Are you hiring a subordinate or someone who can drive your company forward?

Growth needs people who understand the goal, take ownership and help make better decisions. How do you find them and give them room to act?

When a founder says, “I need another person,” they often have a job title in mind. What they actually need is an outcome: a product that reaches the market, sales that no longer depend on them alone, customers who stay, or a team that can make good decisions when the founder is not in the room.

Growth takes more than someone who waits for instructions and follows them correctly. It takes people who understand the goal, notice the obstacle, speak honestly about it and help put a solution into practice. This does not mean every new employee must become a co-founder. It means their contribution must be allowed to go beyond a task list.

When a leader has only experienced average results, a person can start to look like a cost and AI like the only way to get more done. I see it differently: a person is the company's greatest source of leverage when they are in the right role and can use their strengths. AI can accelerate that leverage.

Start with the constraint on growth, not an empty seat

Before writing a job ad, ask what is holding the company back. Is the founder still doing sales that should be carried by a process and a team? Does customer retention depend on one person? Are product decisions slow because no one owns the whole outcome? Is the team busy without knowing which result matters most?

Describe the change you want in a way you can examine six or twelve months from now. For example, opportunities move through a reliable sales process, customer feedback reaches product development, or projects finish without the founder stepping in to rescue them every day. Only then ask what work and decisions will create that change.

You may discover that you do not need to hire yet. Some work may fit someone already on the team, some processes need repair and some tasks should stop altogether. If a real gap remains, you now have a much better brief.

Do not buy obedience. Build the ability to decide.

An obedient subordinate may feel convenient at first. They do not disagree, they wait for precise instructions and carry them out. In a growing company that quickly becomes a constraint: every difficult choice, exception and new opportunity ends up back on the founder's desk.

Someone who drives growth is not someone who does whatever they like. They know the outcome they own, which decisions they can make, when to involve others and when to say quickly that the current plan is failing. Ownership needs clear boundaries, access to information and a leader who listens even when the news is bad.

If a candidate asks why something is done a certain way, that is not automatically defiance. They may have spotted a problem we no longer see. A founder's job is not to find a copy of themselves or someone who always agrees. It is to build a team whose strengths complement one another.

Be honest about the work and the environment

A strong candidate can still be the wrong hire if the promised job and the real job are different. Promise a strategic role but fill most days with repetitive manual work, and disappointment follows. Promise autonomy but review every decision, and initiative disappears.

Before making an offer, explain the company's stage, financial reality, working pace, decision-making habits and the parts of the job that are still uncertain. In a small company, uncertainty is often unavoidable. A misleading promise is not. The right person can make an informed choice only when they see the real picture.

“Cultural fit” must not mean that everyone thinks alike. Ask whether people can trust one another, resolve disagreements and work towards a shared result. Different backgrounds and viewpoints may be exactly what growth requires.

Assess real work, not the feeling after an interview

An enjoyable conversation does not prove that someone can create value in this role. Give them a situation drawn from the actual work and ask how they would approach it. What information would they need first? Which decision would they make themselves? Whom would they involve? How would they notice that their solution was not working?

Do not look for one perfect answer. Listen to the reasoning, specific examples from earlier work and whether the candidate can talk about their limits. If you need someone who brings a client network and proven sales methods tomorrow, assess demonstrated experience. If you have time to develop someone, you can choose a beginner with great potential. That beginner may also be a 45-year-old career changer.

These are different investment decisions. In either case, be clear before agreeing what the company can offer and what it truly expects in return.

Hard times show whether we meant the word partnership

You cannot recruit someone to take ownership and then treat them as a disposable cost at the first sign of trouble. When results weaken, share the real situation early. Listen to what the team sees. Review priorities, working methods and costs, and give people a chance to help change course.

This is not a promise that layoffs will never be necessary. Sometimes they are unavoidable. But if a leader leaves people in the dark, makes every decision alone and then calls them “not entrepreneurial enough”, they have denied those people the chance to help lead the company forward.

People do not stay because of a hiring decision alone. They stay when promises are kept, feedback is honest, responsibility is reasonable, there is room to grow and the company acts fairly when circumstances are difficult.

AI helps the right person achieve more

AI can draft an ad, sort information and speed up routine work. But when a company does not know which outcome it needs, AI simply finishes the unclear work faster. The wrong criteria will also produce the wrong candidate ranking faster.

Growth comes from people who can recognize value, make choices and use tools in service of the goal. Start with the person and the work, then, not with the tool. Ask what kind of judgement and ownership the company needs in its next stage. Give the right person the conditions to drive the company forward with you.

— Mikk Orglaan