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22 - Scaling Exposes This Leadership Weakness Every Founder Has
Scaling doesn’t fail because of strategy, capital, or product. It fails because of a leadership weakness almost every founder carries into growth.
Impatience.
In this episode of The Breakout CEO podcast, Jeff Holman sits down with David Sluss, Professor at ESSEC Business School and advisor to scaling CEOs, to unpack how impatience quietly undermines leadership as companies grow.
David explains why the habits that help founders win early start to work against them at scale. Speed becomes pressured. Intensity becomes reactivity. And impatience erodes trust long before leaders realize it’s happening.
They explore:
- Why growth is rarely linear and why expecting it to be creates panic
- How impatience blocks performance, collaboration, and creativity
- Why patience is not softness but a leadership multiplier
- The shift from transactional leadership to belonging-based relationships
- What it really means to “build the plane while flying it”
David introduces the concept of proactive patience and shows how leaders who master it scale people, not just products.
If you are leading a growing company and feel stretched between urgency and sustainability, this conversation will help you identify the leadership weakness holding scale back and how to turn it into strength.
Check out David's work HERE.
Say hello to David!
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-m-sluss-phd/
Think you'd be a great guest on the show? Apply HERE.
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By Jeff HolmanScaling doesn’t fail because of strategy, capital, or product. It fails because of a leadership weakness almost every founder carries into growth.
Impatience.
In this episode of The Breakout CEO podcast, Jeff Holman sits down with David Sluss, Professor at ESSEC Business School and advisor to scaling CEOs, to unpack how impatience quietly undermines leadership as companies grow.
David explains why the habits that help founders win early start to work against them at scale. Speed becomes pressured. Intensity becomes reactivity. And impatience erodes trust long before leaders realize it’s happening.
They explore:
- Why growth is rarely linear and why expecting it to be creates panic
- How impatience blocks performance, collaboration, and creativity
- Why patience is not softness but a leadership multiplier
- The shift from transactional leadership to belonging-based relationships
- What it really means to “build the plane while flying it”
David introduces the concept of proactive patience and shows how leaders who master it scale people, not just products.
If you are leading a growing company and feel stretched between urgency and sustainability, this conversation will help you identify the leadership weakness holding scale back and how to turn it into strength.
Check out David's work HERE.
Say hello to David!
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-m-sluss-phd/
Think you'd be a great guest on the show? Apply HERE.