Me-We-Us Leadership
Leadership evolves from self, to team, to whole-company culture as you scale.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 85%
Dawson maps leadership to three stages that shift as the business grows. 'Me' leadership is the founder's own belief and grit — essential early but unscalable. As the business moves from 8M to 25M, it must become 'We' leadership: a core team of three to five inspiring everyone, because the founder alone can no longer prop the company up. From 45M to 75M it becomes 'Us' leadership — cultural leadership where committed, brand-believing employees push and pull the company and even run off the disengaged bottom 30-40%.
Origin
Dawson built the model from Gallup's 25-year finding that two-thirds of US workers are disengaged and 18% admit to sabotaging their company — proof that a founder cannot personally hold the whole weight and must transition to team and cultural leadership.
Core principles
- 01Me leadership is the founder's own patience, persistence, and perseverance carrying the vision.
- 02We leadership is a core team inspiring everyone, because the founder can no longer prop everyone up alone.
- 03Us leadership is cultural leadership, where the whole committed company pushes and pulls the business forward.
- 04Two-thirds of workers are disengaged and roughly a fifth actively sabotage, so culture must eventually carry the weight.
How to run it
- 1
Establish strong Me leadership
As founder, hold the patience, persistence, and perseverance to never give up on the target — even after a thousand failures.
Watch out If you lower your me-leadership, everyone around you lowers their expectations.
- 2
Build We leadership
From 8M to 25M, develop a core leadership team (three at 15M, five at 25M) who inspire everyone that the goal is achievable, so you are not propping up the company alone.
- 3
Cultivate Us leadership
From 45M to 75M, grow a committed culture of people who believe in the brand and the destination and who collectively drag the company to success.
Pro tip A committed culture will run off the disengaged bottom 30-40% for you.
Watch out With 100 employees, roughly 60% do little and 20% try to put you out of business — culture is how you overcome that.
In the wild
Dawson cites that in a 100-person company, about 60 are actively or passively disengaged and 20 are sabotaging — far too much for one founder to carry through personal motivation.
→ The founder who transitions to We and then Us leadership offloads that weight onto a core team and a committed culture.
Common mistakes
Staying in Me leadership too long
Trying to personally motivate and prop up a growing company past 8M leaves the founder exhausted while standards and targets slip.
Relying on unproven people to set the tone
Owners hope the people they surround themselves with will set the culture, but those people have never operated in that environment and cannot.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders scaling through the 8M, 25M, and 75M leadership transitions.
Not ideal for
Solo operators or micro-businesses with no team to lead.
From the transcript
“that goes from me leadership to creating we leadership, a group of us doing it.”
“Twothirds say they're actively disengaged or disengaged. 18% admit they're sabotaging the company.”
From the episode
Brandon Dawson: 97% of Startups Fail! How to Beat the Odds and Scale to 9 Figures
Brandon Dawson