Supportive management and growth opportunities, - Accounting Vanguard Construction & Development Employee Review

Vanguard Construction & Development is a high-end boutique construction firm led by its CEO and Founder, Michael Strauss, who leads from the front lines. It was a pleasure working for someone as passionate and committed to the business as Michael. He is exactly the kind of leader people want to work for, and he provided me with valuable opportunities that played a significant role in my career growth and where I am today.

None that come to mind. I had a great experience.

Restaurant Build Outs, Location, Colleagues

You paid $200K for a a leadership role months later, still overriding their contributions in every meeting. Here's what actually happened: you didn't hire a leader. You hired an audience for your own ideas, and you're paying six figures for the privilege. This is one of the most common patterns I see in founder-led companies between $10M and $50M. The founder knows they need help. They recruit someone great. Real experience. Real expertise. And then they spend every week second-guessing, overriding, and "just having a few thoughts" that undo months of strategic work. The hire isn't the problem. The founder's inability to stop being the expert in every room is the problem. When you hire a specialist and then won't take their advice, two things happen: Your best people stop offering their real thinking. They learn to just nod and execute your version. And your company stays exactly as small as one person's expertise allows it to be. If you're paying for experts and then doing the job yourself anyway, that's not leadership. That's expensive micromanagement. The fix isn't a better hire. It's a founder who's willing to let the hire be right. -Michael Stephens