Lead or Leave
There’s a tension behind this card. It lives in the CEO mindset suit, but it applies to anyone leading anything. At some point, what got you here stops being enough to get you there. Founders often build companies on grit, surrounding themselves with strong executors who can manage chaos. That works in the early stages… until the business outgrows that model. Then the signals start. Growth stalls. Energy drains. The work stops being fun. The organization fragments in small but telling ways. It’s rarely about the market; it’s about leadership capacity no longer matching company needs. At that fork, there are two paths: Lead or Leave. To Lead means transforming and upgrading skills, unlearning survival habits, making hard decisions, and building real leadership depth. To Leave means surrendering control and stepping aside for someone better suited to scale the business, whether by exiting or moving into a different role. Ironically, both paths start the same way: behavior must change. If you’re at the plateau, the first move is honesty. The second is change.
