Management Philosophy

We have a bias against management overhead. The more layers between a decision and the person doing the work, the slower and worse the decision usually is.

That doesn't mean we don't have team managers. It means we're deliberate about what management is for.

What managers actually do

A manager at Hardal has a short list:

1. Set context. Help your team understand what we're trying to achieve and why - not just what to build, but what success looks like and what the customer actually needs.
2. Run 1:1s. Regular check-ins that focus on the person, not just the work. Are they growing? Are they stuck? Is something bothering them they haven't said out loud?
3. Give honest feedback. Early and often. Not waiting for a review cycle.
4. Help with hiring. Define what you're looking for clearly. Be part of the process. Take accountability for the people you bring in.
5. Unblock people. When your team is stuck because of something outside their control, fix it.

That's it.

What managers don't do

• Assign tasks. We hire people who can figure out what to work on. Managers set direction and constraints; individuals own their work.
• Approve everything. People should have default access to most things they need. If your team members are constantly asking permission, something's wrong.
• Shield people from bad news. If the company is struggling, the team should know. Managers who filter information downward create teams that are disconnected from reality.
• Make decisions the team should make. If a decision is within your team's domain and doesn't require company-level input, the team should make it.

The goal is to make yourself unnecessary

The best signal that you're managing well is that your team functions effectively without you in every meeting. If work stops or decisions stall when you're on holiday, the team isn't empowered enough.

Share context aggressively. Write things down. Default to public channels. The more context is freely available, the less bottlenecked everything is through you.

Management is part-time

At Hardal, managers are also individual contributors. An engineering manager still writes code. A sales manager still owns deals. This is intentional.

Management that's disconnected from the actual work becomes about maintaining the appearance of management - meetings, status updates, check-ins that serve no one. Staying close to the work keeps you honest.

That said, when management tasks compete with IC work, management comes first. Your team's ability to operate well has more leverage than one extra feature you shipped.

Avoiding micromanagement

The best protection against micromanagement is hiring well and giving people real autonomy from the start. If you find yourself checking in too often or redoing someone else's work, ask whether the problem is the person or the context you've set.

Most of the time, people do unclear work because they have unclear direction - not because they're incapable.

When to escalate

Escalate to a founder when:

• A team member's performance is consistently below expectations and you've had direct conversations about it
• A decision affects more than one team
• You're uncertain about a direction and need alignment
• Something is genuinely broken at a structural level

Don't escalate as a way to avoid hard conversations.