If Not You, Who? The Owner of Company Courage

I’ve spent thir­ty years in the trench­es with CEOs. Here is the truth: com­pa­nies rarely stop grow­ing because the mar­ket dries up. The oppor­tu­ni­ty is usu­al­ly still there. The strat­e­gy is sol­id. The tal­ent is in the building.

Growth stalls because the CEO’s hand inad­ver­tent­ly slides off the throt­tle of growth.

Deci­sions get slug­gish. Hard con­ver­sa­tions get ​“resched­uled.” Stan­dards drop just an inch — but that inch soon becomes a mile. The orga­ni­za­tion feels the drift. Growth isn’t a nat­ur­al state; it’s an act of defi­ance against gravity.

There are plen­ty of capa­ble lead­ers in your build­ing, but only one per­son is respon­si­ble for forc­ing progress.

That’s you. If not you, then who?

The Unique Burden

Only the CEO can decide the com­pa­ny needs to play at a high­er lev­el — and then make the uncom­fort­able calls to get there. You can’t del­e­gate the standard.

Courage at this lev­el is rarely dra­mat­ic. It’s the dis­ci­plined choice to ini­ti­ate the con­ver­sa­tions you (and every­one else) would rather avoid.

The Pond Hock­ey Problem

In Cana­da, we have ​“Pond Hock­ey.” No cuts, no try­outs. You show up, you play. That’s the rule of the pond.

Most lead­er­ship teams start exact­ly like that. These peo­ple were there ear­ly. They helped you build the foun­da­tion. For a sea­son, they were perfect.

But your busi­ness is a dif­fer­ent beast now. It’s big­ger, faster, and more com­plex. It’s not pond hock­ey any­more — it’s the NHL.

This is where CEOs hit the wall: do you pro­tect a loy­al rela­tion­ship, or do you build the team required for the next lev­el? Most call it ​“loy­al­ty.” Real­ly, it’s just discomfort.

Choos­ing the Future

Look at Amish Shah at Kem Krest.

The busi­ness explod­ed, but the lead­er­ship team stayed lev­el. They were great peo­ple, but the busi­ness had sim­ply out­grown them. The deci­sion was­n’t about oper­a­tions; it was personal.

Over 18 months, Amish rebuilt that team. He made the hard calls on who could thrive in the ​“NHL” and who need­ed a dif­fer­ent path. It took mas­sive courage.

The result? Growth returned. Prof­its spiked. His ener­gy came back because he was final­ly lead­ing the future instead of man­ag­ing fric­tion. (You can read the full Case Study here.)

Pil­lars of Growth

To keep that momen­tum, you have to keep lead­ing the four pil­lars that hold every­thing up:

1. Strat­e­gy: Is it still sharp, or are you coasting?
2. Exe­cu­tion: Are you mov­ing fast, or just stay­ing busy?
3. Peo­ple: Is this an NHL ros­ter or a pond hock­ey crew?
4. Cash: Is the prof­it fuel­ing the vision or just keep­ing the lights on?

The Cost of Hesitation

Let­ting the orga­ni­za­tion lose courage is the most expen­sive mis­take you can make.

When loy­al­ty out­ranks per­for­mance, your A‑players notice. They stop play­ing to win and start play­ing ​“not to lose.” You can have a ​“bold vision,” but if you tol­er­ate mis­align­ment in key roles, you are choos­ing com­fort over expansion.

If you won’t raise the bar, who will? If you won’t insist that the pond hock­ey days are over, who will?

Your team will nev­er out­run your courage. They will only match it.

The Chal­lenge:

1. Iden­ti­fy the one deci­sion you’ve been post­pon­ing — the slid­ing stan­dard, the role that needs to change, or the con­ver­sa­tion you’re dodging.
2. If you had 100% faith that the result would be at least good and pos­si­bly great, what action would you take right now?

Go do that.

Resources:

Arti­cles

• The 4 Ene­mies of Growth
• Sev­en Years On, Reflec­tions on Your Oxy­gen Mask First: Make Your­self Useless
• The CEO’s Job: Build­ing Rela­tion­ships & Secur­ing Future Resources

Pod­casts

• Ep 137: The 4 Forces of Growth
• Ep 130: Jim Collins’ Lev­el 5 Leaders
• Ep 97: WHat Time Peri­od Should Your Role be Focused On?

Case Stud­ies

• Kem Krest: A Case Study of Resilience and Rebuilding
• Ashi­ana Hous­ing: Build­ing on Purpose

Book: The 4 Forces of Growth 

• 4 minute Overview
• 45 Minute Webinar
• Buy on Amazon

Book: Scal­ing Up

• 45 Minute Webinar
• Arti­cle: 10 Years After Scal­ing Up: What I’ve Learned About Growth

Book: Your Oxy­gen Mast First

• Assess your­self
• Resilience Webi­nar