A few years ago, I was offered the position of Head of People at a startup I had been working with in San Francisco. I coached the C suite and the senior team over the previous two years and the CEO and he wanted me to join the team full time.

I accepted the offer on an interim basis, knowing that I am not cut out to be an employee, and agreed to help find my replacement. Over the Christmas holiday the CFO position had been filled by ‘Bill’ (we’ll call him), who would be starting…