Early on, being in control is often the reason a business survives. You have the vision, the standards, the urgency. But what works at $1m doesn’t work at $10m. And it certainly doesn’t work at $100m. If everything routes through you, the company can only move at the speed of your personal capacity. That’s the ceiling. And the higher you go, the heavier that ceiling becomes.

Too often, we assume we know what a Board member is supposed to do. We transpose our experience as operators, managers, or founders onto a role that, in truth, requires a very different kind of presence. A kind of presence that listens more than it speaks. One that governs more than it manages. One that watches the system from a higher perch, rather than diving in to fix.

In high-performing organizations, the Execution Bridge is not just a functional checkpoint—it’s a leadership system. If your company is chasing scale, chasing consistency, or chasing trust—it starts here. Because the middle of your business isn’t just where things get done. It’s where your leadership shows up.

Growth and scale are often treated like interchangeable buzzwords. Leaders talk about “growing the business” as if growth itself is the goal. But here’s the thing: growth and scale are fundamentally different paths, and conflating the two can create chaos.

Scarcity breeds apprehension. Fear even. When resources tighten and risk looms larger, our instinct is often to pull back — to hunker down and wait for better days. But scaling a business isn’t about waiting for the perfect moment. It’s about creating momentum despite the moment. So, how do we scale when everything around us screams “slow down”?

There’s a moment in every leader’s journey when they realize they’re meant for something more. More than just checking boxes, meeting quotas, or climbing ladders. They sense a shift — a call or aim to claim authorship over their work, their impact, and ultimately, their lives.

There’s an old saying: "What got us here won’t get us there." Nowhere is that more relevant than in how we think about capitalism today. For decades, businesses have been measured by a single metric—profit. Companies existed to create wealth for shareholders, full stop. But as we stand at the crossroads of economic, environmental, and social transformation, it’s clear that model is no longer enough.

Build a workplace culture of coaching by embedding it into leadership behaviors, peer interactions, everyday conversations and making it a core, valued capability at all levels. It’s a mindset shift that empowers everyone to take ownership of their growth, aligning personal and team goals with the big-picture mission.