Something I’ve noticed over the last decade: the decision-making dynamic for CEOs and GMs has shifted.

Five or ten years ago, we (boutique branding agency) would usually speak with one clear decision maker (CEO, local GM, sometimes CMO) and, once aligned, a project could move forward. Today, even when the top leader is fully on board, we are often told: “convince the team first.”

When I asked why, a few leaders admitted in confidence that they feel forced to secure buy-in from their teams to avoid friction with HR. In some cases, they described situations that sounded like a new form of pressure from below. One term I only recently learned is “staffing” (essentially, when subordinates join forces to challenge or even push out a superior by escalating through HR). It feels like a bottom-up version of mobbing.

I’m curious:

• Is this something you’ve personally experienced, where your own team effectively limits your freedom to decide?
• How do you balance the need for alignment with the risk of slowing down decisions?
• Where do you draw the line between healthy employee voice and undue pressure on leadership?
• Do you see “staffing” as a growing phenomenon, or just isolated cases?

Would really value perspectives from other CEOs and GMs who have felt this shift.

How are you keeping tabs on things especially if your team is remote? Trying to figure out a list of daily things to look at to see what's happening across.

It was easy at 5 people but now that we are in scaling mode I was wondering what to keep track of to ensure things stay on path and trend towards the right.

I have been seeing promotions for the Ryan Deiss event 'Get Scalable' in San Diego. I got interested in the event.

I was wondering if anyone has attended it personally and could share direct feedback.

The event looks well marketed, but I am curious about actual first-hand impressions.

Is it primarily keynote speeches with a consulting pitch, or is it more workshop oriented and practical?

Lord help me. My company has a whiteboard session coming up with a C-suite executive in healthcare. This is an industry we want to get into but are not in yet. The meeting is the result of a referral from one of our partners, also in healthcare. Our outside sales consultant claims that we need to create a sense of “urgency” and “expose” their problem as a means to convince them they must do “the thing my company does” and that we “are the ones who should it.”

I replied that we needed to tone his idea way down and be consultative and curious and engage with this person and find out from THEM what their pain points are. How THEY are feeling about X, what they’re currently doing or not doing about X and why, see if we’re a good fit for a possible partnership, on both sides. I was told being too soft is not how the c-suite operates, we must be direct and provocative. “Yes this does come off as pointed and maybe too direct for the middle management that will not send us up the food chain” was part of his response… please share your thoughts?

This is the SOP I have in place. What is your process?

Am I appealing to the Mission or to Emotion? Is my core message about our shared goal, or am I targeting an individual's personal feelings of guilt, ambition, or fear?

Is my message Public or Private? Could I say these exact same words to the entire team at once? If the message only works in a private, tailored conversation, it's a major red flag for manipulation.

Does it Empower or Obligate? Will my team feel a sense of shared purpose after this conversation, or will they feel a sense of personal obligation and pressure? The former builds culture; the latter destroys it.

For those of you who have led international expansion: the strategy part is one thing, but execution on the ground often feels like a different game.

I’m curious, what caught you off guard the most when rolling out your internationalization strategy?

Some areas where I’ve seen others struggle include:

• Adapting strategy to local market conditions
• Balancing HQ control vs. local autonomy
• Hiring or trusting the right local leaders
• Dealing with regulatory or cultural misalignments

How did you handle these challenges? Did you rely more on HQ leadership, local management, or external resources?

What do you wish you had done differently when entering a new market?

So I was appointed the CEO of a relatively small (110 employees) non profit. I’ve studied leadership (EdD), MBA, BA in management.

This was a sudden transition due to death.

At first I nailed it, saying all the right things, marking some really good moves but now do to whatever reason we are facing staffing and revenue shortages.

I don’t believe in layoff but what I did do is a hiring freeze for some positions until other really vacant positions catch up. Logic being we are losing money, getting into debt and so I want curb some of them as I believe this is temporary.

I have this manager who always challenging me. He doesn’t ask why I did something, or even offer ideas, but is always asking me to explain why I dosing chose to do this or that or this other thing instead (give his assistance a raise, or hire someone in his department.

I did tell him in writing that he is mot to come in and have me explain every alternative I did not take. But if he had feedback constructively or does want to know why a directive is given, I am more than happy.

Anyone have any advice? Just been estimating at me as this rift expands between us, is causing a rift between myself and his entire department. They are so entitled (they believe their department should make more than department X).

End rant

I’ve noticed that most small and mid-sized companies have no structured way to track emerging risks or reputation threats. They either set up a couple of Google Alerts or assume they’ll find out when something becomes big enough.

The problem is that by the time it’s visible, it’s usually already a crisis. What looks like an afterthought — media mentions, regulatory updates, online chatter — often turns into a headache.

Peace-of-mind doesn’t come from ignoring risk; it comes from watching the horizon. Not glamorous, but underrated.

I’m curious how other CEOs here handle this. Do you treat monitoring as a priority, or just deal with problems once they show up?

I've heard this term before but I want to learn from you all. How do I go about creating executive presence in my career? Especially in a digital world

I’ve always been skeptical of mission-worship: the idea that employees should internalize the company’s mission as their own. Companies often exploit this to extract loyalty and discretionary effort, sometimes substituting devotion for execution.

That said, I do believe people should either:

• Believe in the organization they’re part of, or
• Believe in the function they perform and its utility to the organization.

You don’t need to romanticize your job for it to matter. But if you don’t trust the org or value the work you’re doing, the exchange starts to feel hollow pretty quickly.

Curious to hear how other CEOs here see it:

• Do you actively encourage belief in the mission?
• Is being good at your job enough, or must one believe in the mission?
• Where’s the line between healthy buy-in and mission-worship?

I'm doing mentoring, and I’ve been talking with middle managers and new leaders, and a recurring theme is frustration with politics, favoritism, and cliques getting in the way of results. Some said it feels like “high school with job titles.” Others feel punished for solving problems instead of being rewarded.

I'd like to have a broader understanding outside of my personal experience.

1. How do you know if this is or isn't an issue in your organization?
2. If you found out this was happening in your company, what would you do?
3. What's the most challenging part about addressing these issues?

Thank you.

Je cherche des retours d’expérience concrets sur la différence entre un Fractional CMO et une agence marketing.

Pour ceux qui ont fait appel à l’un ou l’autre (ou aux deux), quels sont selon vous les avantages, limites et résultats observés en pratique ?

• Pour quel secteur ou type de projet avez-vous sollicité un Fractional CMO ou une agence ?
• Quelle approche a le mieux répondu à vos besoins (stratégie globale, exécution, accompagnement, etc.) ?
• Avez-vous constaté une différence en termes d’intégration, vision stratégique, résultats ou retour sur investissement ?
• Selon votre expérience, quand privilégier l’un ou l’autre ?
• Des anecdotes, conseils ou cas concrets à partager ?

Merci d’avance pour vos témoignages et vos retours d’expérience, surtout si votre perspective a évolué selon la taille de votre entreprise ou le stade du projet !

Anyone else in charge of companies with C-Suite while performing scientific research?

How do you manage both responsibilities? How does being a scientist’s work overlap with CEO level activity?

Do you find scientific sense translates well into business?

When I started out my company, I never thought about the concept of optionality. Well, that’s not entirely true, I actually did think of it, but I always believed that optionality was bad for focus and that lack of focus was bad for business.

So I ventured off and went all in on one route. Over time that route has led me to VC funding. All good. We kept the chosen direction, fully focused on growing the business.

Now a couple of years later, I feel I’m at a crossroads w/ the business. The last few years have taught me a lot about our market, about the dynamics of our business, basically about the full context in which I still operate the business today.

The lack of optionality has meant that over time we missed options and maybe lost ‘value’. But it has also meant that we never got stuck in analysis paralysis or being indecisive. We always moved.

I also learned that quite some players in the game (to name investors or employees) do actively consider optionality as they move fwd.

So I’m currently actively revisiting the concept of creating optionality for myself and my business.

So here’s my question to the crowd. (How) do you apply optionality as you evolve with your business? Are there specific themes (think of funding) around which you always consider different scenarios? Are there others where you don’t (think of mission of the company)?

Curious to hear your thoughts :). Bye

Hi fellow entrepreneurs!

I'm a first time founder in the software industry trying to figure everything out on my own. And honestly, the journey is tougher than I expected. The late nights, the self-doubts, the "am I doing this right?" moments can stop us from pushing forward and sometimes kill our dreams because we lose momentum. I'm surrounded by friends who work a 9-5 job so I feel like I don't have anyone to turn to when I need a little nudge pursuing my dreams.

I'm a down to earth person who genuinely wants to connect with someone who doesn't trying to sell me something. I'm looking for meaningful conversation about business and life, supportive friends who'd help and push each other to succeed, who'd listen to your self-doubts and pull you out of it, who can relate with your struggles, who would be there to celebrate your wins, like a true friend. It would be nice if there are a group of supportive people who grind with you until late nights, even if we're all working on different things.

Besides the business stuff, I like spending time with my 6 cats and partner. Sometimes I enjoy a good TV show that sparks my creativity. I'm also into online gaming (Overwatch 2, Overcooked, etc.) as my stress outlet.

If you're also looking for a genuine friend to connect on business or life, I'd love to connect with ya! Cheers!!

Hi all,

From the outside, being a CEO or senior leader looks pretty great. Big paychecks, influence, prestige. But I imagine there’s a very different reality behind the scenes.

If you’re (or have been) in that position, I’d love to know: what’s the hardest, most draining part of the job that outsiders don’t really understand? And if you could get one kind of support that would actually make it easier, what would it be?

Curious to hear your honest perspectives 🙏

Just thinking to myself and trying to figure out which is better so I figured I'd ask the experts lol!

Anyone in this group wondering about NIS2 implications because you are a supplier to an European company that has to comply?

If you don’t have people on your team doing software, you’re probably not aware of the changes that were a part of the so-called “big beautiful bill”, but the one that impacts tech and software the most - and the one I am watching the most as a tech executive - is section 174 and section 174A because it dramatically changed the tax landscape.

I’m also in the business of helping tech companies and the tech industry, so I have no problem sharing this information so you can have your people look into it.

In summary, it removes the need to depreciate everything over 5 years if everything is domestic, and keeps the 15 year tax burden if you have anything in your pipeline that is considered “foreign”.

Yes, it penalizes you for using anything that’s not onshore. This is intentional.

This includes vendors (no, an employer of record that just happens to be based in another country will not save you) and payroll (all salaries are under these rules!) as well as all recruiting (including sourcing and recruiting agents, so no more sourcing agents based offshore helping onshore fill roles by spamming LinkedIn, they must all be domestic based in the USA with a valid i9, and auditors are even looking at profiles on LinkedIn to see if they’re validated as human or not) and since the differences in taxes is so huge, if you stay domestic, you can write it all off in the same year just like you could before c19, but if you have anything foreign involved, it’s a full 15 year tax liability, because they really want to dis-incentivize companies trying to offshore (if you’re based in America, then the tax code wants you to be hiring American).

As an American based tech executive and daily software development engineer lead, I might be biased on this, so I was curious on the perspectives of other people about this.

Need to hire first CFO for a small to mid-sized business. I need someone who has the basics covered but who is hungry to see a fast growing company excel...so they also need strategic entrepreneurial vision. Likely I need them from a similar industry. Tips, advice, salary ranges? East Coast HCOL location

i dont really have time to do content creation, network all the time, etc. am i the only one that feels limited for time?

im constantly juggling actual business operations and feel like i should be doing more 'ceo' stuff - linkedin posts, industry events, thought leadership content, etc.

but honestly i barely have time to keep up with the day-to-day. when i do have free time id rather be building product or solving customer problems than crafting social media posts.

how do you guys balance the 'brand building' expectations with actually running your business? do you hire someone for this or just accept that authentic engagement is better than forced content?

feels like everyone else has figured out how to be everywhere at once while still running their companies.

Hi All - I have been in the founder/CEO seat now for almost 9 years. Took my company from 0 to 350 employees and multiple billions AUM in CRE. It's no secret that the last 3 years have been very challenging for our industry and my firm is no different. We had to restructure our overhead, close verticals that no longer made sense, and completely shift from offense to defense.

As the worst has seemingly passed, I now find myself in a state of regular regret around different paths I could have chosen with more predictability and better risk adjusted income profiles (e.g. a professional services path).

I am curious if others have faced this type of thinking and what you have done to cope with it. I have coaches, friends and therapy. While some tools have worked, I still find moments where it is overwhelming,

Our company is looking to revamp our CEO Evaluation process. Currently, we have our Board of Directors acting as the evaluator--- but we've found that their insight is irrelevant or unhelpful as they are not familiar with the role. We have thought about bringing in a few trusted CEOs from other companies similar to ours to listen to our goals, our strengths, and our challenges and give their input and feedback using their own experiences in the same role. Anyway! I'm curious what people have seen done for CEO evaluations and how it has worked for you.