The Hidden Year-End Reflection Most Growth-Stage CEOs Skip and Why It Slows Growth

In this episode, I share critical year-end reflections for growth-stage CEOs, especially those leading organizations of around 20 employees. As companies scale, leadership must shift from personal execution to empowering others and ensuring the business can thrive even in the leader's absence. I walk through seven powerful reflection questions designed to accelerate leadership growth, from identifying your highest-impact actions to confronting avoided conversations and evaluating how well you're adapting to what the future demands. This episode challenges leaders to lead with courage, rethink their approach for the year ahead, and strengthen both self-awareness and organizational health. All reflection questions are included in the show notes for easy reference. Episode Highlights & Time Stamps 3:09 Seven Reflection Questions for CEOs 6:33 Exploring Leadership Identity Changes 7:16 Leading with Courage in the New Year 7:54 First Steps to Empower Your Team 9:00 Closing Thoughts and Final Reflections Episode Summary In this episode, I guide growth-stage CEOs through a critical year-end reflection often missed during scale, especially around the 20-employee mark. As leadership demands increase, success is no longer about doing more yourself, but about building a business that can move forward without your constant presence. The episode challenges leaders to confront a simple but sobering truth: "If nothing changes in how you lead, this is exactly where your company will be next year." Through seven focused reflection questions, I help CEOs evaluate where their leadership truly creates leverage, where it limits growth, and what must change to build a healthier, more scalable organization. The 7 Reflection Questions The Leverage Audit Which 20% of your leadership actions created 80% of your company's momentum this year? The Impact Test Where did your leadership create meaningful growth in others, not just results? Who became more capable because you led differently? The Avoided Conversation What is the one conversation if addressed that would most reduce friction and free you as the CEO? The Capacity Gap Is the way you're currently leading sustainable for the next stage of growth? The CEO Identity Shift As your company grows, which parts of your founder identity are no longer serving you? Who must you become for the business to grow beyond you? The Courage Move If you were willing to lead with more courage, not more effort, what would you do differently in the first 90 days of the new year? The First Shift What is the first leadership behavior you will stop, start, or delegate in the next week to reinforce a business that doesn't depend on you? Closing Reflection If nothing changes in how you lead, where will your company and your energy be this time next year? All reflection questions are included here for easy reference. Key Takeaways Growth-stage CEOs often become the bottleneck around the 20-employee mark; scaling requires a shift from personal execution to leadership leverage. If your leadership approach does not change as the company grows, it will eventually limit both organizational performance and your personal energy. Effective leadership is measured not by how much you do, but by how well others perform and grow in your absence. Identifying the small set of leadership actions that drive the majority of results creates clarity, focus, and momentum. Avoided conversations are often the hidden source of organizational friction and CEO overload. The leadership style that helped you reach this stage may not be the one required for the next phase of growth. Courage not increased effort is the defining factor in meaningful leadership evolution. Small, intentional behavior shifts (what you stop, start, or delegate) can rapidly increase organizational independence. Year-end reflection is not passive; when done well, it becomes a strategic act that shapes the company's future. Sustainable growth depends on building a business that can operate and win without relying on the CEO's constant presence. Ideal For: Founders, CEOs, executives, managers, and anyone committed to elevating their leadership capacity. Resources & Next Steps Ready to take your leadership energy to the next level? Explore free training and resources at training.coreelevation.com https://training.coreelevation.com/ to help you identify energy leaks, strengthen your leadership presence, and elevate your team's performance.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  When you get to be about 20 employees and at different inflection points, you get different kinds of choke points. And so you've got to make sure that you understand that leadership is your main leverage to get there. Because you can't do it yourself. You can't make all the decisions. You can't make all of the innovations. You can't drive things forward. What happens when you're not in the room? You probably have a little anxiety when you think about going on a two week vacation or a four week vacation. I'm getting prepared to do a six week trip with my wife. And my son is now in college and we are excited about this six weeks. Now, I will continue to be working, but most people couldn't take that much time away from the business.

• 0:41Speaker 00

  And so if you want to have an incredible year this next year and you want to be a better leader, these reflection questions will help you as a growth stage CEO. Welcome to Growth Think Tank. This is the one and only place where you will get insight from the founders and the CEOs of the fastest growing privately held companies. I am the host. My name is Gene Hemmott. I help leaders and their teams navigate the defining moments of their growth. Are you ready to grow? Today, we're going to talk about the hidden year in reflection that most growth stage CEOs skip and why it's going to make an impact on your business. If nothing changes in the way you lead, this is exactly where your company will be next year.

• 1:25Speaker 00

  Now, you may think that that's not true because you're going to work harder. You may think that you have a different strategy or different innovation. But if you currently have more than 20 employees, if you currently are over 5 million and you plan to scale to, let's say, 8 million or 10 million, and you don't have any plans whatsoever to change the way you lead, I think you're inviting chaos, you're inviting stress. And these questions will help you reflect on where you are as a leader and where you want to be. And so these seven questions and a bonus will give you the insight you need to be a better leader in this next year. My name is Gene Hemmott. I'm a CEO coach. I work with growth stage CEOs and their companies to help them grow.

• 2:10Speaker 00

  But also to help them understand the the roadblocks and the choke points of leadership that are so common when you get to be about 20 employees. And at different inflection points, you get different kinds of choke points. And so you've got to make sure that you understand that leadership is your main leverage to get there. Because you can't do it yourself. You can't make all the decisions. You can't make all of the innovations. You can't drive things forward. What happens when you're not in the room? You probably have a little anxiety when you think about going on a two week vacation or a four week vacation. I'm getting prepared to do a six week trip with my wife. And my son is now in college and we are excited about this six weeks.

• 2:53Speaker 00

  Now, I will continue to be working, but most people couldn't take that much time away from their business. And so if you want to have an incredible year this next year, and you want to be a better leader, these reflection questions will help you as a growth stage CEO. So let's dive in. The first one is the leverage audit. Which 20% of leadership actions created 80% of your company's momentum this year? This is the 80/20 rule. What 20% of your leadership actions? One-on-one meetings, was it your team meetings? Was it the how you developed empowerment across the company? Maybe some shifts you made in culture, maybe it's things that you did around values.

• 3:34Speaker 00

  But for you to be really clear about what are the 20% of those leadership actions that made an 80% impact to the company's momentum? If you can write that down, you're ahead of the game. So that's the first question. The second one is the impact test. Where did your leadership create meaningful growth in others, not just results? I know that we look at sales, we look at all the other metrics that we're tracking in our scoreboards and dashboards and results are the end result. But what in your leadership created meaningful growth in others?

• 4:08Speaker 00

  Let me say that a little bit differently. Who became more capable because of you leading differently? If you could write down some of the conversations that you had with certain people in your team, whether it be your executive team or some people throughout the organization, and you said, "I spent a little bit more extra time doing this leadership move, these leadership skills." And it wasn't just about actions or results. It was just about the person. This is the impact test question. Number three is another question for you. Again, if you don't have to write all these things down, if you're driving or if you're kind of in this, you can go to the show notes and we will put all of these questions in there for you. So that being said, let's dive into number three. The avoided conversation. You know, I wrote a book about how to have tough conversations. So let me just give you the question.

• 4:53Speaker 00

  What is the one conversation, if addressed, would reduce friction and free you up as a CEO? What one conversation, if you had it, would make it give you the time to be a CEO? So who is pulling energy away from you? Who is not making decisions they should? Those are just some examples. But if you ask yourself that question, and you put down names and you put down exactly what you want to talk to them about, my hope is you'll want to go do that. You'll want to be proactive and courageous to have those conversations. So that's number three. Number four is the capacity gap question. Is the way you're currently leading sustainable for the next stage of growth? So if you added 50% more clients this year,

• 5:37Speaker 00

  you hit all of your targets with marketing and sales was just really clicking, would you be able to handle that level of growth? When I think about leadership, I think about it's not most people go back to, "I would just work harder." Well, at some point in time, that's going to break. You're going to burn out. You're going to stress out and it's going to impact your home life. It's going to impact your personal life, your health even. And so you want to know, is the way you're currently leading sustainable for the next stage of growth? That's the capacity gap question. Now, I smile when I give you these things because they're not easy to answer, but they are really telling. If you can't answer them, that shows you that you need to do some work and think. On your own leadership, the skills that you need and how you actually show up as a leader.

• 6:22Speaker 00

  This is the one thing we really focus on here, helping our CEO clients do that. Not everybody wants coaching, not everybody is ready for it, but if you are, reach out to us, we'd love to help. Let's go to the next question. This is number five, the CEO identity shift. As your company grows, which parts of your founder identity are no longer serving you? As your company grows, which parts of your founder identity are no longer serving you? I'll give you an example from a recent client. They knew that they were impatient and controlling. They didn't know it until we started talking about it, but I pointed it out to them and they said, yeah, that's just the way it is. That's what it's the way I have to be in order to get my team to perform at this level.

• 7:01Speaker 00

  But that's not sustainable as you grow and you add, if you doubled the number of people in your company and you continue to try to control things and you're impatient with everyone, it will wear thin and it will be very difficult for you to create the kind of culture and the performance you want in your business. So let's move on to number six, the courage move. If you were willing to lead with courage, not more effort, what would you do differently in the first 90 days of this year? If you were willing to lead with more courage, not more effort, what would you do differently in the first 90 days of the new year? Hopefully you can write that down. You could write down something very specific, something that you could actually do. It could be, I'm going to delegate more. It could be, I'm going to hold people accountable. It could be, I'm going to have the tough conversations when they need to.

• 7:46Speaker 00

  It could be, I'm going to take time to do one-on-one meetings. I don't know what it is for you, but if you can't write it down, you won't be able to make that a priority. And the seventh question, the first shift. What is the first leadership behavior you will stop, start or delegate in the next week to reinforce a business that doesn't depend on you? The first shift question, what is the first leadership behavior that you will stop, start or delegate in the next week to reinforce a business that doesn't depend on you? I'll give you an example and a little bit of detail behind this. I had a client of mine who needed to empower their team more. And I gave them one of our tools, three one empowerment framework, three questions. That you ask, so you understand what the problem is.

• 8:30Speaker 00

  You can have three options for the decision in front of them. And then you can have one decision. I'm not going to unpack what that means, but this little framework is a lightweight, very easy tool that you can use to empower people. And not only can you use it, but those people can take it and empower the people on their team and so on and so forth. And you can create it as a language across this. And so that would be a first shift if empowerment was the thing you needed to do. If you need help with anything else, feel free to reach out, ask me a question. I'm happy to help you. Gene at genehammett.com. And finally, it's really an honor to be able to, to serve you. And if you're, you're listening to my podcast week after week and you are getting value from it, I thank you and I appreciate you in so many ways.

• 9:14Speaker 00

  And if you wanted to, to, you know, reward me for that, for adding some value to your world, then you could just tell a friend about the podcast. That would just be an incredible thing to do. Or you could subscribe to it and give us a review. But the easiest thing to do would probably just be tell someone what you're learning and how it's working for you and where you got it, whether it be for me or for my guests on the show. All right, let's go with this final question. And if nothing changes in how you lead, where will your company and your energy be this time next year? If nothing changes in how you lead, where will your company and your energy be this time next year? Being able to be honest with yourself and self-aware around these leadership questions

• 9:59Speaker 00

  will help you be a better leader. And that's really my, my purpose in life is to create content and to create programs to help CEOs grow their businesses by being better leaders, by empowering people and holding them accountable and giving them the structures and systems that allow them to do this so that they can build a business that grows beyond them. That is something I'm committed to doing. So I appreciate you listening in today to the podcast. And if you have any questions, make sure you let me know. I will put the questions in the show notes. You have to go to my website to get that. And if you have any questions, please reach out. When you think of growth and you think of leadership, think of Growth Think Tank. As always, leave a courage. We'll see you.