Scaling Without Losing Connection: How to Grow, Delegate, and Protect Your Culture w/ Maddy Niebauer

Have you ever been so focused on keeping up with growth that creating connection started slipping to the bottom of the list?

In this episode, Jule sits down with Maddy Niebauer—Co-Founder and CEO of VChief, a company that helps organizations scale by providing fractional executive talent and strategic leadership support.

Maddy shares what happened as her business experienced rapid growth and the tension that came with trying to scale without losing the culture and connection that made the organization successful in the first place. As the pace accelerated, she realized that sustaining growth wasn't just about getting more work done—it was about creating the space for people and relationships to thrive.

For leaders balancing growth, competing priorities, and the constant pressure to do more, Maddy's story is a reminder that connection doesn't happen by accident.

It happens by design.

In this conversation, Maddy and Jule discuss:

• Why rapid growth can unintentionally create disconnection within teams
• Why trust—not time—is often the biggest barrier to effective delegation
• How setting clear expectations helps teams and clients succeed together
• The importance of protecting time for strategic thinking instead of constantly reacting
• Why great leaders focus on where they create the most value—not where they can stay the busiest

If you've ever felt like there aren't enough hours in the day, you're carrying too much yourself, or your calendar is dictating your priorities, this episode will challenge you to rethink where your time creates the most value.

Because great leadership isn't about doing everything.

It's about knowing what only you can do.

Connect with Maddy:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/madeleineniebauer
Website: https://vchiefs.com/

Connect with Jule:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julesalem/
Website: www.julesalem.com

Dialing In is a leadership podcast for operators, executives, and founders building under pressure. Each episode explores how connection—when it’s intentional—becomes a true performance advantage.

Join us and subscribe to the show to be the first to hear new episodes.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

There's a number of different levels of connection in the workplace. I think the most immediate is connection with your team members. It's really important to connect in person. So we have a team retreat every year. We have a leadership team retreat every year. And that is just a really important place where we get to have really beautiful shared experiences. We always have time to do fun things as well as time to strategize. So that's one level, right? Is connecting with the team. I think another for us, at least in the business we're in, is connecting with our clients and connecting with our partners or other folks who are champions of Vici. So as a leader, I try to set aside time to connect with people really regularly in my network.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Welcome to Dialing In. I'm your host, Jules Salem. And this is the podcast where we talk about the real work of leadership. Not just the wins, but the moments that force us to grow, recalibrate, and reconnect. Let's go to the moment your business is growing, the opportunity is right in front of you, and everything you once had time to personally hold starts moving faster than you can carry. Not because anything's failing, not because the business isn't working, but because the growth itself starts exposing what can no longer depend on you alone. In this episode, Maddie Niebauer, founder of VCH and a leader who helps organizations access fractional executive support, shares what it looked like to scale quickly while still trying to protect connection, culture, client service, and balance. From growing her team rapidly after COVID to building deliberate rituals for connection in a virtual organization, to learning how to trust others with work she once believed only she could do best. What stuck with me most in Maddie's story is that strong leadership is not about being involved in everything. It is about knowing where you create the most value, trusting the right people around you, and creating the space to lead from clarity instead of constant urgency. Let's dial in. So I want to take you back to a moment that you and I had talked about early on when you were growing your business. So I'm interested for you to share with us what that looked like for you when you were in those early days looking to scale and grow your business.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

The earliest days was not that hard to form the connections and have time for that because we sort of grew nicely and slowly and organically in the very beginning. But then after COVID, we had this incredibly rapid growth spike. And we are in the business of placing fractional executives in other businesses. So we have a small central team and then we have a much broader pool of consultants who we work with. But the central team did not exist back then. It was me. It was me and a handful of contractors. It went from that to having 15 plus employees over a nine-month period. You can imagine the growth that would demand that increase in employees and the amount of work that goes with it, right? Which was why we had to keep adding employees. And I think the hard thing about that time was that people got on board and then they were just like thrown to the races. We had onboarding plans, don't get me wrong, but people had to get in and get to work quickly. And I, as a leader, have always really prioritized balance. I've never worked a consistent 40-hour work week running this business. I typically had been working, you know, 25 hours a week, maybe. And I was suddenly working more than 40 hours a week just to get the things done that needed to get done, not to mention not only getting to know these new team members, but like fostering collaboration and personal bonds with each other. I think what was hard was that balancing act of we want to take advantage of this moment that there's so much interest in our business and we're growing so rapidly. Like you don't want to not hit the iron while it's hot, right? Also, you don't want to do that at the expense of your people. That has always been really important to me. So we actually, from the very beginning of when we hired employees, we had a four-day, 32-hour work week. And that is something that just aligns with my personal values that we should all have full and vibrant lives outside of work. But it also creates additional pressures if you actually expect people to work a 32-hour work week that they have a lot to get done in that period of time. And I don't want that to be at the expense of relationships because relationships are so much of what drives our business, right? Like it drives new business, it drives connection across the silos of our business, whether that's like sales, marketing, and operations, talent and finance, like how do those teams work together? They work best together when the people on those teams are connected to each other. And so it was a time that was stressful and hard for the team, even though we were in like a successful ungrowth mode. It was like get in, get moving. We've also had those moments over time as things have gone up and down, right? Sometimes you're super busy when you're growing, and then sometimes you're super stressed out when you're not growing. So it's not like it was one moment in time that we have successfully passed that and not returned to it. There are sort of perpetual struggles on that front.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Very much. I'm in a similar industry doing staffing and workforce management for federal contact centers, but still, you know, providing people like the human capital to support other organizations. So when I'm hearing you described, and certainly having been in those shoes myself, where you're having this surgence of business, which absolutely you want to strike it while it's hot, because in our world, right, it ebbs and flows the needs of clients and prospects. So you're bringing new people into your organization to support the increased business demand, but yet wanting to make sure that they are becoming part of the organization and getting to know each other and you. I know I've struggled with this. How were you able to take time for the pauses to incorporate that while also making sure that you're delivering on your clients' expectations?

SPEAKER_01 6:37

Yeah. Yeah, I just think you have to be deliberate about it. It's hard to be deliberate with things going on. So we in the early days, I had a chief of staff who was a real culture carrier for the organization, and she was doing a lot of work. And then another member of our team was creating spaces for our team to connect. So that might be individual meetings with me and other people that might be in our team calls, setting aside time, like 10 minutes at the beginning of an hour-long meeting, to have some sort of iceberg or question, something that, you know, like get to know the team. And then we had a team member also dedicated to we have a channel on Slack where we have more like casual and fun conversations. So she would put up a prompt every Tuesday and you know, like share one of your favorite Halloween costumes or whatever, right? Like funny things. And people would put up pictures of their kids and their pets. And then also not just sort of fun things, but also places to appreciate each other. We have Thankful Thursdays. We get on there and we shout out our teammates and thank them for the things that they're doing and just help people feel appreciated. And I think what we did well was like make that someone's job to like own, set aside time to create that culture. Not because it wouldn't happen without it being someone's job, but it always goes to the back burner, right? So if that's something that someone is focused on, then at least you have someone paying attention to it and making sure that that moves forward. I think for me, I'm naturally just a real relationship builder. I love to get to know people. I love knowing how they tick and what their motivations are and about their lives outside of work and all of those things. That's always part of every conversation I have. So I don't find it too hard personally, but I think what can be challenging is creating that sort of culture across an organization. And you can model it, but I just think there are ways to be deliberate about it.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Yeah, actually, what you just hit on is like this ongoing question for me. Because I think sometimes we view, oh, someone being more relationship-oriented, oh, that's just their personality, right? And I know something that I'm trying to be intentional about within my own organization, and even what you're describing, is how can we help others see the value and benefit in having that genuine curiosity and wanting to develop relationships, whether that's with their colleagues or clients, or even in our mutual world candidates and consultants that we're working with, to enable that to scale within an organization and it not necessarily being reliant on people's individual personality traits, if that makes sense.

unknown 9:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

And relating to you because it sounds like we're similar in relationships being a key component of who we are. How do you help other members of your team see the benefit in being that way, especially as it relates to working with one another or the clients that they're supporting on the day-to-day?

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Yeah, I think there's a few different things. One is in the hiring process. I think, admittedly, we probably have a bias towards people who have an orientation that is more focused on relationship building and network building. And I think actually that can be like to a fault. You don't want to have this normative culture that people can't step outside of. You want to be able to hire the people who bring the best skills, whether they also bring a similar personality type to yours. And I think we're all guilty of that bias sometimes. So I'll just name that. But I do think like we informally, this is not written down anywhere. We have a no-a-holes policy. And we won't hire people who we wouldn't want to be friends with, right? So I think that there's a piece of it that is around hiring. I think about it in a couple different ways. One is being a people-focused organization, right? So when I say people focused, I mean I care about you as a human more than I care about you as an output creator. I think that shows up in a lot of different ways for our organization. On the client side, we are a client service-focused organization, right? We are going to do what it takes to make our clients happy. And part of that is building rapport and relationships. So we train our consultants on things that will support their engagements, everything from sort of selling themselves, as it were. Part of selling yourself is building rapport and relationship. Because when our clients come to us, they have a few different consultants they can pick from. We're sort of training them on like how do you stand out from the pack? It creates an orientation of just trying to be mindful of what the other person, not only their work outcomes that they're trying to achieve, but also their work style and their motivations and what are the things they really don't like. So the more that we can think about the needs of the other person in the relationship and like de-center ourselves, then that supports relationship building.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Yes. Yeah. That's something I certainly try to instill as well. How you're explaining it, similar to my own approach, is how can we tie all things back to valuing the relationship? And even like an example I'll give is let's face it, we're all human. We're gonna screw up sometimes. Sometimes our client is the one that is guilty. But yet I try to instill in my team, we don't necessarily need to point out that they were in the wrong, right? If they gave us the incorrect information, there's a way to approach it so that it's putting the relationship first. And none of us like to be called out, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Or like if you're gonna call it out, like call it out with love and kindness. Exactly. Exactly. I noticed this thing.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

I know how busy you are, you know. This may have gotten overlooked, right? Not go back and check your email. I did send that to you type approach, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Save me the passion of aggressive medicine.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Exactly. So, really, you know, what I'm hearing you share is just how we can always be coming from that relationship-oriented place, whether that's internally or externally. I want to go back a question that I had for you in particular. I know VCF specializes, as you mentioned, in providing fractional leadership to other organizations. You mentioned the chief of staff role. And so I would love to get your feedback. I think there's often a common misconception about what is this role? Yeah. And how can founders and CEOs, executive leadership, what would be the benefit even of a chief of staff for them looking? Yes, yeah. So tell us.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

So the chief of staff role is hard to describe, and I think it's hard to describe on purpose because the best chief of staff is someone who is a leader's right-hand partner, and they're filling in the gaps of that leader. So those might be skill gaps, those might be time gaps, but because of that, the chief of staff role looks really different across different chief of staff positions, even within one organization. I was a chief of staff at Teach for America, and everyone on the leadership team had a chief of staff, and we all had drastically different jobs, right? One of us was managing the speaking calendar of the DEO, and that was really like a strategic job, not like an EA type managing of it. Which of these speaking engagements make the most sense given like this leader had so many opportunities all the time? When they go to the city, what people should they be meeting with while they're there? Like, how can we think strategically about how that leader's spending their time? For a different leader, they were managing quarterly reviews with each of the teams within the organization. So they were like putting together 80-slide PowerPoint decks and like having to get information from 50 different people. That just shows that it is nuanced and it is specific to the leader that you're working with, but there are some common themes. You might be overseeing an executive assistant and you might be acting as a liaison with the direct reports of this leader, but rarely is a big part of your job management per se. It's usually more influence and building relationships, to your point, in order to get people to do things that the leader you're supporting needs, right? Often you're a special projects manager, which is where this like throw everything into that bucket thing. You're kind of the person who's the catch-all for this thing just needs to get done, and I need someone smart to take it and run with it. And so you're managing a lot of projects, you're moving the ball down the field. Some chiefs of staff will actually act as a proxy for their leader. They will sit in meetings for them or they will take calls for them so that the leader doesn't have to be in all the meetings or go to all the calls. That's not true for everyone, but it's true for many. So, what does that bring to a leader? What it does is it allows a leader to focus where they can have the most impact. So when they think about what is their zone of genius, if they're focusing on things that they're good at, things that bring them energy that they enjoy doing, and things that move the business forward, and also things that they couldn't just easily hand off to someone else, right? Those are the areas that a leader needs to be focused on. And yet there's a bazillion different fires going on all the time that they can so easily get sucked into. So the chief of staff is the one who is helping put out the fires, helping protect the leader's time, putting up some guardrails so that leader can stay laser-like focused, where they can have that impact. And all the rest of that noise gets drowned out because the chief of staff is handling it.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

Okay. It sounds like, which I know so many leaders struggle with, it's carrying versus leading. Are they trying to do all the things or too many of the things themselves versus having others in place that can carry that for them to your point so they can focus on where they're most needed?

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Yeah. So to piggyback off that, from your experience when leaders are coming to V Chief feeling overwhelmed or stretched thin, what do you see as like the most common cause of that? Is it like a time constraint or maybe needing greater clarity on how they should be focusing their efforts?

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Yeah, I think there's a little bit of all of that, right? And I think there's actually an even bigger issue. So one is usually there is some time constraint. They feel like there's not enough hours in the day to do all the things that they need to do. And so then they need to figure out what they need to focus on. But so few leaders are actually like deliberate to sit down and say, like, what are my strategic priorities? Like, where do I need to spend my time? Not the organizations, like I can tell you my revenue goal for this year is this, and I want to do X, Y, and Z. But like, what do I as a CEO need to be doing to get our organization to that place? And how does that line up with my skills and my passions? And so being deliberate about actually setting those goals and saying, okay, like this is where I want to spend my time. I mean, that's baseline step number one, but so few people do it. They're just like, I just need to run straight towards this thing and, you know, deal with it along the way. I think the bigger issue that I was hinting at is really a question of trust and leaders needing to trust their teams. And I say that because so many leaders get in this space where they need to be involved in every decision that is happening when they would be so much better off and have so much more free time if they would take a step back, let the leaders that they hired that they should be trusting to lead their teams and their functions do their job and not need to be in every decision or approve every decision. Just let them run with it. If things go wrong, okay, we'll solve that problem when it comes. But many leaders feel like, oh, I need to weigh in on the new marketing campaign or this new HR system, whatever it is. That's like, really? We're gonna say that's in your zone of genius? I don't think so. Let's think about what where you really need to be focused. And I say that like with a little bit of just joking nature because we're all so guilty of it, right? Don't we all just get in the weeds of too many things and it's like this is not a good use of my time. As you're doing it, you know it's not a good use of your time, and still you do it because you're just used to doing it, or because you've like tied up your identity in it, and so you're like, Well, I have to do this because this is what I'm good at, you know?

SPEAKER_00 19:47

A 32-hour work week. I don't know if that's still the case for your team. It is, yeah. And balance being so important to you. And like I mentioned before, you know, as you were fostering rapport within your own organization, making sure that you were pausing to be intentional about those moments. How have you best maintained that balance? And I'm selfishly asking because I am one of those leaders that I'm guilty of taking those occasional times to leave the office early or not be checking my email on the weekend. And so, how have you been successful in accomplishing that?

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Yeah. Well, one, I think there's just a natural orientation that I just decided when I was starting this company that one of the reasons that I was starting this company was to create flexibility and time freedom. And so I'm just unapologetic about it, right? And I and I encourage my team to be like when you're off, be off, unless there's some like fire drill we need to deal with in the moment. I'm really ruthless about prioritizing my time. And I have learned that every yes is a no to something else. I used to be the person who was so accommodating and who said yes to everything. And then my days get filled with things that are not in my zone of genius. And then I'm like, that felt like a waste of time. And it's hard because when we're talking about this relationship-based element, right? Like I want to be kind and helpful to people. I literally could fill my entire calendar with people who want to talk to me about the chief of staff role or about growing my company or about other things, right? I don't have that time to give anymore. Like before, I did say yes to just about every meeting that comes through the door, both because I'm relationship focused and because every conversation, whether you're in it to benefit that person or you, like there's always some sort of mutual benefit, right? You think you're helping someone and then down the line they like refer clients to you, right? And I just am of an abundance mindset. And yet, time is a limited resource. And so I have learned to be really, really ruthless. That's not to say I don't try to still be helpful to people. I now have like template emails that I respond with, like lots of resources that we have created. I have written things. That people can read and they can use that instead of my time in this moment. I'm just really thoughtful about what I put on my calendar and what I don't. I love when organizations have a no-meeting day so that the team can do other things that are not meetings and it's like organization-wide, so nobody feels guilty about it. For us, because we have a four-day work week, that turns into Fridays because most people are off on Fridays. I do think even when I was in places where we were all working five days a week, like when I have seen that work, it has been really powerful. I also just had to learn to step away from, like I said, sometimes things are people's identity. Like I had to step away from parts of the business that I was running that I loved running and that I was really good at because the volume just became too high. So somebody else had to lean in and support with that. And I was of the opinion that I was like the world's greatest at this thing. Turns out other people are just as good as I am.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

Exactly. I've discovered that as well. I know sometimes it can be humbling.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

I love what you're saying. And this sounds so aspirational to me, something that I need to work on myself. And I'm curious, did you feel like as part of that process in freeing up this space that you had to reset your clients' expectations of like when you, your team would be available?

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Yeah, we do have to set expectations with clients. The hard thing is the client who opts into like five hours a week of support, but expects you to be available all the time, you're like, that's not what you're buying. If you want me to be available all the time, then opt in to 20 or more hours a week. And then at least, you know, you have a chance. But if I'm working on this five hours a week and other things 20 or 30 hours a week, I can't be at your beck and gall every moment. That said, we would never go more than a day without responding to someone. It just means I can't necessarily hop on a call with you at two o'clock when it's 145 and you're like, let's go. Just setting expectations with clients in the beginning is the biggest thing, and then reorienting them if they are asking for more than they're paying for, I guess, for lack of a better way of putting it. Like we're always gonna try to meet their needs and expectations. Let's not have unreal expectations. And that is even from like the scoping process, right? Like sometimes I'll read through we have a system that puts up new projects and it'll be like, this person wants all these 87 things in 20 hours a month. And I'm like, have we had a conversation with them about the timing of that and whether that's realistic? So we're just always perpetually reminding each other because it's the central team that helps like scope out that work, but then the consultants who actually lead the work, and we don't want to put our consultants in a place where like the expectations are beyond what is humanly possible, or like they're somehow expected to work more than they're getting paid for, which isn't fair to anybody.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Sure, sure, or helping set them up for success.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Okay, I'm gonna have to work on that because my own experience is that we are living in this instantaneous world where I mean, I hate to say sometimes even if it's been 30 minutes for some people when I haven't had a chance to respond due to being in meetings or what have you, then they'll be calling, you know. And and obviously there's always gonna be those fires, but I think sometimes they do come to expect that there's gonna be an instantaneous response to everything. So resetting.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

Yeah, I think there's just such a false sense of urgency in our economy and in our workplaces, like everything's an emergency, and you're like, really? Is it come on now? Yeah. I mean, certainly in some jobs, but most of them it's like a PowerPoint deck is never an emergency, guys. Literally never.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

Exactly. So as we look to wrap up, I I did have a final closing question I wanted to run by you, which is as we've described, you work with and support a lot of leaders and also are providing leadership to organizations. So for the leader that's listening who feels overwhelmed, overextended, as we've been discussing, like maybe so much of the weight is dependent on them. What is the first shift that you would give them to encourage them to make this week to start peeling back some of the plate?

SPEAKER_01 26:22

I would encourage them to take an hour and look at what their calendar has looked like for the past two to four weeks and to look at their personal to-do list and what they have been focused on. And I would have them ask themselves, how much of my time am I spending in ways that feel aligned with what I think I need to spend my time on? I talk about this zone of genius, and you can take time to map out what your zone of genius is, highlight the like three to five things that you think you should be spending your time on. And then look like, does the calendar, does the to-do list tell the story of I am spending my time that way or I am not? And if you are not, think about what are the buckets of things that you're doing that are not aligned with your time, and think about are there people I can delegate them to? Are there systems I can automate them with? Or can we just stop doing them? And that exercise can really provide a framework for you to start making different decisions, right? Different decisions about what meetings go on your calendar, different decisions about what to do list items come on the list. And I would encourage people also to just really set aside some time without meetings where they can be strategic and think big picture about their organization and just not be putting out a fire, at least maybe a half a day a week. What would that look like?

SPEAKER_00 27:46

Yeah. Freeing up and creating that space to just think, have that strategic time.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:51

We're all guilty, I think, of being so consumed by me meetings these days.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

So it's ironic sometimes for me when I'm like preaching this and then I'm like doing the thing, falling into the traps that we all fall into. And I'm like, oh, I should listen to myself sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Exactly. Or I was talking to someone recently that leaders are often guilty of attending meetings even when their own direct reports are in the meeting. And it's like, do you really need to be there? This is why you have them in place to help run with that for you.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

Also, just too many meetings. Like, does everything need to be a meeting? I feel like people make meetings for no reason. I'm like, if it can be an email, have it be an email.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

Amen to that. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

Well, Maddie, thank you so much for your time. I know from our discussion, others will be interested in learning more about vChief or even connecting with you personally. What's the best way for them to reach out and connect with you?

SPEAKER_01 28:47

Yeah, people can find me on LinkedIn, Madeline Niebauer, and they can find vChief at V C H I E F S, VCiefs.com, and they can find out all about the different kinds of services we provide and sign up for newsletters and things like that just to stay on the pulse.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

Perfect. Thank you so much for being here today. I've really enjoyed our discussion, and I know everyone listening will get a lot of value out of it.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

I appreciate that so much. It's really been great to be with you today. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

Thank you. Take care. Thank you for tuning in to dialing in. I hope this conversation brought you something meaningful. Whether it's a new way to lead through complexity, a reminder of the power of connection, or simply the comfort of knowing you're not navigating leadership alone. If you found value in today's episode, I'd be grateful if you'd share it with a colleague, a leader in your circle, or someone who could benefit from the insights we explored. The more leaders we bring into this dialogue, the more positive change we can create. And if you have a story of disconnection, reconnection, or breakthrough that you think would help others, I'd love to hear from you. Reach out, tell me a bit about your journey, and let's explore whether it could be a fit for a future episode. This episode of Dialing In was produced by Michael Osborne of 14th Street Studios, edited by Talia Anilli, and mixed by Morgan Honaker. Until next time, keep dialing in one moment of connection at a time.