In my first startup, I was still in college, I made the cardinal mistake of assuming that my team would somehow magically (through osmosis?) understand what I wanted from them, what I was up to, what my mood swings where all about…
What I should have done instead is write an owner’s manual for me and give it to my team. Making the implicit explicit and designing your alliance with your team is an incredibly powerful thing to do: Tell them what you need and expect from them, how you want to interact with them and then ask them to do the same. Write it down on a big piece of paper, hang it someplace visible in your office and have people add and modify as things come up.
Having a shared understanding of how you want to work together is an incredibly powerful structure.