I recently had the opportunity to have dinner with a small group of startup CEOs. Unusually, none of them had actually founded a startup before – they were all professional managers brought in to take a startup to the next level.

We discussed the lessons they had learnt over the course of their startup careers (most had led more than one startup), and one thing that kept coming up was how best to manage their relationship with the startup’s founders.

They agreed that the right approach was being firm with the founders that they were in charge, and to quit quickly otherwise. This did not mean pushing the founders aside, rather that the founders should stick to the division of responsibilities that were agreed upon and not  engage in non-productive interference, particularly in areas they had little expertise in. Trying to politely ignore or manage around such antics simply prolonged the inevitable, and could seriously hurt the startup in the process.