How to Scale Your Business Without Burning Out: Lessons from the Executive Edge Live Panel

by faye.eScale Smart, Grow Fast PodcastPosted on Comments are Disabled

How to Scale Your Business Without Burning Out: Lessons from the Executive Edge Live Panel

Fast growth is exciting—until it starts to cost you your health, your team, or your culture.
If you’re a founder or executive scaling quickly, this blog is your wake-up call and roadmap rolled into one.

Preferred listening on the go? Catch the full podcast episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Harley Green hosted a powerhouse session on the Scale Smart Grow Fast podcast:
🎙️ Executive Edge Live Panel, featuring:

  • Bethany LaFlam – Author of The Power of OPE, Investor, & Attorney
  • Christopher Filipiak – Sales Strategist & CEO Coach
  • Alyshia Kisor-Madlem – VP of People & Systems, Found Search Marketing
  • Saima Geelani – Core Energy Coach, Founder of Talent Edge World

🔥 The Core Takeaways for High-Growth Leaders

1. Growth Without Alignment = Guaranteed Burnout

Bethany LaFlam emphasizes that scaling without clearly defined goals, values, and personal alignment results in setbacks, misdirection, and emotional drain. “If it feels misaligned, it probably is.”

2. Your Energy Is Your Biggest Asset

Saima Geelani explains how invisible drains like unclear boundaries and internal “gremlins” (self-limiting beliefs) lead to burnout. She recommends core energy leadership and micro-recovery practices to maintain momentum.

3. Letting Go Is a Leadership Superpower

Alyshia Kisor-Madlem shares real-life experience from scaling agency teams. The difference between heroic contributors and sustainable systems? Documentation, delegation, and trusting your team before you hit crisis mode.

4. Sales Starts with the CEO—But Shouldn’t End There

Christopher Filipiak reframes sales as a leadership responsibility rooted in mindset, not just tactics. When CEOs align with sales emotionally and operationally, they stop being bottlenecks—and start leading scalable systems.

5. Protect Team Morale with Transparency

Your team isn’t just watching what you say—they’re filling in the blanks when you don’t say anything. Clear, consistent communication protects morale and builds buy-in.

💡 Real Growth Feels Energizing—Not Exhausting

Whether you’re a solopreneur adding your first team member or a CEO managing multiple departments, these insights are a must-know.

This isn’t just about growth—it’s about building something that lasts without losing yourself or your people along the way.

📬 Connect with the Panelists:

 📈 Bonus: Access our masterclass on sustainable scaling:https://workergenix.com/bonus-masterclass

✅ Ready to Scale Without the Stress?

If you’re serious about scaling smart—not just fast—your next move isn’t another 12-hour workday. It’s getting the right support system behind you.

Book a free discovery call with Workergenix to get matched with your Ultimate Executive Assistant—so you can scale faster without burning out.

Like what you read? Get weekly insights on scaling, efficiency, and profitability—straight to your inbox. Click here to subscribe.

Transcript

Harley Green: All right, everybody, welcome to the Executive Edge live panel. I’m Harley Green, founder and CEO of Workergenix, where we help business leaders scale faster and smarter with the very best AI-leveraged executive assistants. This month’s panel is all about one of the biggest challenges business leaders face, growing fast without sacrificing your health, your team, and your culture. Sustainable growth, it’s not just a strategy, it’s really a leadership test. And today we’re gonna dive deep into the real mechanics of scale.

You’ll hear strategies, honest stories, and tangible frameworks from leaders who have been there and done that without the burnout. And a quick heads up, today’s session is also going to be featured on our podcast, Scale Smart Grow Fast. So if you hear something that hits home, you’ll be able to replay it later on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. So today, let’s go ahead and dive in and meet today’s incredible panel.

First, we’ve got Bethany LaFlam, an attorney, investor, and bestselling author. Bethany helps entrepreneurs scale their wealth and freedom through strategic leverage, not burnout. She’s the author of The Power of OPE and leads a global movement to build aligned extraordinary lives.

Christopher Filipiak, sales consultant and coach. He works with CEOs of expert-based businesses to 12x growth through mindset and sales alignment. His integrated approach helps leaders add over a million dollars in revenue without losing control or energy.

We also have Alyshia Madlem, the VP of People and Systems, Found Search Marketing. With over 20 years in marketing agency leadership, Alyshia has scaled teams through acquisition and built operational systems that protect culture while driving performance.

And finally, last but not least, we’ve got Saima Geelani, founder of Talent Edge World. Saima is a globally experienced coach and HR leader who helps executives lead with clarity, energy, and purpose. Her core energy coaching framework builds leadership that sustains both performance and well-being. Welcome, everyone, to the panel.

Let’s start here. What does sustainable scale mean to you? And why do so many leaders get it wrong?

Saima Geelani: For me, sustainable scale is really like increasing the productivity of the organization while not losing focus on the energy, on the clarity and above all, the well-being of the people. What happens mostly when leaders get it wrong is when they primarily focus on the productivity, they focus on the numbers, they focus on the metrics. That’s absolutely fine, there is nothing wrong about it. But the problem is while doing so, they lose focus primarily on the well-being of the people.

Recently, I had gone through this book, Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek, where he says that when we ask the CEO what is your priority, they usually say customers. That might be true for small companies, but as the companies scale up, they grow bigger and that connection becomes smaller and eventually it becomes zero. So what is the truth here? The truth is CEOs or the leaders are responsible for the people and people eventually take care of your customers. So you really have to start backwards. That is where leaders really get it wrong.

Alyshia Kisor-Madlem: I think to build on that, often the focus is on numbers where people say, “I want to grow margin to something,” or “I want to grow year over year.” They lose the purpose. They lose who they are. They lose the connection to mission, vision and values. That’s what drives purpose and why. That’s what gets people to put in the time it takes to achieve those new margins and growth.

It starts to be this focus on hitting a numerical value instead of looking at the full growth journey—growing people or growing services or whatever it is you provide. You lose the connection to why you started or what you’re doing. People get disengaged and you start to see that downtrend very quickly.

Bethany LaFlam: I love that we’re having this conversation because I think too often we focus on the numbers and not on the people who get us there. The biggest thing for scaling, of course, is to leverage other people. I wrote a whole book on it. I specifically say leverage and not use because we want to make sure that we’re building up those people. It’s only sustainable if it’s a win for everybody. Everyone that’s helping you get to your vision and your dream—it has to help them get to theirs. It’s got to work for everybody. We lose sight of that when we focus just on the numerical metrics.

Christopher Filipiak: When you’re thinking about doing something sustainably, it means you can do it for a long time and it doesn’t eat away at your base-level resources. As you grow your company, or grow anything or grow yourself, you have more of something, not less. That’s the kind of growth we want.

It’s about developing the skill sets in your organization around change and growth. How can you build a culture that embraces and has the skills required to continually change and grow? When you develop that as a competency, that’s going to create sustainability in the people and in the organization as a whole.

Harley Green: Great insights there. I’m excited to dive into some of the things you all said. Bethany, you write about Aligned Living. What’s the cost when founders scale misaligned and how can they catch that early?

Bethany LaFlam: I think the biggest cost is misalignment in your business, which could mean a number of things. If it’s not driving toward a stated goal or big vision, that’s a problem. People get this wrong a lot. They don’t state the goal. They’re busy running a business and they’ll figure it out later. But if you’re just working to work and you don’t really know where you’re headed, that’s going to lead to misalignment.

You end up growing for the sake of growth, but it’s not scalable or sustainable. Then you find yourself being pulled back—one step forward, two steps back. If you’re not aligned, you are going to backslide. It’ll take longer to get to your goal. Either you haven’t identified it, or you have people outside their lanes. Entrepreneurs are notorious for trying to do all the things.

How can you catch it early? Stop quieting that voice, that inner knowing. I know it doesn’t seem logical, and it seems really soft. But especially as women, we’ve been conditioned to quiet that voice down. If it feels misaligned, it probably is. Trust that. Recalibrate. That feeling is just as important as the data. If something is painful, your job is to figure out how to make it not painful. Anyone who says it just has to suck for a really long time—don’t listen to that. It doesn’t. Your job is to get through the suck as fast as possible and actually enjoy your life.

Christopher Filipiak: That’s a really interesting awareness. As you grow your business and yourself, there’s good and bad in everything. One person’s “suck” could be another person’s passion. Alignment comes from being aware of that and choosing where to put your focus. If you’re not in love with your work or your business, you’re going to self-sabotage. You’ll spend more time in the suck than in the love.

Bethany LaFlam: The biggest obstacle is our mindset. I’ve spent hundreds of thousands on coaching just to shift my mindset and remind myself—I get to do the things I love because I said so.

Saima Geelani: I agree. From a coaching perspective, it’s about listening to your inner self—your inner “who.” That’s where the magic happens. That’s where you find your passion and energy.

Harley Green: Christopher, you coach CEOs through high-stakes sales growth. How do you help them expand revenue without becoming the bottleneck?

Christopher Filipiak: It’s about understanding what sales really is. You started a business, and sales is a part of that. But sales is also an expression of love and service. There’s a mindset component to it: mastering your own sales work as the CEO. No resistance to strangers, no resistance to sales, no limiting beliefs around money. You need awareness around those things so they don’t stop you.

Once you’re aligned with sales and money, you start selecting strategies, behaviors, and teammates based on cause and effect—not fear, worry, or doubt. That creates flow. And that frees you up from being the bottleneck.

Alyshia Kisor-Madlem: I’d add to that. As operators, we help visionary CEOs get what’s in their head out into the world. Once you start selling, you need others to understand what you do so you’re not the only person who can do the job. At some point, someone else has to get it too. CEOs need to figure out what only they can do, what they can train others to do, and what they can let go of.

Sometimes, it’s about having trusted people around you—employees or advisors—who can say, “You can’t keep doing it all.” Let go. Build trust. Surround yourself with people who can scale the mission without making it all about you.

Christopher Filipiak: Exactly. Build the skills and strategies into the business, not just into one person. As you do that, the CEO is free to do what they love most. Every CEO is different, so the goal is to build a system that doesn’t rely on one personality.

Saima Geelani: I love that Alicia mentioned letting go. It’s like parenting. You let your kids do things on their own, trusting them even if they fail at first. That’s how they learn. Same with teams. Trust them. Be there to support them. That’s how trust grows, and so does your business.

Harley Green: Great answers. Alyshia, you’ve led teams through growth and acquisition. What were some breaking points you had to solve, and what did you learn about scaling people—not just processes?

Alyshia Kisor-Madlem: The biggest thing I’ve seen is the difference between heroic contributors and operationalization. Small companies often start with one or two heroic contributors—they do everything. But you can’t scale if you’re dependent on a few people. You have to get the information out of their heads and operationalize it.

If you don’t, you create single points of failure and even “unfireable” people. Maybe they don’t fit anymore, but you’re shackled to them because no one else knows what they know. You need to build training, documentation, and backups early on. If not, you get stuck in a cycle: grow, lose something, grow again, lose again. You never really get ahead.

Bethany LaFlam: That still comes back to letting go. If the CEO can’t let go, you can’t put systems in place. And that’s often a mindset issue—feeling like you have to prove your worth. But your team wants you out of the weeds. They want to run in their lane while you stay in yours.

Saima Geelani: Exactly. It’s about trusting yourself and the team. Clear vision, clear direction. Otherwise, your team is just doing tasks, not driving toward a shared destination.

Harley Green: Saima, your work focuses on leadership energy. What are the invisible drains leaders often overlook, and how can they recover momentum before burnout?

Saima Geelani: The invisible drains are your internal narratives. In coaching, we call them gremlins. They’re meant to keep you safe, but really they make you smaller. One example: “I can’t stop. I have to keep going.” Even on vacation, some leaders keep checking in. That sends the wrong message—it says you don’t trust your team.

There’s a book, Taming Your Gremlins by Rick Carson, that helps with this. It starts with self-awareness. Then you embrace the gremlin, and start to overcome it. Also, you need clear boundaries. When roles aren’t clear, leaders end up doing everything—strategy, ops, admin—and burn out. Good leadership requires boundaries, trust, and space to breathe.

Alyshia Kisor-Madlem: I love that energy came up. Energy is a finite resource, just like time or money. You need to track what tasks give or drain your energy. That can shape how you design your day, price your services, and build your team. It’s not fluff—it’s vital.

Bethany LaFlam: We use something from Dan Martell’s Buy Back Your Time—a time and energy audit. Not just what takes time, but what drains bandwidth. If someone’s dragging, we ask: Are you working outside your lane? Are you stuck in tasks that drain you? Maybe someone else loves that work. It’s all about fit.

Harley Green: Let’s talk about trade-offs. What’s one hard decision you made to protect your energy or your team’s, and how did you make peace with it?

Saima Geelani: Maybe I can speak to that. Two years ago, I moved from France to the United States. I was fortunate to get a leadership role within a month. My background is in talent development—the soft side of HR. Over time, I realized my work wasn’t aligned with my values. My role was meant to support well-being programs, but the leadership was only focused on productivity and metrics. Both approaches have merit, but we weren’t aligned.

Eventually, I decided to resign. That was tough. I still remember how hard it was to press that send button on my resignation email. But I listened to my inner voice. I paused, reflected, and discovered coaching. That was my passion all along. Now, I get to work with anyone I want. I’m free to do the work that lights me up. I believe life is not a game to win or lose—it’s meant to be played. So enjoy the journey.

Bethany LaFlam: I want to add to that. At one point, we had a high-paying client who had the power to refer us—or not. But they were abusive to my team. I made the hard call to fire them. I wanted my team to know that I’d protect them over the money. Sure, it was risky—they could’ve trashed our reputation. But I did it respectfully. That move told my team: I’ve got your back, and your well-being matters more than any client.

Harley Green: That ties into a live question from our audience. Kedra asked: Can you talk about the importance of team morale and what leaders can do to inspire and encourage their teams?

Alyshia Kisor-Madlem: Great question. As leaders, we have a lot of behind-the-scenes conversations. And we don’t always share those with the team. But your team craves information—they want to know what’s going on. You have to define what transparency looks like in your company, and then commit to it. Let people in. Show them that you’re in this too—not just barking orders from the top.

Whether things are going well or you’re facing challenges, acknowledge it. Let them know what’s changing and why. That level of communication and buy-in directly impacts morale. Especially in tough times, the message should be: We see it, we’re working on it, and we’re in this together.

Saima Geelani: I couldn’t agree more. Lack of clear communication causes chaos. In energy leadership, we talk about seven levels of energy. When communication is unclear, people drop into Level 2—frustration and anger. Even your best people start to burn out.

Alyshia Kisor-Madlem: And you can’t stop DMs—whether on Slack, Teams, whatever. If you’re not communicating, people will fill in the blanks. They’ll start creating their own narratives, and those usually aren’t friendly to leadership. You need to get ahead of it. Share information openly and often to control the story.

Bethany LaFlam: Yes.

Saima Geelani: Absolutely.

Christopher Filipiak: As leaders, we have to model the attitude and culture we want to see. Everything in business has cycles—ups and downs. If your emotions are controlled by the circumstances, the whole organization becomes reactive. Instead, model emotional stability. Teach it as a skill. Hire people who want to participate in that kind of culture.

Morale, culture, and mindset are choices we get to make every day. And it’s easier to choose a better attitude when you’re aligned with your purpose. If you’re just chasing numbers, you burn out. But if you love what you do, you expand your energy and see more opportunities.

Harley Green: Excellent. Now, to wrap things up, I’ve got a lightning round question for everyone. What’s your best advice for a business leader who wants to scale without burnout? And as you answer, please share the best way for our audience to connect with you.

Christopher Filipiak: Think of scaling without burnout as a skill set. Ask yourself: What’s the skill set I need to develop around burnout? That starts with learning to feel your emotions and move through them to gain clarity. Also, have someone in your corner—a coach or mentor—who can help you see blind spots like overworking or poor hiring choices. Best way to connect:christopherfilipiak.com or LinkedIn.

Bethany LaFlam: Know your lane and stay in it. Your lane is where three things overlap: what you’re amazing at, what lights you up, and what moves you toward your life goals. Do only what lives in that lane and build a team to handle the rest. You get to do that. Find support to make it happen. Best way to reach me is on Instagram:@bethany_laflam.

Saima Geelani: Lead with your anabolic energy—that’s high-vibration, trust-based leadership. Energy is contagious. If you show up with purpose and positivity, your team will reflect that. It’s the best path to scale without stress. Connect with me at talentedgeworld.com or LinkedIn: Saima Geelani.

Alyshia Kisor-Madlem: Be solid in your mission, vision, values, and purpose. Build from that foundation. It’s what keeps people aligned and energized, especially when things get hard. Connect with me on LinkedIn: Alyshia Kisor-Madlem.

Harley Green: Thank you to all of our panelists for sharing real strategies, honest insights, and leadership wisdom. And thank you to everyone who joined us live. Remember—scaling isn’t just about growth. It’s about protecting what makes that growth worth it. If you’re ready to scale with the right support, check out our free masterclass atworkergenix.com/bonus-masterclass. We’ll see you at the next Executive Edge Live.

All: Thank you!

How to Turn Your Team into a High-Performing Asset (Without Burnout)

by faye.eScale Smart, Grow Fast PodcastPosted on Comments are Disabled

How to Turn Your Team into a High-Performing Asset (Without Burnout)

If your team is your biggest investment, why aren’t they delivering your biggest return?

In a recent episode of the Scale Smart Grow Fast podcast, host Harley Green sat down with Katie Close, transformational leadership coach and founder of Self Mastery, Entrepreneur Evolution. Katie shared a powerful 6-part framework that helps leaders transform their teams into aligned, efficient, and high-ROI assets—without burnout or bloated headcounts.

Preferred listening on the go? Catch the full podcast episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Here’s what growth-minded founders and executives need to know:

1. Strategic Clarity Drives Everything

Vision isn’t just a poster on the wall. According to Katie, strategic clarity must be embedded into daily operations and decisions. Without it, you risk hiring misaligned team members and wasting energy on low-ROI activities.

2. People Need Defined Roles and Accountability

Too many leaders expect new hires to “figure it out.” Katie emphasizes clear role definitions, consistent processes, and aligned expectations as key drivers of performance and satisfaction.

3. Process Before People

Before hiring, first fix your systems. Throwing more people at unclear workflows only creates expensive inefficiencies. Align structure and operations before expanding the team.

4. Hire Support for the Visionary

Visionary leaders often live on the edge of growth and chaos. Hiring an executive assistant or integrator helps bring structure to vision, translating ideas into execution and freeing the visionary to focus on innovation.

5. Emotional Intelligence is Non-Negotiable

Leadership isn’t just strategy—it’s psychology. Katie highlights how subconscious beliefs and unprocessed emotions can sabotage leadership. Emotional intelligence helps leaders stay grounded, navigate setbacks, and maintain the energy needed to inspire others.

6. Start With Honest Conversations

Want to improve your team’s performance? Start by asking: “What’s working, what’s not, and what should we change?” Katie calls this the “1% conversation”—a simple practice that catches small issues before they become big problems.

“Scale smart before you grow fast.”

Katie’s final advice? Optimize the human side of your business. Emotional patterns, clarity gaps, and poor delegation habits are the silent killers of growth. Get intentional, get honest, and start leading smarter.

Learn more about Katie Close’s coaching and framework at https://katieclose.com

Want a high-performing team without the burnout? 

Workergenix pairs you with an Ultimate Executive Assistant to bring clarity, systems, and execution to your vision—book a free discovery call today.

Like what you read? Get weekly insights on scaling, efficiency, and profitability—straight to your inbox. Click here to subscribe.

Transcript:

Harley Green:
 Hey everybody, welcome back to the Scale Smart Grow Fast podcast. Now, if your people are your greatest investment, why aren’t they delivering the strongest ROI? In this episode, Katie Close, Transformational Leadership Coach and founder of Self Mastery, Entrepreneur Evolution, shares how business leaders can align strategy, structure, and emotional intelligence to unlock their team’s true potential. Drawing from over two decades of experience, Katie reveals six key framework items that help transform expensive overhead into consistent high performance enabling growth without burnout. Katie, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?

Katie:
 Hi Harley, thank you. Yes, well.

Harley Green:
 Great, now Katie, maybe you can share a little bit more about your background. What brought you to helping others with their people now?

Katie:
 Well, my husband and I, when we got married, we had these master degrees and we had envisioned ourselves in the workplace to some degree, but he had this stirring for entrepreneurship. So very quickly we are building a moving company from scratch. We got a truck and now we’re building a company. I was a little bit surprised about how emotional that journey was because if I’m getting straight A’s through a master’s program, why am I not figuring out business? It actually required something distinct from us. We went through some highs and lows that we weren’t expecting.

We then got into the transformational work of people in nonprofits, because I was very inspired by that. Organizational leadership, yes, but really keying in on the individual. I often say that team is made up of I’s. They just all get together and figure out how to harmonize and become an efficient organization for the intended purpose or mission.

When I really started to take my time with individuals and actually individuals that were on the brink of severe challenges—and through a nonprofit, it was a lot of drug and alcohol addiction—and those people, they need to change. You don’t have the convenience of when or how or if. It’s now. It’s essential.

Watching that transformation, I saw how much of it occurred at a subconscious and emotional level. Then I started to apply a lot of that for business. We draw out our patterns. Especially if we have margins, we just allow them to be eaten up by overhead. I know you guys just recently had a podcast about increasing head count, just more people as if that’s going to solve what people. What are they going to have to feel, think and exchange in the organization?

I started doing that for us. We opened up another business—we had sold our moving one—but we opened up a lawn and landscaping one. People saw the transformations that were occurring and started asking me to coach. Again, I love people. So I was happy to do that. And I’ve continued to do that as we’ve had a number of other businesses. We’ve sold some, building other ones, looking to buy one again recently.

I go in and help other businesses with those underlying dynamics that often get lost. We know ourselves, right? I don’t know, Harley, if you’ve ever experienced this, but you’re like, I’m doing a new workout program, or I’m going to get up at the same time every day, or I’m going to do my work blocks. The idea of it’s good, but our emotional patterns sometimes overtake all of that.

Imagine wanting to change the entire patterns and habits of a whole organization—not just yourself, but the whole thing. That’s, I think, where there’s so much underlying potential, but there’s so much work to be done.

Harley Green:
 Absolutely. I love what you said about the challenge of changing this whole organization when we struggle just to keep consistent ourselves. One of the things you say is that people are both your greatest expense and greatest return. What makes that alignment so critical for leaders who want real ROI from their team?

Katie:
 Well, if we bring it back to yourself, we watch a lot of our own internal patterns play out. We’re sometimes very hard on ourselves, on our mistakes, on our patterns. But we have to realize we are—especially if you’re a visionary or one of the key elements—you are one of the greatest assets to your business: your energy, your clarity, your patterns. As you start to believe that, you can start to believe that in your people. But it doesn’t mean it’s just automatic.

There are a number of elements going on. A lot of time people just say, I’ll put in a new person. This person’s driving me nuts. I loved them at first, get them out of here. It’s like dating. You ever see somebody fall in love and the person could do no wrong? They hire them on the first meeting. No real plan or strategy. Just a good feeling. And then they’re out. They’re not doing what I said. I can’t stand it anymore. Get out. Hiring somebody else. Then that person looks like the last. Bob looks a lot like Billy who looks a lot like Luke.

We actually have a way of being that can either make people very expensive for us or make people really optimized and beneficial for us.

Harley Green:
 Yeah, let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about your framework, the six key elements in your framework. What do those consist of?

Katie:
 We have to be clear on where we’re going. Vision, mission, strategic clarity—if you write it down and put it in a drawer, it’s a start, but often gives a false sense of engagement. There’s a decision every day to live out that clarity. Am I going in the direction I intend? What is or isn’t moving me there? I love quarters because every quarter you can reassess. Every day might be too much, but strategic check-ins help.

Then we have our people, but we’re really choosing them in light of the strategic clarity. A lot of times we think someone will just come in and fix something, but people appreciate clarity and a bit of structure. Visionaries often don’t like being told what to do, but others want direction and structure. That makes for a great organization.

Transparency is another one. We need to be okay with micro mistakes. With good measurables, we facilitate clarity and quick responses to breakdowns. Then we solve root problems—this is where emotional intelligence is key. It takes intentionality, not just fire-fighting. We need process and execution with consistency, building new habits. Otherwise, you’re just adding more people without clear direction or impact.

Harley Green:
 Yeah. One thing we found in our business was going from chaos to having clear job descriptions, responsibilities, and procedures. There was less chaos, more done, and everyone was happier.

Katie:
 Exactly.

Harley Green:
 Of the elements you just talked about, is there any one in particular that has the most impact when not in place? What red flags can people watch for?

Katie:
 They’re all important, but strategic clarity and the ability to execute it regularly stand out. You can’t just write it and put it away—even putting it on the wall isn’t enough. It must be in the habits of your people. If you can integrate it daily, people start to figure it out and embody it.

It’s hard to scale if people have to read you all the time. That’s why having an operational person or executive assistant to bridge the gap is essential. Visionaries iterate a lot. Not everyone wants to live on the edge with them. An assistant can stabilize execution, allowing the visionary to keep creating.

Harley Green:
 What would you say to that visionary who doesn’t have an assistant yet? How do you communicate the benefits?

Katie:
 This year I’ve had a true executive assistant. My day is full of creativity and new decisions. I’m less bogged down, and I didn’t realize how much the little stuff was wearing me out. Yes, it’s a bit of a risk, but I’d talk to a visionary using words like “risk,” “return,” “creativity,” and “freedom.” That’s what they want.

I also host twice-monthly workshop calls for a visionary and their assistant or integrator. They both need to be there. Visionaries are bigger-than-life people—they often undervalue that stabilizing role. We’re often in survival mode, thinking we have to bring in the money, make stuff happen. But we need structure and people who can create that calm.

Harley Green:
 You mentioned freedom and time. Sometimes visionaries feel guilty when their assistant is working and they’re at their kid’s ballgame. What would you say to that?

Katie:
 Great question. Guilt is often systemic—it’s not always just your feeling. It could come from cultural or family conditioning. Maybe you were told you’re lazy if not busy. We need to recognize that conditioning.

Visionaries need to focus on their energy. That’s the most valuable thing. If going to the ballgame re-energizes you and you come back with more clarity and drive, that’s invaluable. But if you check out and don’t come back energized, then yeah, maybe it’s an issue. Your job is to 

Harley Green:
 That leads into another question. How does emotional intelligence factor into team optimization?

Katie:
 We have this prefrontal cortex where we set goals and get strategic, but a big driver in our brain is the limbic system—our emotions. We are moved by how we feel: respected, powerful, free. Tools like the Predictive Index and Culture Index help uncover work motivators.

Money can only motivate so much. Emotional intelligence allows leaders to notice and work through things like burnout, stress, disappointment, regret—all of which affect creativity and leadership. Ray Dalio said, “Pain plus reflection equals progress.” We need to reflect to grow.

Harley Green:
 So when aligning people, strategy, and systems, what mindset shifts do leaders need?

Katie:
 Let’s play with this. When you take on more systems, part of you probably goes, “Woohoo,” especially if you don’t have to build them. But is there a part of you that resists?

Harley Green:
 Definitely. Sunk cost fallacy comes to mind. “It’s worked this far, why change it?”

Katie:
 Okay, so why change what’s working?

Harley Green:
 If the ROI is better—if it helps us or our clients more—then it’s worth it.

Katie:
 Have you had it work out?

Harley Green:
 Yes, in our lending business we switched platforms, and it’s been great.

Katie:
 If it hasn’t worked out, there’s still something to learn. Sometimes we don’t reflect on what went wrong. That’s where expensive entrepreneurial education becomes valuable if we show up for it. Reflect and evolve.

Harley Green:
 What are some examples of subconscious issues holding leaders back?

Katie:
 I had a client who loved freedom and thought everyone wanted the same. They hired salespeople with no structure, thinking autonomy equals performance. But it was abdication, not delegation. The hires weren’t held accountable, and it blew up. One hire even reminded the client of his father. It was subconscious patterning playing out.

Harley Green:
 Wow.

Katie:
 We all have those patterns. The subconscious says, “I got you,” whether that’s brushing your teeth or repeating emotional cycles. We have to examine which patterns serve us and which don’t.

Harley Green:
 What’s one practical step leaders can take this week to start that shift?

Katie:
 Have a safe, honest conversation with each person on your team. Ask: What’s working? What’s not? What would you change? You don’t have to implement it all, but it gives you awareness. We call it the “1% conversation.” Catch the issue at 1% before it becomes a 50% problem.

Harley Green:
 Katie, thank you so much for sharing these actionable strategies. Where can people connect with you?

Katie:
 Visit katieclose.com. I offer coaching for both the executive and their organization. We do group work every quarter around the six elements. Harvard Business Review says a $10M business can lose $2M yearly in operational inefficiencies. If $2M motivates you, come check it out.

Harley Green:
 If you got value from this episode, hit like and subscribe so you don’t miss future strategies to help you scale smarter. Share this with someone who needs it. Thanks for tuning in!

Surviving the Scale-Up: Leadership & Culture Lessons from Vidya Murali

by faye.eScale Smart, Grow Fast PodcastPosted on Comments are Disabled

Surviving the Scale-Up: Leadership & Culture Lessons from Vidya Murali

Scaling a business isn’t just about growth metrics — it’s about surviving the emotional, cultural, and leadership chaos that comes with it. In a recent episode of Scale Smart Grow Fast, host Harley Green sat down with Vidya Murali, executive coach, former Amazon leader, and author of How to Survive in a Scale-Up Business, to unpack the real skills needed to thrive in high-growth environments.

Preferred listening on the go? Catch the full podcast episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Why Most Scale-Ups Struggle

According to Vidya, many startups fail to survive their scale-up phase because:

  • The business model isn’t truly proven, just funded.
  • Leadership hires are made based on brand names, not fit.
  • Founders resist adapting their own roles and team structures.
  • Toxic loyalty prevents necessary transitions.

Her insight? “What got you here won’t get you there. Scale-ups need a different kind of leadership mindset.”

The Emotional Skills That Matter

Vidya emphasizes that logic and strategy alone don’t cut it in the chaos of scale-ups. Leaders need:

  • Emotional resilience to stay grounded under pressure.
  • Self-awareness to let go of micromanagement.
  • Psychological safety to drive true performance and innovation.
  • Cultural clarity to scale values alongside business goals.

Creating Resilient, High-Performance Teams

Vidya urges leaders to:

  • Build teams with a healthy skills mix (not just fresh talent).
  • Regularly reevaluate roles based on evolving strategy.
  • Invest in mentoring and coaching, not just performance metrics.
  • Recognize burnout indicators early and reset expectations before it’s too late.

A strong culture doesn’t happen by accident — it’s shaped by intentional behavior, communication, and trust at the top.

Practical Leadership Habits

If you’re scaling fast, Vidya recommends two weekly rituals:

  1. Set clear intentions on Monday. What kind of leader do you want to be this week?
  2. Reflect on Friday. What worked? What didn’t? How did you show up for your team?

And always pause before reacting: “The space between a trigger and your response is where leadership lives.”

💡 Final Thought

Scale-ups aren’t for the faint of heart. But with the right mindset, emotional tools, and cultural focus, you can grow without burning out.


 📘 Get her book at 40% off using code HSSB40: Buy the Book
 🌐 Learn more at vidyamurali.com

🚀 Feeling the pressure of fast growth?

At Workergenix, we help founders and execs streamline operations, empower leadership teams, and build sustainable, high-performance cultures — without the burnout.

👉 Book a free discovery call to see how our executive support solutions can help you scale smarter.

Like what you read? Get weekly insights on scaling, efficiency, and profitability—straight to your inbox. Click here to subscribe.

Transcript

Harley Green: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Scale Smart Grow Fast podcast. What does it really take to thrive in a scale-up environment? In this episode, Vidya Murali, author of How to Survive in a Scale-Up Business and former senior leader at Amazon, Deliveroo and Skyscanner shares hard earned insights on the leadership mindset, cultural pitfalls and team dynamics that define high growth companies. With over two decades of experience scaling performance and resilience in tech, Vidya is going to offer practical advice for executives managing rapid change without losing their people or their sanity. Vidya, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?

Vidya Murali: Thanks Harley, thanks for the intro. I’m doing well.

Harley Green: Awesome Vidya. Can you share a little bit more about your background? You’ve got incredible professional background, these amazing businesses. You know, what has prompted you to write this book and share your experience?

Vidya Murali: Sure. So I grew up in India. I did my engineering and I joined the IT sector, which was very booming at that time. And then I took that as an opportunity to come to the UK as well. I did my MBA in Cambridge and my first job after MBA was Amazon. So Amazon, worked for more than six and a half years and I got really interested in the growing categories in Amazon. And at the end of six and a half years, I thought, okay, let me go join these scale-ups, these high growth young companies and the small fish, big pond, big fish, small pond type analogy. So I entered scale-ups almost blind. And when I entered the scale-ups and with my experience in Amazon, everything was new. No one prepared me for how chaotic it’s going to be. It was exciting. We had really big opportunities to lead the team, to grow, do something new. I enjoyed all of that.

However, it also came with some challenges because if you think about scale-ups, young founders, there’s a lot of tension around fundraising. There’s a need to prove value, the requirement for the role and teams change constantly. So I felt even with that Amazon experience and MBA and all that stuff, I was not prepared. No one prepared me for this. What I needed was emotional skills, like emotional superpower skills to navigate this environment because logic just didn’t cut it. It didn’t make a cut in the environment like Amazon, but not in the scale-ups. So I changed quite a few jobs. I learned a lot in this process. However, I was constantly questioning myself, what’s wrong with me? Why am I changing these jobs? What’s not working? And then during COVID, like everybody else, I had some time to reflect. And I realized like, okay, this is not a problem with me. It’s the nature of the environment.

And when I connected with other people who made this transition from mature corporates or well-organized businesses to scale-ups, I had similar stories. There’s a lot of war stories. There are people thriving, there are people struggling. So I thought how wonderful it would be to take all these experiences, very challenging experiences sometimes, and also like good experiences, and write a book that will help people to navigate this environment.

Whether they are grads looking for a dynamic space to work or working in corporate environment and are really tired of meeting after meetings and documents and stuff. They want to do something big, manage big teams. When they make this transition, I thought this will be an incredible resource, something that I wish I had before. So I wouldn’t be questioning myself rather working on developing the skills to navigate this environment. So yeah, that’s the background behind the book.

And I personally enjoy writing. I like the process of writing. It gets me into the state of flow. I love talking to individuals, hearing their stories. So all of this put together, I was able to reach out to a lot of veterans, experienced people, get their stories, convert them into practical insights, also use some frameworks. I am an experienced coach as well. So I brought coaching questions into the book. So it’s very much a practical toolkit that people can take and go, okay, now I’m the first 90 days or I’m interviewing, what should I be looking out for? What can I do? Or I’m facing this pattern. There is some toxic loyalty going on here. What can I do about it? So that’s kind of the idea.

Harley Green: Very nice. Now you’ve led some high growth teams when at these different companies you’ve been with. What would you say separates companies that survive scale-up from those that crumble?

Vidya Murali: Yeah, that’s a really good question. I think obviously there’s a few things that come together, needs to come together. First of all, the business idea. When you move from a startup to a scale-up phase, the business idea shouldn’t just be an idea. It should be a model that’s worked out and that’s fully proven. Unfortunately, in many cases, it seemed to be an idea and somehow they convinced the funding, investors to invest into the business and that’s not quite it. So the proof of the business that it works, it can scale, needs to be established fully. And then it’s about the team really, leadership and team. The CEO and the founding teams are super useful and super important for the success of the business. Because of the small nature of the team, they are the culture. In big companies, yeah, you have all these cultures, you write these things and it is more organic. But in scale-ups, it is the CEO and founders that make the culture. So if they are able to create the environment of psychological safety, people can fail, people can move on, people can take risks and grow. And, you know, they are embedded within the business. There’s a good chance that the scale-ups will make it. On the other hand, you also have scale-ups that are kind of super hyped. The business model is not proved. They also hire people based on like brands and I come from Amazon myself, but just because I have an Amazon brand doesn’t make me the right fit for the roles and the scale-ups. Might be in some case, might not be in some case. So the founders and leadership need to be very honest about who are they looking for, at what level of maturity the org is, and they need to bring people that are right for that kind of stage. Also let go of people who are not serving them because somebody who’s done well in one to hundred might not be the right person from hundred to thousand or beyond, which is very hard. If you think about the founders, they have a lot of loyalty, which is a great thing because they had people who have been with them for quite a long time. However, including themselves, you need to question, does the business need my skills or it could be better off with somebody else who has the experience of scaling. So yeah, these are very tough conversations to be had, reflections to be had, something that I covered in my book as well, but it’s important when a business has its own identity, it’s becoming a bigger part of the employers and it’s actually making an impact to do justice to it and not be blockers for the business, even though you’re like, be the founder and CEO.

Harley Green: What are some tips you have or strategies that maybe you share in the book to help founders in these leadership teams when they might be at that point where it might be time to reevaluate the roles of some of those long-time loyal employees or even themselves? Is there opportunities to change the role or are there some cases where they just need to completely exit the company and find a new home?

Vidya Murali: Yeah, it’s a mix of both. I think the main thing is you have a strategy, a vision, and then you develop your org structure and skills working backwards from it. And that includes the founder and CEO and the top leadership till the junior most level as well. Every, ever so often every year, if it’s a scale-up or you’re doing it more frequently, the needs keep changing. So you need to think about, okay, this year, this is my goal. For example, your goal could be, I’m going to expand in new markets and I need some scalable systems to do that. And then you think about, okay, do I have the leadership in place in all these areas to drive this? Have these people got the experience and then work downwards, like top down from it. In terms of the question of, could we coach people and upskill them? Or should some people have to exit, I think it’s again a combination of both. At some level, some scenarios, people are coachable, especially if they’re early, like, they’re junior employees and in the mid-level employees, still possible to coach them, as long as they have role models in their team. So I have worked in businesses where everybody is like pretty new and then they don’t have these leadership and role models to coach them and grow them. But in some cases, people are just suited for that stage of the business. So again, I have the suitability test as well in my book, and I’m going to share that in some form. We need to understand what drives people, where do they thrive? So somebody who has a very high risk appetite and has alleged reaction to processes, they’re not going to thrive in bigger companies or even the scaling companies. Or somebody who has very low risk appetite and they like to analyze and think about things before they do, they’re not going to thrive in the early stage. We got to kind of be real about where people thrive in the environment and have that conversation with them. And rather than seeing this as a negative, it’s probably a good thing for this person because they’re no longer in the environment, they’re able to thrive. So give them an opportunity to also move on to somewhere they can do well.

Harley Green: You mentioned that it’s the responsibility of the leadership team to set the culture in these businesses. What would you say are some of the most common cultural setting challenges that leaders face as they shift from startup to that scale-up mode?

Vidya Murali: Yeah, there’s quite a few. With the scale-up comes a lot of pressure. So startup, if you think about it, this idea, they’re approving, they’re like a small team. They don’t really have to have meetings. They can talk to each other. When you go to a scale-up stage, it becomes like an organization. It’s like the Dunbar number, like 150 people. You don’t have to organize anything. You just can’t get to know. But beyond that, then you need to have some internal communication set up. You need to communicate in a way that motivates people and challenges them, but also balances the reality of the situation. So many founders and leaders are not ready for this because when they started the company, many of them started it because they didn’t want to be an employee. They didn’t want to follow all these rules. And then they go into the scale-up stage and now they have to create them. And that’s quite challenging.

It can be done with a great team in place. So I think one of the things that founders can do is not to think about it as their own sole ownership. They can also bring in people who can help them and complement them in this area. They can still be the visionary, but you have a good CEO who’s able to kind of communicate, for instance, and bring the people, the team together. That is probably the most important thing and challenge that founders face in terms of engaging the employees and the team and bring them together. But yeah, apart from that, obviously, as it scales, they need to make profit, the pressures and the rigor, execution rigor also becomes more important than in a startup stage.

The leaders might not have experience or skills. Again, this is where the hiring comes in place and bringing in people who have done that. And also creating them space when you bring in new people, you got to give them the liberty and freedom to operate. If they are operating under a restricted environment, as in they need to kind of listen to what the CEO says and not able to challenge CEO, and they have to maintain the team that’s been there for ages and don’t have the skills, you bring a fantastic person, put them in the middle, they can’t deliver. So those kinds of things are very common with all good intentions, you know, bring in new people, but make sure that’s set up for success and change.

Harley Green: Yeah, let’s talk a little bit more about getting them set up for success and how can these leaders build these resilient cultures while still supporting the performance and not sacrificing their people? We’re in that stressful stage where you want to start getting profits. You want everyone at their peak performance, but you still want to have that resilient culture and it’s a fine balance. What are some tips and strategies that you might offer people to consider?

Vidya Murali: Yeah. So there is a very common myth that when you push people to drive performance, it kind of affects the culture in a negative way. You can only do it in a negative way, but it’s not the case. In many of the scale-ups I’ve worked, I saw a lot of busy work where people are constantly on Slack messages. People are constantly changing their decisions. Kind of like, you know, being micromanaged by C-level people.

And all of this is actually counter effective on performance. So really thinking about how to build a sustainable team and how to drive them for performance. Some of the common ways you can do that is ensure there’s a good mix of people. When you have a team, if you’re kind of bringing all of these people like, you know, very fresh and you don’t have experience there, there’s going to be a problem. These people are going to be waiting for instructions and that creates this micromanagement environment.

So every year, every six months, make sure your teams have a good mix of skills so they can learn from each other rather than having to have this kind of, for the leadership team and the rest of the company, that kind of having those layers is a good way for driving performance. Another kind of misunderstood thing is the psychological safety. It’s seen as something very soft, that’s not driving performance, seen as a cushion, but actually it drives performance. So Amy Edmondson, she’s done a lot of research on that in Google. And the one thing that differentiated the teams that drive performance versus others is the psychological safety. It simply means when things are going wrong, the team is open and safe to raise it as soon as possible without feeling that they’ll have some repercussions. That’s going to save a lot of time. So if that culture is encouraged where the failures are celebrated and somebody saying something that’s negative is encouraged rather than something pushed down, then that’s going to save a lot of time.

And also the micromanagement. So when you are a small company, the CEOs, the founders, CEOs, they’re all involved in all kinds of decisions. But as you scale, you need to step back and question, is my time well spent in this particular decision or is it well spent being involved in all the tactical things that I’m doing? And this is also actually creating a lot of pressure for the team. If the leaders are involved in every single decision, then they are probably going to be more prepared. They’re both going to be under the stress. So actually empowering the team to say, okay, you know, within the remits of your role, you can decide. And there are some things that need to come to my attention and like stop micromanaging and letting go. All of these can really help build more scalable culture rather than a culture that is based on control and busy work, which actually could be quite counter-effective.

Harley Green: You really nailed it when talking about executives being kind of micromanaging or being involved in decisions, they need to start questioning. And, you know, they oftentimes get to a point where they are drowning in these details when they start scaling up. And when does it make sense to start handing off some tasks from an executive’s plate to someone like an executive assistant, you know, coordinating reporting, admin work, calendar management, research, things like that, so they can really be freed up to be in that strategic mindset zone?

Vidya Murali: Yeah, as soon as possible, really. An executive’s time is not well spent doing admin. And there are various solutions — executive assistants, one of the solutions. We also have several AI tools now. Some roles like Chief of Staff would be quite useful as well if you’re looking at a little bit more higher driving strategic projects and connecting the dots, all of which can help.

The only caveat I would say is, again, creating the space for these people to do their job. And that requires the executives to let go and trust.

Harley Green: Right. A little bit earlier, we talked about how sometimes communication can actually slow things down. Like everyone’s responding to Slack messages all day. You know, as these companies are scaling, that communication can sometimes be something that breaks down, not just like in terms of not having communication, but maybe having too much communication or too much ease of communication. What are some practical methods to help maintain clarity and trust during that change regarding communication with the team?

Vidya Murali: Yeah. So, if one extreme is not communicating, people are going to assume things and people are going to have the feeling of uncertainty as well. It’s not good. On the other extreme, if everything needs to be communicated, that’s going to be really overwhelming. I worked in a company where everybody was constantly on Slack to the point that people had to do Slack work the whole day. And at the end of the day, they start doing their individual work.

That is an example of really, really extreme over-communication. I think it’s not the intent to communicate that overwhelms the team, it’s more the intent to control. So when the leadership team is very nervous about the team, they feel they have to be part of every single thing. They want to know everything. They want to be part of the decision-making. And that creates a cycle — they want to know, they ask questions. The team then goes, “I need to answer because my leader is asking this,” and they spend time on that. Then the team also prepares thinking, “I don’t have to think beyond what the leaders ask me for.”

So it goes into this whole busy work, micromanagement cycle. If you reverse it and go like, “I’m hiring this team that I can trust and I’m going to let them bring issues to me,” and have some controls in place — weekly business reviews, monthly reviews, KPIs — these give me both leading and lagging indicators, what Amazon calls inputs and outputs. I have those in place, but I’m going to trust my team to come up with these decisions and problems, and create the psychological safety and trust.

That requires a cultural change. That requires change management. If you’re stuck in that busyness wheel, it requires leaders to step back and really be honest about how their behavior is impacting the team and the performance and how that can be changed to become something more scalable.

Harley Green: Yeah. Well, speaking of maintaining the performance, when these businesses are scaling quickly, teams can often hit performance stress. What are some indicators that signal it’s time to reset the norms or reorient values?

Vidya Murali: Yeah, so I talk about burnout, for instance. It’s seen as unfortunately a badge of honor, but actually burnout is a very difficult experience. If you think about clinically someone affected by burnout, it takes a long time to reverse that. Anything to do with the brain takes a long time to reverse. So you really don’t want teams to go through that. You want to prevent those situations as soon as possible.

The indicators would be fatigue. If you think about having a team day or something, and the reaction is not excitement but “Ugh, another thing,” that’s a good indicator. It shows that they are not well. There’s no appetite for doing anything new, exciting, or change. So those reactions — which is why checking in is very important.

The practice of starting a meeting with a check-in, once a week asking your team how they’re feeling, how was their weekend — all these things which might sound trivial actually give a sense of how they are doing emotionally as well as in terms of well-being. There are various ways to check in. One method is “Rose, Bud, Thorn” — Rose is something positive, Bud is something they’re hoping for, and Thorn is something they are worried about. Ask them to share that. It brings all sorts of things they probably wouldn’t open up normally.

Creating those avenues is a great way to catch these early indicators. So once you sense that, what do you do about it? That’s where leaders need to step in and think about prioritization. Do you need the team to do everything, and do you need them to do it right now?

That’s one of the patterns — it’s a strength of founders and leaders to have a bias for action and want to do everything right away. That probably got them that far, but in a scaling business, everything cannot be done right now. That’s why you have to have priorities and accept that things take time to build properly. People have to schedule their work, and you need systems in place for milestones and delivery planning.

Harley Green: That’s so important. We are working with people, not machines. So there are those other aspects you have to be aware of to get the most out of them and make sure they’re happy. Speaking of that, we’ve kind of touched on this previously a little bit about bringing in people who maybe are going to help with coaching or mentoring at certain points in scaling. What role would you say the coaching and mentoring plays in helping scale-up leaders guide their teams through these difficult times?

Vidya Murali: I think it’s very important. I personally feel coaching is a gift, so is mentoring. Because when someone is stressed, as human beings, our logical part of the brain just switches off. We all go into this flight or fight mode. And that is not a good thinking machine. This is where using someone else to reflect really is powerful. So they’re able to bring this third-party perspective or even create the space for you and then you come up with your own answer. So coaching can be a powerful gift for everyone, including the leaders and the early employees.

Mentoring in particular, especially for the new joiners and people who want to move up but they haven’t done it before and then somebody else has done it before — that could be again a very powerful tool as well. And mentors not only help them with the skills, but they can also create opportunities for them because they are in the leadership team, they can be the sponsors as well. So I don’t think there’s any point in which you bring all these people. You just inherently hire people who have the opportunity and the willingness to coach and grow people and mentor people. So if you have a leadership team that’s willingly giving and bringing people up, that’s a gift. I think this Adam Grant’s new book, Give and Take, talks a lot about givers and bringing people into your team as well. So yeah, that is a great way to build scalable teams.

Harley Green: That’s great. Some people listening might have feared, “Okay, she’s going to say bring in the consultants,” right? But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can have your organic hires have these traits that foster that environment, it sounds like.

Vidya Murali: Yeah, you can bring the coaches as well. You obviously can use professional coaches, but you do need people embedded, understanding the context, to really help your employees.

Harley Green: Yeah, that’s perfect. Well, as we wrap up, for people who are feeling a little bit overwhelmed by growth in their business, what’s one actionable step they can take this week to strengthen their culture and regain control?

Vidya Murali: Yeah, so I would say the growth begins from inside. And if you’re a leader who’s overwhelmed and you’re like, “Oh my God, what’s going on in my business? Am I taking the right steps? What should I change?” I would suggest having an intention setting at the start of the week — saying, “This week, this is what I’m going to do — three things.”

And on a Friday afternoon, block your calendar and reflect, either with yourself or with a coach or with a mentor. How have you done? Not just from a performance point of view — what could you have done better from a behavioral point of view? What are the things that went well? What are the things you’re grateful for? And what are the things that you want to change?

So having that reflection practice really creates that clarity. And then you are a better person when you show up for your team, and the team sees that. And then it kind of creates this great culture. That would be my one tip. If I had to sneak in another tip, one extra tip would be —

Harley Green: Let’s do it. Yep.

Vidya Murali: Control your reactions, right? As leaders, you’re under pressure. There are lots of things — the board’s going to be putting pressure on you, your team, performance issues. But take that small pause between the trigger and your response and really intentionally communicate or respond. I’m not saying just always smile and be nice. Even if you’re going to communicate a bad message, if you’re going to communicate a challenging message, make sure you take some time to plan and communicate in a way that’s going to be productive. Because a lot of things when leaders react can actually have like 10x, 100x negative impact than anybody in a team reacting. So I would suggest these two things for the leaders.

Harley Green: That’s perfect. Thank you for sharing those tips with us. Now if people want to continue the conversation with you, Vidya, what’s the best way for them to connect?

Vidya Murali: So they can reach me. I do post a lot on LinkedIn, so they can follow me on LinkedIn and DM me or through my website — it’s vidyamurali.com. I have opportunities for scale-ups, networks, also for even grad universities to organize a career talk or a scale-up, thriving in scale-ups type of talk. They can reach me as well.

Harley Green: So as you’re listening, if you got value from this episode, do one quick thing. Hit like and subscribe so you don’t miss future strategies to help you scale smarter. And maybe you know a business owner or a colleague who could use this information. Share this episode with them. It could be exactly what they need right now. And if you’re listening on a podcast platform, leave us a quick star rating. It helps us reach more leaders just like you. And again, thanks for tuning in everybody. We will see you on the next one.

 Why Most Leaders Struggle to Scale—and What to Do Instead

by faye.eScale Smart, Grow Fast PodcastPosted on Comments are Disabled

 Why Most Leaders Struggle to Scale—and What to Do Instead

Despite their relentless effort, many leaders find themselves stuck.

The problem isn’t laziness—it’s focus. In our latest episode of Scale Smart Grow Fast, host Harley Green sits down with leadership strategist Liz Weber to explore why even the most dedicated leaders can stall growth—and how to fix it.

Listen to the full conversation on your favorite platform:
[Spotify] | [Apple Podcasts]

1. Stop Doing What You Were Good At

One of Liz’s most eye-opening insights? Many executives are still doing tasks from previous roles—tasks they were once praised for. But those habits now limit their impact. To scale effectively, leaders must evaluate what to stop, start, and delegate based on their current level—not their comfort zone.

2. Use the ‘Zoom Room Test’ to Diagnose Culture Issues

If the vibe in a meeting shifts when the CEO enters, there’s a deeper problem. Liz calls it the “Zoom Room Test”—a simple way to assess whether your team feels safe giving feedback and sharing ideas. High-performance cultures don’t shift with hierarchy—they thrive on openness.

3. Feedback Is Fuel—Not Fire

Too often, feedback is sporadic or fear-based. Liz emphasizes the need to build systems and habits that normalize two-way feedback. This not only boosts morale—it’s a cornerstone of retention in today’s tight labor market.

4. Strategic Planning Isn’t Bureaucracy—it’s Leverage

When done right, strategy isn’t just a plan—it’s momentum. Liz advises clients to create clear 30- to 90-day priorities that cascade across departments. Without alignment, teams work in silos. With it, they build exponential momentum.

5. Don’t Fear AI—Leverage It

Digital transformation starts with mindset. Liz challenges leaders to reframe AI not as a threat, but as a force multiplier. Many already use it (think: smart assistants), but don’t call it AI. Getting comfortable with automation is now table stakes for growth.

Whether you’re leading a startup or steering a legacy firm through change, one thing is clear: your leadership must evolve as fast as your business.

👉 Ready to shift your focus, align your team, and delegate like a pro?

Schedule a discovery call with Workergenix today and start scaling smarter.

Like what you read? Get weekly insights on scaling, efficiency, and profitability—straight to your inbox. Click here to subscribe.