Last year I started to explore a new system of learning about leadership that I called the Leadership Lattice. Over time, my thinking on this has evolved. I think the Lattice is not just a model for learning leadership, but for building companies itself. It’s a structure that describes how a company works as a system.

In essence, a startup is a system of impact. A system designed to translate an individiual human’s effort into the maximum possible impact.

As a leader in a startup, my view is that we have the privelege that every person on our team has chosen to spend part of their career journey with us. Our job is to turn that time spent into the maximum impact that the individual desires. Impact can be on their own growth, on their teams, or the market where the business operates.

As leaders our responsibility is to manage that path. To own the entire system of impact. It starts with the individual, their teams, their individual and collective output, how that is receieved in market, and the broader impact of that effort.

Leaders, and founders especially, should think of their startup as a system of personal impact. In the early days, the focus is entirely on the products and how they are received. But as the company grows and the right people are managing the right roles - leadership’s role evolves to building this system of impact.