How to Not Be Hard on Yourself as a Leader
Why scale-up leaders hit emotional burnout, and the questions that restore balance
My business name because it’s Latin for new harmony. Be kind to yourself and read this:
Scaling a business is often described as an exciting chapter: bigger teams, stronger opportunities, higher aspirations. But anyone who has lived through true scale-up knows the truth behind the glossy language.
Scaling is emotional.
Scaling is disorienting.
Scaling tests your identity as much as your capability.
Leaders in growth-stage businesses rarely burn out because of workload.
They burn out because of weight: the weight of expectations, decision-making, emotional labour, and the belief that they must hold it all together.
And when the pressure increases, leaders tend to turn it inward.
“I should be coping better than this.”
“I should already know how to lead at this level.”
“If something is creaking, it must be me.”
This article offers a different perspective.
It explores the blind spots leaders miss during growth, the hidden risks they underestimate, and the self-judgment that quietly erodes their clarity. Most importantly, it provides the questions that help leaders shift from pressure into steadiness.
1. You’re Not Supposed to Already Know How to Lead at Scale
Scaling requires a completely different set of behaviours than start-up leadership.
The founder who once touched everything cannot continue to lead the same way once the team expands. Delegation becomes a discipline. Communication becomes a strategy. Systems become the backbone.
Yet leaders regularly judge themselves for learning in real time, as if “scale-up capability” should have been downloaded into them the moment growth began.
The truth is simple and liberating:
The leadership style that built your business is not the leadership style that will grow it.
Ask yourself:
What version of me does this next stage require? and, What support do I need to become that person?
This is not self-indulgence.
It’s strategic evolution.
2. Operational Stretch Is Not Personal Failure
When things get busy, processes creak, communication slips, or customers wait longer than usual, the internal storyline can be harsh:
If I were a better planner…
If I had stronger systems…
If I were a stronger leader…
In reality, operational stretch is not a verdict on your competence.
It’s a signal that the business is outgrowing its earlier infrastructure.
This is what McKinsey’s research confirms again and again:
systems fail before leaders do.
Ask yourself:
What system needs strengthening? and, Why am I assuming the stretch is about me?
This reframes the situation from self-blame to practical action.
3. Leadership Gets Lonely as You Grow
One of the least discussed realities of scale-up is the emotional distance that emerges.
As teams grow, roles separate.
You spend less time inside the detail and more time holding the future.
People see your position, not your vulnerability.
This isolation is subtle but powerful. It creates self-doubt, decision fatigue, and a feeling of being emotionally untethered.
Leadership loneliness is not a flaw. It’s a structural reality.
Ask yourself:
Who grounds me, without needing anything from me?
Having just one person in your world who offers straight insight without pressure can dramatically reduce burnout risk.
4. You May Be the Bottleneck Without Realising It
Founders almost universally underestimate the gravitational pull they still have in a growing business.
You were once the centre of everything and remnants of that orbit remain:
the decisions that flow through you
the approvals that wait on you
the reassurance your team seeks
the historic habits that still position you as the default problem-solver
This is not ego.
It’s legacy.
But as the business grows, that legacy can slow everything down.
Ask yourself:
If I stepped away for 10 days, what would stop?
Where things stop reveals where the business still depends on you too heavily.
This isn’t about removing yourself.
It’s about strengthening the business.
5. Self-Compassion Is Not Soft. It’s a Leadership Skill
Many leaders offer compassion to others but rarely to themselves.
During scale-up, the internal critic gets louder, not quieter.
It tightens your thinking, increases urgency, and narrows your field of vision.
But research is clear (Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan, Kristin Neff):
leaders who practise self-compassion make better decisions under pressure.
Self-compassion isn’t permission to lower standards.
It’s permission to lead from steadiness rather than fear.
Ask yourself:
If I stopped judging myself today, what decision would I make differently?
You’ll feel the shift immediately.
6. It’s Not the Workload That Burns You Out. It’s the Emotional Labour
The real exhaustion doesn’t come from the hours.
It comes from:
holding uncertainty on behalf of others
managing conflict
absorbing pressure
remaining “calm” while feeling stretched
protecting the team from the volatility you can see ahead
carrying responsibility for performance, culture, and future value
These emotional demands are invisible; even to the leader themselves.
Ask yourself:
What emotional load am I carrying that nobody sees?
Naming it helps you carry it more lightly.
Clarity Over Pressure: The Shift That Changes Everything
Leading yourself through scale-up requires a kind of inner steadiness that doesn’t come from pushing harder.
It comes from understanding the terrain you’re navigating.
When you replace self-criticism with clarity, you make better decisions.
When you replace pressure with awareness, the whole business steadies.
When you lead yourself well, you lead others better.
The strongest leaders I’ve worked with have one thing in common:
They stopped being hard on themselves and started being honest with themselves.
In Closing …
Try asking yourself this today:
“What would change if I led from clarity, not pressure?”
It’s remarkable how much opens from that single shift.
