I was speaking with a CEO who had just brought new capital into the business. From the outside, things looked strong. The company was growing, the strategy was sound, and expectations were higher than they had ever been.
Internally, however, it was a different story. Decisions that once came easily now took longer. The leadership team felt less aligned, and the CEO found themselves stepping into situations that should not have required their involvement.
What they were experiencing was not a failure of execution or strategy. It was the psychological and structural impact of growth. The business had moved into a new chapter, and the leadership team had not fully moved with it.
If this story feels familiar, it’s because this is something most CEOs face.
Your company can be performing well by every external measure and still feel strained internally. Accountability becomes less clear. Roles blur rather than sharpen. You carry more weight than you should, not because people are unwilling or disengaged, but because the organization has outgrown the way it has been led.
For example, most early stage leadership teams are built to solve the problems of getting things done. People wear multiple hats. Communication is more informal. The organization works because everyone is close to the work.
As the business grows, that model begins to break down. Complexity increases. The cost of mistakes rises. What once worked through effort and closeness now requires clearer structure, stronger management, and more disciplined execution. As the company moves through different stages the problems are different, but the signs are the same.
You may start to notice a subtle but persistent tension. Many CEOs bring the challenges they’re experiencing into their peer group meeting, often before they can fully articulate what’s wrong. Others who’ve been there before pick up on the nuance and help the CEO see the issue.
One CEO shared that their CFO had become a limiting factor as the company grew. Other members of the leadership team quietly compensated for the gaps, taking on work that wasn’t formally theirs. It was only after the person was replaced that the CEO fully appreciated how much capacity had been missing and how much additional weight the rest of the team had been carrying.
Another CEO described a different but related realization. As the company set its sights on the next level of growth, it became clear that several leaders who had been strong contributors no longer had the skills required for where the business was headed. One leader was an industry visionary in developing new products, but could not create or drive an organization to replicate his capacity.
At the time, it was difficult to see clearly because those individuals had been critical to past success. Looking back, the CEO could see how loyalty had masked deeper misalignment, and how leadership behaviors that once drove momentum were no longer consistent with what the company needed. Replacing those leaders was difficult, but it created real forward movement.
Even when you recognize these issues, it’s natural to hesitate. These are often people who helped build the business and have been deeply committed to its success. Making a change feels personal and disruptive.
You may also worry about the impact on culture and whether the cost, financial, emotional, or organizational, is justified. In the example above of the product development person, you do not want him to go to a competitor. You need him, just not in this role.
Over time, though, misalignment rarely stays contained. High performers notice when accountability is uneven. Decision making slows. You gradually absorb more responsibility simply because no one else can fully own it.
By the time action is taken, the cost is almost always higher than it would have been earlier.
One of the most important shifts you can make is learning to separate people from what the business now requires. These moments are rarely about someone failing.
More often, the company itself has changed. A leader who was exactly right when the business was smaller may struggle as complexity increases. Roles that were once broad now demand far more depth and focus than before.
Sometimes ego is at play. We often see leaders who were critical earlier in the company’s life become misaligned as the company changes or the culture matures and requires a more collaborative, egoless approach.
In hindsight, the pattern is usually clear. If something doesn’t feel right, it’s worth looking more closely at why. In the moment, there are often many reasons not to make a change, but change may be required to enable the business to grow.
Not every situation requires someone to leave the organization. Some of the most successful transitions we’ve seen involve long-standing contributors moving into different roles once they reach the limits of their current ones.
When handled thoughtfully, these changes preserve institutional knowledge, maintain respect across the organization, and allow the business to get what it needs without unnecessarily discarding experience.
Whether that outcome is possible depends on three things: clarity about what the business truly needs, clear communication over multiple conversations from you to the employee, and the individual’s willingness to make the transition. When any of those conditions is missing, even well-intentioned delay can create significant cost later on.
These decisions are difficult to make alone. They involve history, relationships, and real human consequences. They are also the kinds of decisions you can’t always talk through with your board or leadership team.
In CEO Collective peer groups, you have the space to slow your thinking down, lay out all the nuance clearly, and hear how others have navigated similar moments. Often, what you gain isn’t a new answer, but the confidence to act on what you already know.
When CEOs look back on these moments, they rarely regret making the change. What they often regret is waiting too long.
Growth demands change. The real risk isn’t disruption. It’s allowing misalignment to quietly erode the organization over time.
Your job as CEO isn’t to preserve what once worked. It’s to recognize when the business has changed and to make the difficult decisions that allow it to keep moving forward.
