From Founder to Manager: The Identity Transition Problem

Sammanfattning

Every founder dreams of the day their company is big enough to need a real office and a realteam. But for some founders, that day can mark the beginning of an emotional sense of loss.They have built a machine so successful that it no longer has a place for the person they used tobe. As one owner noted:“Ultimately, we got into this game to solve problems. It's what we like doing. Andsolving employee problems is not as exciting as solving client problems.”This qualitative study uses seven in-depth interviews, supplemented by two written emailreflections, to explore the internal identity shift entrepreneurs face during company growth. Thefindings show that scaling forces a shift to administration, causing emotional strain that foundersmanage through partial project involvement.The research investigates the internal identity conflicts entrepreneurs experience when businessexpansion pushes them away from frontline problem-solving. To examine this issue, the studyconducts qualitative, semi-structured interviews with seven founders in knowledge-intensiveservice fields. The findings suggest that the 10 to 14 employee range may represent an importanttransition point where flat structures become unsustainable, forcing leaders to delegateeffectively while clinging to their original roles by staying selectively active in client projects.Ultimately, the study concludes that moving from an operational founder to a managerial leaderis a profound internal transformation rather than a routine career progression, exposing anorganizational paradox where operational delegation is structurally vital but personally resisted.