What you'll learn
- Work out what the employee took to the founder.
- Agree with the founder how the next approach will be handled.
- Talk to the employee about the route without penalising them for raising a concern.
When an employee goes over your head, work out what they raised first
Finding out that a team member went to the founder about your decision can feel like a vote of no confidence. In a company of 10 to 50 people, your own boss is often the founder and the only other manager, and before you were appointed the team may have taken everything to them. Each kind of approach needs a different response, so start with what came through the founder's door.
Going to someone other than the line manager is sometimes the right route. Acas, the workplace advice service for England, Scotland and Wales, tells employees with a problem to talk to someone they feel comfortable with, such as ‘your line manager, another manager or someone in HR’. Its guide to discipline and grievances includes a sample procedure for small organisations. There, an employee whose grievance is against their manager, and who feels unable to approach them, should talk to ‘another manager or the owner’. In a company without HR, that usually means the founder.
Use the table below as a starting point for what the founder says, when you hear about it and what gets recorded.
| What reached the founder | What the founder says | When you hear about it | Who acts next | What to record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A concern about you, or a protected matter | ‘Thank you for telling me. I'll look into this myself and tell you the next step.’ No promise of secrecy or of an outcome. | Only what the founder decides is needed to handle it fairly. You may be asked for your account. | The founder, with qualified support for harassment, discrimination, safety or possible wrongdoing. | The founder's own note of the date, the concern and the next step, kept apart from team notes. |
| An appeal of a decision you own | ‘That's your manager's call. Take it back to them first, and I'll let them know you have a concern.’ | The same day, with the substance of the objection. | You. Reopen the decision if there is new information. | One line: date, decision, what was new, outcome. |
| Information the founder needs | ‘Thanks, I needed to know that.’ The founder deals with what only the founder can change. | The same day, unless it concerns you. | The founder, or whoever owns the issue. | What changed and who was told. |
| A habit from before you were appointed | ‘Your manager handles that now. Shall I tell them you'll drop by?’ | Within a day, as a pattern rather than a complaint. | You answer the question. | Nothing about the person. Count how many routine questions still reach the founder. |
The founder usually has to make this call in the moment. When it is unclear, the founder should treat it as a concern about you until they know more, because sending a concern about you back to you is the routing mistake that is hardest to undo. A formal grievance goes through the company's grievance procedure, even when it is about one of your decisions.
Step aside when the concern is about you
The Acas Code of Practice says a formal grievance should go to ‘a manager who is not the subject of the grievance’. Its longer guide adds that small firms run by an owner may have no alternative manager. In that case, owners should make clear they will treat a grievance fairly, even one about something they said or did. When the concern is about you, the founder takes that role.
Some concerns carry legal protection. In Great Britain, whistleblowing law covers disclosures such as crime, danger to health and safety, sexual harassment and cover-ups, but not personal grievances unless there is a public interest. In the US, the EEOC lists ‘communicating with a supervisor or manager about employment discrimination, including harassment’ as protected activity under the federal laws it enforces. Most of those laws apply to employers with 15 or more employees. The EEOC's examples of possible retaliation include a performance evaluation that is lower than it should be and increased scrutiny.
Agree the route with the founder before it happens again
- 01
The founder listens and decides nothing in the room
The founder hears the person out and thanks them. For a decision you own, they make no commitment about the outcome, even when they suspect you got it wrong. Anything needed to keep people safe happens straight away.
- 02
Agree how quickly you hear about it
Set a time limit for appeals and routine questions, such as the same working day. Concerns about you stay with the founder's own process instead.
- 03
Settle disagreements privately
If the founder thinks your decision is wrong, they tell you, and you tell the employee about any change. A reversal announced by the founder shows the team that the founder still makes your decisions.
- 04
Name what still goes to the founder
Write down the decisions the founder kept, such as pay or role changes, and the concerns that should always reach them. Then explain the route to the team, including the route for concerns about you.
- 05
Set a review date
Agree when you will look at the appeals and routine questions that reached the founder and where they went, for example in two weeks. Concerns about you stay with the founder.
Use the founder's decision map to agree which calls you own before you write the route down. If the founder still answers routine questions directly, the team is following the route it was taught, and the founder remains the hidden approval layer for your team. Changing that habit is the founder's job, so do not hold it against the employee who asked.
The CIPD and YouGov survey of 5,074 UK employees ran from December 2025 to February 2026 and asked about routes such as one-to-ones with a line manager, team meetings and employee surveys. It does not measure how often people go over a manager's head, though it may help explain why, in a small company, the founder's door can feel like the only route available.
Talk to the employee about the route for next time
A possible opening, with the founder's name in place of ‘the founder’, is: ‘The founder mentioned you're unhappy with my decision, so let's look at it again. If you think I've got a call wrong, I want to hear it. Next time, bring it to me first, and if we still disagree, we can take it to the founder together.’ Then ask: ‘Was there something about how I handle requests that made the founder feel like the easier person to ask? If I've been hard to reach, I'd rather know.’
The answer may be about you. Perhaps an earlier request went unanswered, or the person expected a quicker yes elsewhere. If the answer turns into a concern about how you manage, thank them and leave it with the founder.
There is little research on going over a manager's head in small founder-led companies, so the closest evidence comes from other workplaces. In Kassing's 2007 study, employees' accounts of going around or above a supervisor usually described a damaged relationship with that supervisor, although some ended in compromise or better understanding. US safety regulator OSHA recommends that employers' anti-retaliation training for managers cover ‘how to separate annoying or inappropriate behavior from the concern itself’, and the same separation helps with an ordinary appeal.
Avoid three moves: asking who else they have talked to, mentioning the escalation in front of the team, or making them wait longer for your next answer. If the person keeps reopening settled decisions in public after you have agreed the route, the problem has changed. Separate useful pushback from undermining before you set a conduct boundary, and do not treat raising a concern about you, or a protected matter, as part of that conduct problem.
Before the conversation, Coop Profile can help you prepare for how this person tends to raise disagreement and what they need to hear about a decision. It cannot explain why they went to the founder, judge whether their concern is valid or replace hearing it directly.
Follow one hypothetical case through three conversations
Consider a hypothetical 22-person agency. The founder, Maya, appointed Tom as the first operations manager three months ago. Tom refused a designer's request for three days of leave during a client launch. The designer went to Maya and asked her to overrule him.
The first conversation is between Maya and Tom. Maya listened to the designer, said the decision was Tom's and told Tom that afternoon. In private, she said the refusal might be too rigid because part of the launch work could be handed over. Tom checked the plan and found cover for two of the three days.
The second is between Tom and the designer. Tom said: ‘You were right to push on this. I've found cover for two days, so you can take those if the handover is done by Thursday. Next time, bring it to me first. If we still disagree, we'll take it to Maya together.’ He asked what had made Maya feel like the easier person to ask, and he did not ask who else the designer had spoken to.
The third is a review two weeks later. Two more requests had reached Maya. One was a routine scheduling question, which she sent to Tom. The other was a client warning that only she could act on, so she kept it and told Tom. Tom's record had one line for each: the date, what reached Maya and where it went.
Before assigning work on the next launch, Tom checked whether the escalation was colouring his view of the designer's work. The check matters: in Burris's studies, managers rated employees who voiced challenging ideas as worse performers than those whose voice was supportive.
Check whether the route is working
At the review, look at the appeals, information and routine questions that reached the founder, which row each belonged to and how long you took to respond. Concerns about you stay out of this joint review, and the founder shares only what they decide you need to know.
If an employee keeps going over your head with appeals after you have answered, ask whether your answers explain your reasons, or whether the founder is still reopening them. If the founder tells you that concerns about your management keep arriving, treat that as feedback on how you manage. Managing people without HR covers when a small company needs outside help and why employees need a route when their direct manager is part of the problem.
The next time an employee goes over your head, let the founder tell you which kind of approach it was and follow the route you agreed. Unless the concern is about you, add one line to the record for the next review.