Chapter 10: The Silent Cost Of Leading From The Top

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Today’s newsletter dives into a problem that cuts across an entire category—something many service-based, frontline-led organisations quietly struggle with.

And we’re unpacking how we tried to tackle it—through a wild, insightful ride with Make A Difference (MAD), one of the most forward-thinking teams we’ve had the privilege to partner with.

But first—let’s define the problem.

The Problem

Growth has a funny way of betraying us.
Especially when you are building an organisation.

You start with a team that’s scrappy, deeply connected to the purpose of the work and the impact it creates for stakeholders.
You move fast. You learn on the fly.
And somewhere along the way, you scale.

You add teams. Then the layers. Then the systems.

And what was once the flame burning inside you brightly – begins to dim under the weight of process, permission, and scale.

Your frontline—the team which interacts with the beneficiaries, clients, or users—ends up executing, not leading.

Your leadership team is “Strategizing”… but disconnected from ground realities.

And you, the leader, is stuck translating between the two

This isn’t a leadership failure.
It’s a design flaw.

So what’s the flaw ? 

Most organizations—nonprofit or for-profit—adopt the classic pyramid model of growth: more layers, more approvals, more control. Power flows top-down.

But here’s the catch—top-down structures stall what matters most: impact, innovation, and profit.

Image 1 : The corporate pyramid most organisations adopt knowingly / unknowingly

Fewer than 15 nonprofits in India operate with an annual budget over $10 million. Meanwhile, 90% of the 3.1 million NGOs run on less than ₹5 Lakh ($6,000) a year. Clearly, most are hitting a wall when it comes to scale.

In service businesses, it’s no better:

According to McKinsey, as professional services firms scale, they face ‘complexity creep’—a rise in coordination costs and bureaucracy that slows decision-making and drains energy and brings down their innovation and profitability.

Because growth that adds more layers and more control—hits a ceiling.

You didn’t build your org for this.

Does every organisation need its frontline to lead?

A small but important nuance: Not every organisation needs its frontline to lead.

If your frontline’s work is routine and predictable, clear systems and SOPs will do the job. But when they face situations that demand quick thinking and real-time adaptation, instructions alone won’t cut it—they need the authority, and the confidence, to lead from the front.

This is especially true for impact-focused and service-based organisations.

Let me give you an example:

• A delivery team tasked with dropping off parcels follows a fixed route. The job is structured, repetitive, and clear. This is a simple problem. 
• A bank’s loan processing team has to navigate documentation, legal compliance, and financial assessment. It’s complicated, but there’s a method and sequence to get it right. This is a complicated problem. 
• Now think of a local police officer working in a high-conflict area. They’re not just enforcing rules—they’re building trust with the community, reading situations in real time, de-escalating tension, and making judgment calls where no SOP fits. This is complex problem—and it can’t be led from a distance.

If your frontline solves complex and complicated problems, then the pyramid model won’t help. It will block them.

So What’s the alternative?

We call it the Frontline-First model.

When we started working with MAD two years ago, they were already a well known name in the impact space. Like many others, COVID had disrupted their on-ground operations — and it took time to rebuild.

Post-COVID, MAD had set ambitious goals to expand and grow their reach. But for two years straight, they struggled to grow.

At first, the leadership thought the central team needed help with execution.

But when Co.labx did a diagnostic, that discovery process with the team revealed something deeper:

The problem wasn’t the people — it was the structure.

The organisation had slowly, and perhaps unknowingly, turned into a top-heavy structure, with all the power and decision-making concentrated at the top.

3,000 volunteers were waiting on 30 full timers for direction. If each volunteer needed just five decisions a day, that’s 15,000 decisions — from 30 people.

Imagine the load the central team was carrying, ufff….

The result?

– Innovation dipped.
– The central team burned out.
– They were not able to reach more children (beneficiaries)
– Volunteers were frustrated by slow decision flows.

So, we jumped on the boat and took this wild ride with the MAD team.

So what did we do?

We flipped the pyramid.

We went back to the basics and helped the team reconnect to the ground and the decision started flowing ground up.

What did that mean?

Initially, volunteers followed plans from the center. After the shift, volunteers began operating as self-organising units. The central team didn’t direct—they enabled.

And Co.labx did 2 things to help the team with this transition:

1.  We worked with the leadership team to create this mindset of letting volunteers operate as self organising units & helped them connect them back to their original DNA (very alive in their formative years), where volunteers lead the way and the full timers enabled . It’s not easy, as humans, to let go of control. We did this through multiple in-person bootcamps, calls, coaching sessions, etc.

Image 2 : Arhan in action with the MAD team in their recent boot camp

2. We re-designed the org structure to support the mindset.

We brought in some sports inspiration. We have seen football is one game where they play frontline first so we asked this question to MAD team.

” What if MAD team operated like a football team?”

And it resulted in them moving away from the below org structure

Image 3 : MAD’s Org chart when we started working 

To this

Image 4 : MAD’s current org structure 

(Trust me, I want to go deeper into the how of the above two points and tell you everything we did, but it will be long. So if you interested, my recommendation is write back to me and we can have a call)

And , what shifted because of this ?

There are multiple things. If you ask Mannat Annad (MAD, Director of operations) she will give you an endless list, but I will stop with my top 2 🙂

1. The frontline team was on a roll and started to:

– Self-organise around the local context. They solved problems within themselves, they reached out to the central team only where there was an absolute need
– Self-sustain: The chapters started to raise their own funds and were able to raise 1.2Cr themselves without relying on the central fundraising team  ( we were mind blown when we heard this )
– Regenerate: They not only delivered impact, but grew new leaders in the frontline and started inducting them into leadership roles themselves

2. The same year they 2x’ed the number of children they were able to reach, without making a significant change to the central team size.

Changing this wasn’t easy. It went beyond our imagination.
It took time, trust, and a real rewire of how you see control and leadership.

But when it landed? It was magic.
Frontline teams aren’t waiting. They’re acting.
And the backbone isn’t burdened. It’s breathing.

We are not saying everything is perfect now, but it’s definitely moving at the pace the team wanted to.

And i will rest my case here 🙂