The 15-Person Breaking Point Most Founders Miss ft. Alicia Rius

I always say that it doesn't matter how many frameworks, tools, and scripts that we give to people, it won't stick if they don't know who they are in this new moment. And not only talking about identity, it's also about value.

Welcome to the Wealthy Entrepreneur Podcast. I am your host, Bob Gauvreau. It is a pleasure to have you with us here today. I wanna remind you that this is the place where we dissect the elements that contribute to entrepreneurial success, from mindset and leadership to profits and revenue. And let's talk about leadership as a component of that today as well. I'm delighted to have a special guest today, Alicia Rius, founder of Hive Leadership and Team Coaching. She's a leadership strategist, an executive coach, and author of a fantastic book called Lead with Clarity. Alicia brings fast-growing companies scale, leadership, culture, and execution without burning out their teams or breaking the people layers of their business. You know, you guys, if you've been listening for an extended period of time with me, leadership is one of the most important attributes that you can continue to focus on developing in yourself and in your team, continuing to build leaders. So that your organization is stronger, more aligned, more accountable, and producing even greater results. So excited to have Alicia come in today and share her insights on how leaders continue to grow and evolve within an organization. So today we're gonna dive into how clarity becomes the operating system that allows founders to scale without breaking their leadership layer. We talk about when leadership and evolution of individuals is going to become imperative for long-term success within an organization.. And you know what? She actually brings in some insights as to, you know, what size the team is before you need to start implementing this type of operating system. And you know what? I couldn't agree with her more. So excited to have her share those insights with you today. But again, she's going to talk about how founders can scale without breaking their leadership layer, at what point, and what are some of the things that we need to be thinking about as well. So excited. Very excited to bring in the founder of Hive Leadership and Team Coaching, author of Lead with Clarity, Alicia Rius, to the show today. Alicia, welcome to the Wealthy Entrepreneur Podcast. Thanks for coming all the way from Barcelona to hang out with me today.

Sí, of course. That's nice being here with you.

Yeah, no, this is gonna be wonderful. And you know, for anyone who's been listening to the podcast for quite some time, of course we're in, I think we're in year 3, you'll hear me talk about leadership and the importance of leadership and self-development and continuing to evolve as the leader. And I think Alicia brings a lot of expertise to this. But before we jump into that, Alicia, I love to sort of hear the founder story. Do you want to just maybe take us back to how you got into what you're into and how you got to where you are today?

Yes, I'm a fourth-generation entrepreneur. And but I didn't start there. I started in advertising first in Barcelona, and then I moved across Europe in different cities. Then at a moment I went to San Francisco. There I built a photography business that became international. And in the midst of that, I co-founded a music tech startup. And that's how I become a founder. And then I serve as a COO. And it was during that time that I realized how much I love creating stuff, creating businesses, because that was my fourth venture. And throughout That experience as a leader and leading a company and learning how to build a startup, I realized how little I knew about the world and how the lack of clarity about the things that I was doing was stopping me from getting my full potential, but also the company. And I started to become a coach to not only for myself, but also to lead the teams that I was working with. And today I'm a full-time coach and I also wrote a book that's called Lead with Clarity that talks about the very same theme about transitioning from doing the work to leading others.

And I love that. And so, so leadership almost came to you out of necessity, right? As you sort of evolved into your role and you, you jumped into it. I like, I did something very similar as well. I remember, and Alicia, this is, I want to hear from you, but I'm going to just quickly share, share this a few years back. I sort of hit a point in my business too. Our team's about 185 people at the moment, and I remember we were at about 30 to 40 people going, I don't know how to lead this group and I don't know if I have the skills that were necessary to take this team to the next level. And I remember sort of diving in deep for, I'm going to say, a period of about 8 months. And I must have read— I was reading 2 to 3 books a week trying to find the skills that I needed, how to build the right culture, how to understand how to be a true leader, how to create core values, and how to create a strategic vision that everyone wanted to buy into. And I know a lot of people won't do that, right? And, and don't necessarily understand that. And so you've written this book, Lead with Clarity, and I think you talk about your 4 Ps leadership framework. And I feel like this is foundational for people understanding leadership. Do you wanna walk us through what your framework is?

Yes. The framework is a very simple way to diagnose where clarity is missing in your leadership.

Mm-hmm.

But let me give you a bit of context how I came to that, because I think that's the, for me, the interesting part throughout the journey of, okay, how do I lead others? Same as you reading books, and I've been investing on my own leadership for over 20 years, but it's different doing it for yourself than doing it to serve others. So I studied different masters, MBAs about coaching leadership from Harvard to Stanford to small companies doing their own training, and everything felt kind of disconnected. Some people would talk about strategy, others about vision, others about execution and communication as if they were separate muscles. But at the end of the day, everything goes back to having clarity and how you translate that into something that people understand and everybody's on the same page. So when I started to look back about all the problems that I face in leadership, any of them would fall into one or the four, one or more of the four buckets. So it's either a personal problem, a people problem, purpose, or process. And that's how I created the Four Ps because that helped me to organize leadership in a way that it's easier to understand and also in a way that when you're going through this lack of clarity, when you feel confused and overwhelmed, that organizes it in 4 different buckets, and that allows you to choose one that you need the most, and you work on that instead of trying to handle everything at the same time, which is what we're trying to do. So that's the framework. It's very easy to understand and simple enough to scale with your business.

And so when you're thinking of the, the 4P framework that you've created and you think of, you know, the tie-in to organizational growth and the growth and sustainability of a business, what are maybe the most important takeaways from your framework and also from your book Lead with Clarity that helps organizations grow and scale? Because I'll give you some context there of why I ask. I remember sort of going through some of these growth times in my business and it continues to happen. But I know that certain phases of growth or certain sizes of an organization, all of a sudden that clarity starts to disappear. Right. And I remember for me it was around 30 people and I used to know what everybody was doing. I used to know all the customers, the clients that were calling in. And at around 30 people, you start to lose some of that. And, you know, as you lose some of that, if you don't have systems in place to ensure that everybody's taken care of, both your, your customers and your, your team, things start to go a little crazy. So how important is it as part of leadership and even as part of the operations of growth to have this type of clarity? And what are maybe some thoughts that you have on how people can ensure that that's in there.

Okay, that's a lot to unpack.

Sorry, I know. I get excited about this though, right? Because I think leadership and leadership training is, is so important because, you know, again, we, we actually have organization, we have professional development budgets for everybody on our team to continue to focus on self-development, but The majority of people don't use it. And it's crazy because we— that is there for individuals to help them grow and to invest in themselves and for us to invest in them and they won't even do it. So when I think of leadership training, you go, man, oh man, you're not going to do it on your own. And maybe it's because you don't know what direction to turn. So that's what I'm wondering, Alicia, with your expertise, what sort of direction should they be looking in? And then, of course, I want to tell them how they can work with you to support with that. But, you know, thinking independently, what should they start thinking about as part of being in a growing organization and what area of leadership they need to focus on?

So there are two parts, and I think I'm going to start with the first part before about how clarity needs to be the operational system of all companies. Most companies misdiagnose this, so they think that leadership problem, execution problem, or a strategy problem, but they all almost always have a clarity problem dressed up as one of those. So recently I was hired by a media company and the CEO told me to help her with her problem, which was, I have an issue with my direct reports. So a leadership problem. 6 weeks in, the diagnosis changed. What we realized is that there were clarity missing in vision, in strategy, in values, in the ways of working, how they would prioritize, colliding priorities. So we have to go back to that. So everybody was doing their own thing, kind of building their own processes, so as building little companies within the same company. So from the outside it looked like a leadership problem, but from the inside it was a foundation problem. So strategy, execution, and communication, they all sit on top of clarity. And growth is what happens when you are holding that clarity. And the opposite happens, uh, is a stagnation when there is no clarity. And that's why I think when companies have a lot of issues or struggling or they are stalling, and I think they have one of these issues, if you start to stripping up those layers and all that noise, you realize that it's because there is clarity missing in one of those 4 buckets or even more. It's about how people lead themselves, which that links to your second part about how do we need to help them. Then people, how do we work together? Purpose, where are we going together and why that matters? And process, what's the type of work and systems that would support the way we work and the growth? So clarity is the foundation of everything, and I think companies should invest in having that Clarity as an operating system, that's the compass.

Absolutely. And, you know, I found this in my business as well. You know, again, as you grow, you see that you don't have the same interaction with every individual within your business as you once did, right? I remember back when we started, we were all in like this shared space. I could hear every conversation that everybody was having. And, and again, you're very connected. And so as you grow, how do you continue to maintain that connection? Because people want to know what's expected of them, where they're going, what the growth opportunities are, what they need to do to succeed, which is all sort of founded on clarity. And, you know, one area that I feel we've introduced in the last couple of years that was very helpful and almost like common sense that you should do it, but, but I don't think many organizations do, is to get very specific on the expectations of every single role within the organization and from junior all the way up to the top and share how they in their role contribute to the success of the organization. Because many times in my experience, junior employees don't really understand how they're helping the organization succeed. They kind of feel like, you know, they're there, they're just a warm body, they're doing work, but they don't really understand how that transitions into the success of the company. And when we get that clarity in there and that alignment of how they're really making an impact in the business success, you know, we get greater buy-in and we get greater outputs and greater alignment. When you think of clarity and a team, you know, do you focus on how you bring everybody in from junior all the way to senior? Is there a communication channel or strategy that you focus on that brings that alignment together? Or what does, what does that look like? Like, how do people start to bring that clarity into, into focus?

I think you have to work with layers. So, and you said something very interesting before, and I think that's tied to motivation about how people don't understand how they contribute to the bigger picture, and then they feel like they are warm bodies. So that clarity, you need to start there at the very first layer. I think that's where the power is, because if you invest in that first layer of leadership, you start investing in having the first layer of your leadership pipeline to become very strong, because that will translate as the company grows. Now, something very interesting is that that alignment, it starts with expectations, as you said. But before that, I think it's about helping them understand the transition that they're going through, especially if they are new managers. Because again, you, before you were saying that we invest in training, but people don't want to do the training. And why is that? We believe that leadership development is so important, but I think it's important once they understand how they bring value to the company as an individual, because when you are an individual contributor, When you're a doer, that's very clear what you do. If I'm a developer, I bring value through code. If I'm a designer, I bring value through my designs. But the moment that you have to get the work done through others and you don't tell them that they have to let go the very thing that make them successful, that is so shocking and paradoxical. So they keep doing the thing that we're doing, trying to prove themselves. They try to do both roles and everything gets messy because they become the bottleneck. So if you wanna First, you know, build the company, explain that they're going through a transition and they need the support through that transition first. Once they understand how they're bringing value and what their new identity is, then they can start focusing on what's next and align expectations. Then the job description comes in. This is what I expect from you. But there is a previous step that is not acknowledged. And I think the gap and people not doing the training and investing in that is because they don't see how that's going to bring value to them. And then you had a second part about the alignment between, right, managers and like new managers. Everybody. Everybody.

Everybody from top to bottom.

Yeah. So I think that starts with, again, oneself at the personal level. It happens many times that when somebody is not able to communicate something with clarity is because clarity is missing in their own realm. So you have to, as a person, try to understand, okay, how do I bring value? What's my role, my responsibility? Do I understand what's expected from me? Now I'm thinking about a C-level executive, because what happens many times is that we go with the inertia and there is clarity missing somewhere there that, you know, ripples down the stream. So I think it's important to have these conversations at all the levels, at, you know, by groups, but also about how we work together. Because at the end of the day, you're an organization. Different levels of expertise will work together and we use different languages. We have different expectations, different experiences. So you have to have a common language to understand each other. And once you have that common language, then you can start communicating and start bringing down, okay, how the thing that you're asking, that strategy, that vision, how does that translate into daily tasks for me? So that's why from the top to the bottom, there has to be a straight line that makes sense for all of them.

Absolutely. And I think, yeah, you nailed it with that because if it's not there, that's when we see misalignment when there is no— well, actually, let me ask you. So when, when there's no alignment and we're missing clarity, what usually happens in an organization as they're trying to grow?

I'll tell you with something that I lived in my own startup. The first thing that you see, or one of the first things, is a lot of waste in the way we work. I started seeing a lot of delays in the releases. I started to see a lot of confusion and people burning out, starting with myself, because again, I didn't have clarity about how I was supposed to bring value because I didn't own the role. I didn't give the role. I created the role because the situation demanded for somebody to run the operations. So I became that person without knowing exactly how that work. So start there with that clarity, because otherwise what you start seeing is, again, misalignment, people doing extra work, people burning out, gaps. So some people will do the same task and then somebody Nobody will own a part of the work. So, when you look back at what happened, it's like, oh, that's a process problem, you didn't send me the email. Hold on, let's go back, what happened? Oh, expectations of who owns what wasn't clear because we don't have a system that walks us through of how do we work together. So, that's what you start seeing. There's all of this, what you see are symptoms of from lack of clarity at the very basic level.

And before we hopped on, you know, you kind of said, I understand you're an accountant and you're a CPA, and how do we tie all of this together? Right. Well, this is— I think this is a key element. You know, when there's lack of clarity, there's lack of accountability, you know, results start to slip. And one of the things that you will notice, business owners, is that when you don't have this system in place, profit margins start to slip. Productivity drops, the business becomes way less successful, stress levels go way up. You know, the anxiety amongst the team starts to build and you start to have retention issues and, and all kinds of things. But like, let's drive back to the profitability here for a second. If you do not have clarity and alignment, your profitability will struggle. And it is so important. And, you know, Alicia's talked about that alignment and even bringing in the accountability. People need to know where they fit, how they contribute, and when they fully understand that and everybody's working on the same page, productivity is higher, the culture is better, and the profitability will be better in the organization. So there, Alicia, we did it. We brought together, you know, profitability and team and leadership. But so important, guys, you know, I got to tell you, you know, Alicia, you sort of hit on something that happened with me a few years ago, and it was an emotional time where I had to say I'm no longer the accountant and the identity that I had of being the go-to expert I had to pass on because they needed the leader and they needed me to continue to evolve, or we needed to find someone who was going to take over that leadership and That was tough. That was a really tough transition time for me. You know, emotionally was because I was giving up what got me to where I was today to sort of say, hey, I need to get to the next evolution of who I can become. And, and it was tough. And, you know, if you're going to continue to grow into a leader, you're going to have to let things go that probably made you successful in the past. Alicia, do you see a lot of obstacles and roadblocks and people not willing to let go of certain things that sort of hold them and their organization back?

Absolutely. You said it yourself in the beginning, the more responsibilities that you have within an organization, the higher your level of management you get, you start losing visibility. You get farther and farther away from the operational layer, and that's scary. Because that's what's familiar to you and that brings you certainty. So when you start seeing what's happening, you have to trust others that they can do the job either as good as you or even better. And sometimes that's hard because what got you there in this position, it's because you knew all the shortcuts, you knew your craft, you have invested in it for years. So sometimes what happens is when something goes derails, you go back to doing, I'll fix it myself because it's easier and faster if I do it myself. And that also gives you a thrill, but also it becomes the bottleneck. And going back to what you said before about the cost of it, poor management costs the global economy $7 trillion a year. So that's— It's crazy. It is crazy when you look at it in that way. So that is giving us a lot of information about what we need to start doing differently because As you said, losing that power of visibility, you need to trust others. So to trust others, you need to create systems for things to happen in a way that feels safe for everybody. And that's how you have to focus on. So you as a leader and as a founder can focus on how— in things that you bring value and let the others do their own thing. But that's hard because you have to give up control, basically.

It is hard and it's something again that everybody's gonna need to go through. And I think you even said it, you know, what got you to where you are today isn't what's going to get you to that next level of success. You know, you've gotta, we've been talking about this, we being myself and a lot of the founders that we work with, the constant need to reinvent yourself. And, you know, today with technology and AI advancements and everything, the need to reinvent yourself seems way faster and more constant than it ever has been. But truthfully, you know, the leverage that AI provides and technology provides us that is, is completing tasks that we used to have to do, you know, how do we repurpose ourselves to a higher power so that we're focusing on leadership and, and providing that clarity. Because truthfully, I think one of the greatest things a leader can do is provide clarity and support for everybody to be successful. And but without that clarity, you know, everybody feels very lost. And truthfully, you know, for someone like me who is coming through those, those leadership sort of struggles personally, you don't know what you don't know. And so, Alicia, this is maybe a really good segue to talk about the company that you founded and the coaching that you do? How do you help support entrepreneurs with their leadership training and their individual advancement in their leadership?

One thing that I do, and the training starts at the identity level, at the first bit, the personal, because that's the part where we most, uh, struggle. As you said it, we live in times where everything goes very fast and it's all about output, output, output. And we have little time to pause and reflect because that's something that I struggle with, pausing, because I always feel that there is not enough time in this world for me to catch up with all the work that I need to do as founder of Hive, this other coaching, the coaching company. And same happened before. And I think that's the feeling most founders feel about everything falls onto you. So we go back into, okay, let's pause, let's reflect. What are you losing? In this transition? What do you need to let go to become the leader that you want to be? And what are the things that you're missing that you need to go and seek? Once you start there and once you have that information, you can move on to the next level. I always say that it doesn't matter how many frameworks, tools, and scripts that we give to people, it won't stick if they don't know who they are in this new moment. And not only talking about identity, it's also about value. And again, it's not about where you sit in the, in the company, like your physical chair. It is about how you bring value within the system and to the system. Because sometimes not even the company knows. They promote you, but they fail to explain exactly what do you need to do. So that's what the training focus on. About how you bring value, how you create the structure, and how you create that clarity for others. Because as founders, everything is in our head and we know everything, the vision, the strategy, the product, the feels, the new features. And that works pretty well when you are just 5, but it breaks at 15 people. And that's how you need to create systems to make sure that the clarity that you hold in your head the first leadership layer can hold that for you and without you in the room. And that's what I'm helping them with.

So you're saying that me getting to 30 people before I broke everything, you know, I really, I either did well or I was so stubborn that I should have proactively solved this when I hit 15 people. And I know that's the answer, right? But again, you don't know what you don't know. And truthfully, guys, if you're looking to grow and scale a company, your individual leadership is so important. And understanding how you evolve as that leader, you know, the, the business growth is going to be— and we talk about the transition of identity and, and, you know, the skill sets and everything. But truthfully, regardless of all of that, the business is going to grow based on you growing with it. And if you don't grow as a leader, you don't grow your systems, you don't grow the clarity, the transparency, the communication channels, the alignment, the accountability— like, all of these are skills that leaders need to successfully grow a business. And there's two ways that you can get access to that. You can do it on your own, or you can work with people who know how to help you get there faster. And this is where Alicia and her team do a really incredible job with their leadership and team coaching at Hive. So the other piece, you know, that I think is super important for everybody, you know, I did this. I mentioned reading so many books. Grab Alicia's book, Lead with Clarity, understand some of the frameworks, dive in a little bit, understand, you know, how her and her team can bring value and then reach out and connect. Alicia, if you were to think of an owner who's at 14 people right before things start to get a little chaotic with 15, what's maybe one piece of advice based on what you know now that you would give that person at 14 people, um, a little direction to help them get to the next iteration of success?

I would say that have the awareness that you are the person that made it happen, but it's also the same person that can make everything fall apart.

Yeah, deep.

I'll leave it there. It—

that one, you know what, that's like— and listen, every founder who's listening to this right now can feel that deep in their soul because they've put everything into building where they are today. But truthfully, if you don't evolve and you don't continue to grow as an individual from your systems, from your alignment, that could all go away if you can't take it to the next level. So that's what I heard, at least Alicia Understanding that, hey, you know, you've really done it to today, but you really need to do it again in a different way to get to the next level. Any sort of last thoughts, Alicia? Any last piece of advice for our founders before I, I make sure that they know how to connect with you?

If you are a founder and you are struggling with something and you think it's my strategy, it's my product, it's my team, stop there. And just ask yourself where clarity is missing. Look for the lack of clarity within your organization, and that's what you need to work on. Don't blame other things. Don't blame the systems, the processes, or the people. Just go find where it's lacking. And actually, on my website, if they go to hiveteamcoaching.com/free-resources, there is one free tool that they can use, which in— within minutes you answer a few questions and it'll tell you where your clarity gap is. And that's a good way to start.

Absolutely. So we'll make sure that we put that link, uh, in the comments and in the show notes. So definitely go grab that resource. How can they access Lead with Clarity? Where can they find your book?

On Amazon. Lead with Clarity: How New Managers Turn Confusion into Confident Leadership. That's how it's titled. And Amazon.

Love that. So we'll put the link to that in there as well. Alicia, thank you so much for joining us today. And you know what, I would love to, if I can, invite you to come into our coaching community and maybe do a session with some of our members on leadership. I think you bring so much value in everything that you do, and obviously a very great joy to speak with. So, um, even though you were bragging earlier about how much nicer Barcelona weather is to my Toronto area weather, but that's okay, I won't hold that against you. It is a fact, it is a fact. It's not a bias, it is very true. Uh, we can't lie, you know. Um, but yeah, I would love to have you, you come in and, and spend some time with maybe some of our communities, see how you can support them going forward as well. But thank you for joining today and sharing some of your insights on leadership.

Thanks for having me. It's been a truly pleasure.

Everybody, this has been the Wealthy Entrepreneur Podcast. Once again, I'm your host, Bob Gauvreau. It's been a pleasure to have you with us today. Keep in mind that our journey here is to empower entrepreneurs with the financial confidence to make informed decisions so that as entrepreneurs we continue to make forward progress and make positive change in the world. Because I truly believe entrepreneurs are the strongest community in the world to make great positive progress. If there's been something that Alicia shared today that you think, hey, I really know somebody who would be benefiting from learning or hearing from Alicia, make sure you grab this, share it with them. We're here to support everybody in a free capacity to make sure that we're supporting as many people in moving forward. Leave a comment, leave a question, and make sure you give us a follow because we will be releasing another podcast very soon. Once again, Alicia, thank you for joining today. And for everybody watching, thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next time.