In this empowering episode, Daria Rudnik, Team Architect and Owner of Daria Rudnik Coaching & Consulting, shares how to shift from founder-led decisions to empowered team ownership in stage 4. If you struggle with being the bottleneck in leadership meetings and slow decisions, you won’t want to miss it.
You will discover:
– What structured questions train leaders to own outcomes independently
– Why constant founder input kills team confidence and slows scaling.
– How to create psychological safety so your team speaks up first
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the start, scale and succeed. Podcast, the only podcast that grows with you through all seven stages of your journey. As a founder, I’m your host, Scott Ritzheimer, and today I want to talk to those founders who are sitting there or over the recent past, have been sitting there in their leadership team meeting, and they’ve had this moment and like, you’ll laugh when you hear it, because it’s like it just happened, but it happens to everyone at this stage, and that is, it’s that moment in the meeting when a decision needs to be made, like not an easy one, but like a real decision needs to be made. And instead of offering their insights and ideas, all heads turn to you and look directly at you and you realize it’s still all up to me, and the challenge of that is like it’s been that way for a really long time, and in the past it was fine, right? You were probably pretty good at it. That’s probably how you got here. But if you’re honest, right now, what it actually means is that every conflict, every like cross functional issue between teams. Every little squabble between two of your managers or leaders ends up landing on your plate, and frankly, you’re tired of it. And here’s what you may not realize, though, something we’ve never talked about on the show is that it’s probably not just, or even at all, a skill, knowledge or ability issue from the individual team members. In fact, I think our guest today has got a pretty good she’ll be able to point you in a direction. I’m not going to FOIL it just yet, but here to help tell us where it went wrong, where it’s going wrong, and more importantly, what you can do about it is the one person who actually wrote the whole book on it. It’s Daria Rudnik, who, with a proven track record of guiding leaders and teams through global challenges, is a team architect and executive leadership coach. She’s the former chief people officer and ex Deloitte professional, bringing over 15 years of international executive experience in tech and telecom. Throughout her career, she’s helped leaders from fast growing startups to navigate global financial crises, wars and the covid 19 pandemic. Daria supports busy leaders in building high performing teams. Her approach blends team and leadership, coaching, organizational consulting and assessments, and she’s also developed an AI powered coaching tool to further enhance her client success, and she’s here with us today. Daria, welcome to the show. Glad to have you here. I’ve been really looking forward to this conversation.
Daria Rudnik
Well, thanks for having me here, Scott. I really enjoyed your show, and being here as a guest is a great opportunity for me. I’m so excited to have this conversation with you today.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s fantastic. So you’ve got a book, a fantastic book on this, and many other things, but the book’s called clicking, and I want to jump to a story you tell about a CEO named Sam. So Sam’s got something like 20 or 30 direct reports. I don’t remember the exact number, but he’s got his leadership team. Some people are in it. Some people aren’t in it. It is like, Sam is basically like half the people listening to the show. And so tell us a little bit about Sam. What was Sam’s problem and and what do we do from here?
Daria Rudnik
Well, I, like, love what he said that, like, we, it’s not about the individual team members. We, we very often we overuse the word team, because we kind of get people together, your team manager, you’re a team. It’s not it’s not going to happen. It’s not happening like that. To really be a team, you need to have a shared purpose. You need to have interconnections between team members, and we need to have a certain structure, like, these are the people on the team, and these people are not because otherwise you don’t know who’s going to make decision. You don’t know, like, what roles are on those teams. And like, with Sam this, the story was that it was an executive team when they were, like, from five up to 30 people joining executive meetings, and no one actually knew, like, why those people were called for this meeting and they were not called for the other meeting. There was some inner circle, and people were kind of frustrated about the T like, the power dynamics and how they what decisions they are making, what decisions they cannot make. And that all landed up on CEO, because he was eventually the one who was solving all the problems. And if, for example, they decide something with a group of five, the other person could come in to see you and said, Hey, like, you didn’t include my voice. Like, here is my opinion this year’s Okay, well, that’s reasonable, boy, and let’s change our decision. And he changes the decision so and again, the lead is overloaded. Team members are not, like engaged, because they know, I mean, they don’t have this clarity in decision making process. And this story actually didn’t like and very well, unlike some other stories I’m happy to share, when CEOs actually changed the dynamics and team started to make decisions and bringing decisions to him without even involving him into conversations only for approval.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I love that, and that’s. Kind of the dream and the aspiration. What I and what I enjoyed about Sam’s story was that it is a cautionary tale, right? And many times in business books like everything goes well, we only tell the success stories. And I was really glad that you highlighted that, and I think it goes to the heart of of what’s going on at this stage for the founder, and that is, they have to move beyond this group that they’ve assembled to help them make great decisions and actually start building a team that makes great decisions together. That really is the heart of it. And I think your framework is just fantastic for someone in this this space. So just the least, we need to know just 62nd version of what is the click model. I know that’s totally unfair, but I want to dive into one of these in particular in just a moment. So just give us an introduction. What’s the framework? What are the five different parts?
Daria Rudnik
So very briefly, the click framework is about having a clear purpose. Because, again, the team is defined by a shared purpose. Linking connections is how people are connected with each other, not just with the CEO or the team leader, but with each other and with external teams and the broad organization. The third was, is integrated work that’s like very overlooked one, the team norms and team rules and how we work together and who’s on the team and who is not collaborative decisions, how teams learn how to make decisions together. What decisions are stay within Lida, what decisions within individual contributors and what decisions need to be made collaboratively. And the fifth one is knowledge sharing. It’s about how team learns and grows together. So clear purpose, linking connections, integrated work, collaborative decisions and knowledge sharing will make your team click.
Scott Ritzheimer
I love that. I love that so easy to remember as well. So the one that really jumped out to me as I was reading through the book, because we’ve touched on on parts of this and with different guests. And folks that are familiar with our work will know that a lot of this falls in the realm of what we call lateral management, which is really boring phrase for a really important concept. But my question is, how do how do we, especially in this, this linked connections. First off, why is it not enough to think that if you just put the team together that and you work well with all of them, that they will work well with all of them?
Daria Rudnik
Well. Again, the team is not just happens. You cannot just get people together and say, land. Now you’re a team. You need to figure it out how to work together. The teams are designed, and they designed by, again, the rules, the purpose and everything that goes with it. So what leaders often like, miss out. They have those one to one conversations like, I think everybody knows how important they are, and they have those one to one conversations trying to help people grow, people develop people. What they’re not doing is not connecting those team members to each other, and especially an executive team, I see a lot of competition for resources for CEOs attention, who is always like very, very busy. So what they’re trying to do is trying to get this more one to one conversations, rather than collaborating on some projects, some mini initiatives, some decision making frameworks, anything that will connect them to each other. And with the story I wanted to share with you is there was a CEO of a small manufacturing company. They had conflicts on the team, on the executive team, and it happened that the conflicts were not because people were disengaged so they didn’t like each other. It’s just because they didn’t understand how they want to reach the same goal, which is building an amazing company. So they all had different ideas. Some people thought about equality, some people thought about distribution channels, some people thought about raising prices or something else, and they were in this constant conflict. So what we actually did is CEO kind of step aside, not left the room, but let people talk and discuss their ideas and share their opinions, so that they learn about their approaches better. They learn better about like they each other as their personalities, and eventually they come up with a list of rules, how they want to work as a team. What are they keep it up and cut it out behaviors. So the keep it up behaviors are behaviors they want to see on the team, like sharing feedback, talking about problems when they race and cut it out. Behaviors is behaviors that they’re not going to tolerate on the team, like, I don’t know, gossiping or something else. So they were good to go. I mean, we worked for six months, and about a few months after that, CEO called me and said, Hey, I have something interesting to share with you. Like, everything’s going fine, business going right. We have less conflict. People talking. But the team decided that the sales leader needs to go why? Because she constantly violated those keep it up and cut it out, behaviors that they decided as a team are important for them to perform well and feel well at work. So they didn’t go to CEO and say, Hey, what should we do? They got together. They had decisions. They made this decision. They went to the CEO, they kind of shared their thoughts with him, and well, she was gone, and. And he didn’t have to do that. It was done because they had those rules, because they talked to each other, and they created those norms of how the team works.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, this really goes to the heart of the transition from what I call stage four, that, you know, kind of being the leader, to stage five, being a CEO and leading an executive team, and as you’re telling that story, I can imagine folks listening who are both like terrified and excited by that. The idea that your team could make that big a decision amongst themselves without you is terrifying and exactly what they want. How do you help someone who’s so used to being in the middle of every single thing, to be able to step back to the sidelines like that and without abdicating their role as the leader of the organization.
Daria Rudnik
I love the question, and I totally, I totally get it. I mean, it’s, it’s scary, especially when you’ve been into like every single detail, and now you just have to what, stop running your business. How do you do that? But you don’t have to do it, like, all at once. You can do it step by step. Like, for example, these are decisions that I don’t want to, like, think about it. Just do it. These are decisions just come to me for advice. Like, ask me for some input. These decisions come to me with ideas, and I’ll choose one. These are totally mine. Again, you decide with your team how you divide decision making authority, and then go with it, and then you can change it.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, this whole idea of deciding how you’ll decide is so powerful, and it keeps coming up in some of your answers. You touched on something Daria that I think’s really important, and I don’t want to gloss over it, because it’s different than what a lot of other folks say to some extent, and that is your opinion on at least the degree to which we use one on one meetings right now. So for a lot of folks, their coaches are telling them, You have to meet with your team, you have to meet with your team, you have to meet with your team, you have to meet with your team, and they’re driving these one on ones. But there’s a downside to doing that, or at least doing it wrong. What? What could possibly go wrong with one on ones?
Daria Rudnik
It’s not just one on ones, because it’s a great tool. It’s just they don’t have anything else apart from that. Again, I’ll tell you a story. There was a chief cyber security officer. She she was, she wanted to be a good leader, and she wanted to support and protect her team members. What she did, she had one two, like one on ones she but she also had handled all the communication outside of her team, talking to stakeholders, getting feedback from them, like understanding their needs and kind of sharing it with with the team. What happened is that, instead of felt that like they’re protected, the team felt disengaged, and they started to lose motivation, because they kind of lost connection with the broad organization. So it changed when this cyber security officer started to bring them into conversations she was having with broader organization. So those people went to their stakeholders, started to having conversations with them, and that made them understand, here are the people we’re serving. Here are the people who receive benefit from our work, who are impacted by our work. Here is the broader organizational vision. We now understand that. So by being connected to other members, rather than just with their team, with their leader, they became more engaged, more motivated, and they could better serve their organization.
Scott Ritzheimer
I love that, Daria, I’ve got one more question for you here. It’s a question that I ask all my guests. I’m very interested to see what you’d have to say. But the question is this, what would you say is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all. What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Daria Rudnik
Well, that’s that’s a very interesting question. And I think, like for me, I wish I knew that it’s okay to say I don’t know that yet, because I see a lot of leaders struggling when there is sort of, like uncertainty and they don’t know what to do. And a lot of CEOs like do that they can. I’d rather not say anything, because I don’t have all the answers, and that creates a lot of like frustration among team members and employees, but going out there and saying, Hey, I don’t have all the answers yet, but I know how to figure out. I know the first step. I know, like, who to talk to. I know something, and we’ll figure it out together.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I love that, that vulnerability is really the Root of Trust and opens up so much more creativity as well. It’s really, really, really great point. Darya, there’s some folks listening that love to know more about this. Where can folks find out more about you? Where can they get a copy of your book Clicking?
Daria Rudnik
Clicking? Well, you can find more about me on my website, dariarudnik.com my book is available on Amazon in all major book retailers. Please connect with me on LinkedIn. I’m very open to connections. Send me a message. Let’s keep this conversation going.
Scott Ritzheimer
Brilliant. Daria, thanks so much for being on the show. Really was a privilege and honor. Having you here with us today. Loved the book and loved this episode. Thank you. Appreciate it. And for those of you watching and listening, you know your time and attention mean the world to us, I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time, take care.
Contact Daria Rudnik
With a proven track record of guiding leaders and teams through global challenges, Daria Rudnik is a Team Architect and Executive Leadership Coach. She is a former Chief People Officer and ex-Deloitte professional, bringing over 15 years of international executive experience in tech and telecom. Throughout her career, she has helped leaders from fast-growing startups navigate global financial crises, wars, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Daria supports busy leaders in building high-performing teams. Her approach blends team and leadership coaching, organizational consulting, and assessments. She also developed an AI-powered coaching tool to further enhance her clients’ success.
Want to learn more about Daria Rudnik’s work at Daria Rudnik Coaching & Consulting? Check out her website at https://dariarudnik.com/
You can get her book Clicking at https://www.amazon.com/CLICKING-Building-Strategy-Overloaded-Stronger/dp/1968318054
Connect with Daria through her LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/dariarudnik/