You’ve heard of “founder syndrome” — the outsized influence of a charismatic, driven leader who built something meaningful but can’t let go of it. But I’ve also come across something different. Let’s call it foundling syndrome: it’s not about the individual leader, but rather the organization they leave behind.

Foundling syndrome describes what happens when a founder exits and the structure that appeared solid under their leadership turns out to be a collection of habits, workarounds and personal relationships — not a sustainable system. What’s revealed is not succession gone wrong, but that there was never any true succession plan at all.

The result? The organization becomes a kind of foundling — abandoned, vulnerable and unprepared for independent life. It was never nurtured to function without the founder’s presence and instincts. It operated like a family business where the founder was the head of household, and now no one’s sure how the bills get paid, where the keys are or who’s really in charge.

Here’s what foundling syndrome looks like in practice:

• The board isn’t sure what to measure, because the founder never invited accountability. Founders often operate with high trust from the board—or sometimes, high deference. Strategic plans exist but weren’t followed. Financials were shared but not interrogated. Decisions were made in informal conversations, and impact was measured by anecdotes, not analytics. Once the founder leaves, the board doesn’t know how to evaluate success. They look to the new leader for reassurance, but offer few clear expectations. That’s a setup for frustration on both sides.

• The staff is caught off guard by any change, because they were trained to follow personality, not process. Staff loyalty often centers on the founder, not the mission. They know how to work within that person’s rhythms and preferences, but haven’t been invited into transparent strategy or empowered with shared decision-making. When the new leader brings a different communication style, introduces documentation, or asks for more formal systems, resistance bubbles up. “This isn’t how we used to do it” becomes code for “We weren’t trained to think independently.”

• The new leader is expected to carry the founder’s legacy and make everything better. The new CEO or executive director walks into a paradox: they’re hired to lead change, but every change is interpreted as a betrayal. The board wants stability and innovation. The staff wants familiarity and clarity. The community wants the magic of the founder plus the polish of a professional manager. The problem is, none of those expectations are grounded in what the organization needs. They’re driven by emotion, not strategy.

And here’s where we go even further off course: the new leader’s performance is measured by people’s feelings. Are the staff still inspired? Are the donors still giving at the same level? Are the members or clients “happy”?

This is a dangerous metric. People will be upset no matter what. Change — even necessary, healthy change — unsettles people. And when grief or discomfort goes unacknowledged, it’s often redirected at the new leader.

So how should we be measuring a successor’s performance?

• Are systems being built that outlast any one person?
  Can the organization now operate with clear workflows, roles and reporting structures? Is knowledge documented and shared? Have decisions moved from intuition to intentionality? A real leader creates clarity and infrastructure. That may not feel glamorous, but it’s what allows the work to scale—and survive.

• Are roles, goals and values being clarified?
  Is there alignment between staff, board and leadership about what success looks like? Are values being lived in daily operations, not just framed on a wall? Is there a culture of shared responsibility, not passive dependence? The mark of a maturing organization is not charisma—it’s coherence.

• Is the organization learning how to make decisions, manage conflict and deliver impact independent of personality?
  Too many organizations depend on the founder’s intuition to resolve disputes, move projects forward, or interpret vision. A healthy organization can navigate those things with process, not just personality. It can disagree without crisis. It can evolve without fracturing.

None of this work is easy. Foundling syndrome is painful for staff, for board members and certainly for the incoming leader. But it’s also a necessary awakening.

The founder’s job is to create something worth continuing. But the founder’s legacy isn’t preserved through imitation; it’s preserved through infrastructure. That means investing in leadership development, codifying the culture and planning for a future that doesn’t revolve around one person.

Boards must stop treating founder transitions as the end of a chapter and start treating them as the beginning of a new book — one that needs new plotlines, new characters and a very different kind of author.

And we must stop punishing successors for not being someone else. Their job isn’t to preserve the past. It’s to build a future.

Let’s give them the tools — and the grace — to do exactly that.

Avi S. Olitzky is the president and principal consultant of Olitzky Consulting Group, based in Minneapolis.