Accessibility and growth
As companies grow, leaders naturally become more difficult to reach.
There are more meetings, more decisions, more departments and more people competing for attention.
Some distance is unavoidable.
But I don't believe becoming inaccessible should be treated as a sign that a founder has become successful.
I think the opposite can sometimes happen.
The further a CEO moves from employees, customers and everyday problems, the easier it becomes to lead an organisation that exists mainly in presentations.
Accessibility doesn't mean everyone controls your calendar
Being accessible does not mean every employee should be able to interrupt the CEO at any moment.
It does not mean bypassing managers.
And it certainly does not mean the founder should personally solve every operational issue.
A company still needs structure.
For me, accessibility means something simpler.
People should not feel that leadership exists in another world.
There should be a reasonable way for information, ideas and genuine problems to reach the top when necessary.
Some information gets weaker as it moves upward
Every layer of management interprets information.
Usually that is useful.
Managers summarise. They prioritise. They protect leadership from unnecessary noise.
But information can also become cleaner than reality as it travels upward.
A small operational issue becomes “under control”.
An unhappy customer becomes “a minor concern”.
An employee who is struggling becomes a line in a report.
Direct conversations occasionally reveal things dashboards cannot.
That is one reason I still value being approachable.
Employees behave differently when leadership listens
People don't expect a CEO to agree with everything they say.
What matters more is whether they believe they can raise something meaningful without being ignored.
That affects culture.
If people believe nobody wants to hear bad news, eventually leadership stops receiving bad news.
The problem does not disappear.
Only the visibility disappears.
I would rather hear about a problem while it is uncomfortable than discover it later when it has become expensive.
Accessibility also creates responsibility
There is another side to this.
A founder cannot say “my door is always open” and then personally become the alternative manager for every employee.
That damages the organisation.
Accessibility should strengthen the management structure rather than undermine it.
Sometimes the correct response from a CEO is not to solve the problem.
It is to understand it and ensure that the correct owner solves it.
That distinction becomes more important as a business grows.
Leadership should remain connected to reality
I expect my own role to keep changing as the businesses I work on grow.
There will be things I need to stop doing.
There will be decisions other people should own completely.
But I don't want growth to create such a large distance that I stop understanding the experience of the people actually doing the work.
For me, being an accessible CEO isn't about being available for everything.
It is about remaining connected enough to know what matters.