The fine line between conviction and self-deception in leadership.
Every founder tells themselves the same story: “I’m a visionary.”
But here’s the hard truth: what you call vision is often just ego in better clothes. And left unchecked, ego is the silent killer of good brands.
Ego is seductive because it feels like certainty. It makes you believe you’re the only one who truly gets it. That without you, the business would collapse. That your instincts are gospel.
But ego doesn’t scale. Ego isolates. It erodes the very trust and creativity you need to build something bigger than yourself.
1. Vision vs. Ego
Vision is about clarity of future. Ego is about fear of irrelevance.
Founders confuse the two all the time. The line between “I know where we’re headed” and “I refuse to be challenged” is often razor thin.
And the kicker? Ego loves to masquerade as vision. It hides in decisions that sound strategic but are actually self-serving:
- Building a team of “safe bets”: people who admire your vision but rarely challenge it.
- Filtering ideas through the lens of ownership: giving more weight to the ones that came from you.
- Calling it brand “discipline” when really it’s about keeping a tight grip on control.
- Saying “the team doesn’t get it” when what you mean is you’re not ready to let go.
On the outside, it looks like leadership. On the inside, it’s insecurity dressed as vision.
2. The Cost of Founder Ego
Ego is intoxicating in the early days, but poisonous when you scale. Like rocket fuel at the start, it’s often what pushes a founder to risk everything, to believe when no one else does. But once you’re past survival mode, it becomes toxic.
- It erodes trust. Teams start holding back because they sense their ideas won’t land the way yours do. Over time, the energy to contribute fades.
- It dampens culture. Creativity doesn’t thrive when people are second-guessing how their thoughts will measure up against the founder’s view.
- It pushes talent away. The best people want to grow a brand, not just orbit around one person. If they feel stuck in support roles, they leave.
- It limits the brand. When a founder can’t step back, the business becomes a mirror of their identity instead of an organism that can evolve on its own.
The result? A brittle business. One where everything is precariously capped by how much the founder can personally oversee.
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