At a tiny startup, the founder and CEO is the Swiss‑Army‑knife who brute forces the first customer sales, builds the product, answers support emails, recruits the first hires and does all the sh*t work. 

But as the company grows, the role starts to change shape.

It becomes less about doing everything and more about sending the right signals, the ones your team uses to calibrate how they work, decide, and behave.

There’s a subtle shift; from founder, to CEO.

And after working inside huge, well-run companies like HubSpot, best-in-class medium-sized operators like The Motley Fool, and scrappy early-stage startups like The Hustle and Hampton, I can tell you this:

There are certain signals great CEOs always send.
And there are others that quietly pull a team off course.

So here’s the framework I’ve created, your operating system as an early-stage CEO:

High-performing CEOs articulate a clear, consistent story about why the company exists, where it’s headed, and how that drives the audience, product, and priorities.

Everyone else will calibrate off your direction.

Great CEOs get super close to customers, read the support tickets, do the exit surveys, take the important calls, recruit early hires personally, and build credibility with partners and investors. You can’t outsource trust. 

In the early days, everything is fragile, and as a startup, nobody knows you or your company, so trust is something that has to be earned and maintained. 

You might be able to go from 0 to 1 by yourself, but eventually, you’ll burn out or fail to reach any sort of real growth if you’re manually doing everything.

At a certain point, you need to start laying the groundwork for repeatable growth, product, and support. Systems are the scaffolding that keep your company from collapsing under its own weight.

People need clarity. They need to know what matters this week, this quarter, this year — and also, what doesn’t. Good CEOs create focus, not chaos. They remove ambiguity so others can move fast without guessing.

Building the right bench isn’t something you can delegate away, this is your job and potentially one of the most important for early-stage startups. Good CEOs play a central role in attracting, developing and retaining top‑tier talent, and making sure the vision and the culture are deeply embedded into these early and key hires.

You coach, you inspire, you course-correct, and yes, you fire. Culture is created by who you choose to keep. 

Your behavior is the culture. How you respond under pressure, how you treat people, how you handle setbacks, how you explain the vision of the company; those are the components of the real operating system everyone else copies.

But frameworks don’t build companies. People do.

And the difference between a CEO who scales from $500k to $10M to $100M… and one who quietly drives the company into the side of a Wawa… almost always comes down to behavior.

Once you understand the SIGNAL model, the real question becomes:

What does a good CEO actually do with these responsibilities, and how do bad CEOs screw them up?

Every CEO ends up operating in one of two lanes: the lane that compounds clarity, momentum, and trust… or the lane that quietly steers things in the wrong direction.

The 7 behaviors below are where the split becomes painfully obvious.

Good CEO: Can clearly articulate the vision, the mission, and the values. They paint a picture that’s lofty enough to inspire but specific enough that you know exactly what you’re building toward.

Their values aren’t just corporate jargon; they’re actually the things that the founder/CEO is insanely passionate about. They can tie values to behaviors, use them as a hiring filter, and evaluate employees through both performance and values.

Bad CEO: Treats the “vision” as a target (“I want to hit $100M ARR”) or their own ego (“I want to build the biggest media company in the world”). They refuse to share vision + mission + values, dismissing the exercise as pointless or claiming “things change too much.”

Or even worse, they can’t articulate their values (“you know ’em when you see ’em”), so no one else can either.

Good CEO: Lives inside the customer’s world. Talks to them. Studies feedback. Understands pain points. Knows who the product is not for. They speak the customer’s language better than any deck.

Bad CEO: Customer understanding = vibes. Or whatever the last podcast guest said. Never on calls. Ignores details. Every potential “prospect” becomes a shiny distraction, so the roadmap changes every 48 hours.

Good CEO: Understands that staying default-alive is the number one job. Knows the numbers. Cash, burn, margin, CAC, payback periods. They allocate capital deliberately, balancing growth with sustainability, and can raise funds without losing focus.

Bad CEO: Thinks “growth” is the strategy. They chase revenue or EBITDA without explaining how to get there or what tradeoffs it will cost. Their goals swing wildly, it’s never enough, and they measure progress by rivals’ feeds, social buzz, or exit headlines. Meanwhile, they neglect the fundamentals, like mindset, margins, and the actual math keeping the business alive.

Good CEO: Sets clear expectations, hires with care, provides goals and guidance, and then gets out of the way. They have high expectations and high support. They celebrate wins, share responsibility for losses, and build people up rather than break them down. They can spot and hire high performers, motivate them, and quickly but kindly let low performers go.

Bad CEO: Gives vague direction, then nitpicks the hell out of the execution. Priorities change constantly. Their questions are always reactive—“What have you been doing?” and “Why isn’t this done yet?”—aimed at symptoms, never root causes.

Under pressure, they default to blame, panic, and projecting their own insecurities. And worst of all, their “strategy” changes every day, week, or month, so the team never truly knows which fire drill is real.

Good CEO: Moves quickly but thoughtfully. Balances paranoia with confidence. Can be intense when lifting the team up and calm when things hit the fan.

Bad CEO: Mistakes speed for competence. Decisions are frantic, emotional, or contradictory. Avoids conflict until it blows up — usually with some passive-aggressive fireworks.

Good CEO: Spends real time cultivating relationships, recruiting leaders, and surrounding themselves with top talent. They understand that how they treat people — high performers, low performers, and everyone in between — sets the tone for the entire company. Their integrity is non‑negotiable; their value is most obvious when times are tough.

Bad CEO: Collects vs. cultivates. Loyalty is one-way. Mostly, a bad CEO has an integrity that bends when times get tough, and values that vanish the second they’re inconvenient.

Good CEO: Tells an inspiring story that weaves together vision, strategy, and values. They’re direct, empathetic, intense, and kind. Their confidence is tempered by self-doubt; their paranoia fuels diligence, not paralysis.

Bad CEO: Speaks in slogans. Confuses shouting or a fear-based approach with leadership. Adopts everyone’s opinion. Leaves the team guessing what actually matters.

But, they do need to be consistent.

A SIGNAL CEO shows up the same way every day:

A Bad CEO shows up as a new character every week.

Choose your lane. The company will take its cues from you.

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