard Hagberg, PhD, and Tien Tzuo,
with Gabe Weisert (June 17, 2025)
Fifteen years ago, Hagberg (a psychologist often referred to as Silicon Valley’s “CEO Whisperer”), began focusing his leadership coaching practice on founders, “because I found that I could personally relate to my clients. I resemble the people I am seeking to help.”
Along with co-author Tien Tzuo (the guy who invented the phrase "Subscription Economy"), they conducted deep research on founders—those who failed and those who succeeded. They concluded: “Founders are ticking time bombs.” (But it gets worse—and don’t ever say I didn’t warn you!)
Analyzing Hagberg’s database (with personality tests and 360 feedback) on 122 founders, the authors landed on what they call “The Three Pillars of Leadership.” (Warning: trouble ahead!)
THE VISIONARY EVANGELIST
“A great thinker and visionary. But could not get s*** done to save his own life.” (anonymous 360 feedback on a founder)
THE RELATIONSHIP BUILDER
“Wanting to please everyone all the time sometimes just isn’t possible.” (anonymous 360 feedback on a founder)
THE MANAGER OF EXECUTION
“There are days when I’m glad that I work with him, not for him.” (anonymous 360 feedback on a founder)
You’ll hit paydirt on pages 25-27: “The Visionary Evangelist, the Relationship Builder, and the Manager of Execution are all essential to the success of any organization, but each brings unique strengths and corresponding weaknesses. Founders gifted in just one leg of this three-legged stool create a dangerous imbalance. The message is clear: “…to be an effective founder, you have to be good at lots of things.”
If you work for a founder, or serve on a founder’s board—you could probably fill in the blanks on founder weaknesses. The authors quote a founder’s colleague:
They get to leave it behind. That’s not the case for him.
He has no off button.”
FOUNDER WEAKNESSES:
• The Visionary Evangelist: “drive-by delegation,” “tend to get distracted by shiny objects,” “quickly bored by routine.” And, “They are inspirational speakers who are frequently disasters at small talk.”
• The Relationship Builder: “They are conflict resolvers who hate conflict.” “…driven by a need to be liked by everyone, they don’t like to deliver bad news…” And this: “Their deep empathy and desire to avoid conflict can make them indecisive and overly accommodating.” In short, “they can be too nice for their own good.”
• The Manager of Execution: While this type of founder’s favorite phrase is “Vision without execution is hallucination,” they elevate micromanagement to an art form. They like to be in control. “They often suffer from ‘engineer’s disease’—because they are experts in a certain financial or technical discipline, they are therefore experts in everything.” (Yikes!)
HAGBERG’S 46 COMPETENCIES! You’ll likely skip to pages 233-239 for the results of the 360 assessments of leadership capabilities “of almost 2,000 executives from multiple industries and in multiple countries.” Most were rated by an average of 12 people, including: their direct manager, their direct reports, board members, advisors, and other employees.
The authors remind us that scaling precedes success. (See my 2018 book-of-the-year, Scaling Up.) “These are the competencies that are required to grow a large organization, as exhibited by leaders who have successfully accomplished that monumental task.” Each of the 46 competencies include a two- to three-line definition. Examples:
• “Agent of Change—Challenges the status quo, supports fresh perspectives, tries out new approaches, and enlists support for change initiatives.”
• “Creating Buy-In—Effectively builds commitment and wins support for initiatives through personal and professional credibility, trustworthiness, persuasive communication, stakeholder involvement, and by aligning expectations.”
• “Decisiveness—Makes clear-cut decisions without unnecessary delay, even in tough situations.”
If you’re already an expert at the above three competencies, don’t become a founder yet—see the other 43 critical competencies. Ask your direct reports to rate you at: Coaching, Listening, Culture Management, Delegation and Empowerment, Finding and Attracting Talent, Emphasizing Excellence, Information Sharing, Negotiation, Social Astuteness, Strategic Focus, and 33 more! (Must read and master: all 46 competencies!)
What Makes a Founder a Founder? Chapter 2 explores three types of founders: The Good, The Bad, and The Worse!
• GOOD. “Almost all founders are strong Visionary Evangelists.” (Note: They read books and articles.) “Founders work incredibly hard. Running a startup was once memorably compared to ‘crawling across broken glass.’”
• BAD. Founders generally score lower than average on “360 ratings of sensitivity, consideration, and empathy.”
• WORSE. “Founders are terrible at giving praise and recognition. They’re equally abysmal at coaching. They tend to throw people into the deep end and expect them to figure out how to swim.”
Hagberg and Tzuo add, “When it comes to founder weaknesses, you’re not trying to get from good to great. You’re trying to get from terrible to average.”
MORE MUST-READ CHAPTERS. If you’re a founder, a founder wanna-be, or married to a founder, you will read every page of this book. With a pen. Twice.
You’ll learn the differences between successful and unsuccessful founders—and how to develop the skills required to scale. (Buy this book for your founder friends.) Must-read chapters include:
• The Myth of the Genius Jerk
• Working Through Others: From Loners to Leaders
• From Dictator to Facilitator: How to Implement Strategy
• The Bridge Between Strategy and Execution: Planning, Prioritizing, and Maintaining Focus
MORE SUCCESS INSIGHTS:
• “10 Questions: Focus, Prioritizing, and Planning” (Example: “How disciplined are you about following through on plans, ensuring that projects reach completion rather than losing momentum?”)
• The Team Assessment Quiz (15 poke-in-the-ribs statements)
• “10 Questions: Facilitating Conflict Resolution” (Example: “When there’s a disagreement, are you quick to assert your solution without truly understanding all sides?”) Note: see my recent book review.
Chapter 14, “Mastering the Execution Triangle: Delegation, Accountability, and Coaching,” may surprise you. The authors believe that the execution triangle works “differently for founders than professional managers. It’s a trickier balance.”
They note Paul Graham’s insights and the answer to “founder mode” when founders hire bright people, but somehow feel they’ve given up control. Hagberg and Tzuo mention Airbnb’s founder, Brian Chesky, who had to get back “in the details and get very, very hands-on.” Interesting: read Ben Cohen’s WSJ interview with Chesky, May 13, 2025, or listen to the interview (19 minutes).
What’s the point of this book?
It’s a difficult truth: to grow your startup,
you have to grow as a person.”
TO ORDER FROM AMAZON, click on the title for Founders, Keepers: Why Founders Are Built to Fail, and What It Takes to Succeed, by Richard Hagberg, PhD, and Tien Tzuo, with Gabe Weisert. And thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy.

1) In March when everything was going swimmingly, the WSJ ran a fascinating article, “Trump and Musk Share the Founder’s Mindset.” The article mentioned the HBR Press book, The Founder's Mentality: How to Overcome the Predictable Crises of Growth. Have you ever read a book about founders? Describe three strengths and three weaknesses that you’ve observed about founders.
2) Yikes! In Chapter 3, “The Myth of the Genius Jerk,” Hagberg and Tzuo ask, “Aren’t all founders a bit narcissistic?” They answer their own question: “Of course they are. A heightened sense of self-worth is fundamental to their identify.” Yikes, again! But…wait. According to Darrell Puls, “Narcissism is a spectrum condition meaning that it goes from the least inclination to full-blown Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).” So…maybe before you throw the first stone, read my review of Let Us Prey, Revised Edition: The Plague of Narcissist Pastors and What We Can Do About It. Question: You’re on a founder’s board. How would you coach your founder who tilts high on the spectrum?

SECOND READS: Fresh Solutions From Classic Books
You have changed—and your problems have changed—since you read this the first time!
Book #19 of 99: Yours Truly
For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by featuring Book #19 of 99 in our new series, “Second Reads.” The big idea: REREAD TO LEAD! Discover how your favorite books still have more to teach you and the people you’re coaching and mentoring.
An Obituary Writer's Guide to Telling Your Story
by James R. Hagerty
• Read my review (Issue No. 564, June 14, 2023).
• Order from Amazon.
• Listen on Libro (6 hours, 16 minutes).
• Management Bucket #19 of 20: The Printing Bucket (aka The Communications Bucket)
“No, telling your story is not another irksome task, like making a will or clearing out the attic. Telling your story is less difficult than you may imagine. Telling your story can be amusing. It can pay off in unexpected ways.” As the only fulltime obituary writer for The Wall Street Journal, Haggerty suggests you ask yourself three questions:
• What were you trying to do with your life?
• Why?
• And how did it work out?
Podcast via AI
Oh God, I’m Dying!
Click here to listen to the 14-minute AI-generated podcast, featuring two “AI podcasters” who “review” John’s review of Oh God, I’m Dying! How God Redeems Pain for Our Good and for His Glory, by Terry Powell and Mark Smith. (Read John’s review here.) Visit here for more AI-generated podcasts. (You'll need a Google account.)

Pie-Eating Contest Prize:
More Pie!
The authors of Founders, Keepers reference another book on start-ups, Zero to IPO: Over $1 Trillion of Actionable Advice from the World's Most Successful Entrepreneurs (read my review). Frederic Kerrest offers another metaphor for founders: “Some people say leading a fast-growing startup is like winning a pie-eating contest: the grand prize is that you get to eat even more pie.” For more book reviews, visit Pails in Comparison Blog.