Psychology Today Blindspotting Blog [Post #2] — The Psychology Behind Why Founders Fail as They Scale
In the latest entry of my ongoing blog series for Psychology Today, I examine a familiar but often misunderstood pattern: why founders who excel at starting companies frequently struggle as their organizations grow. The issue is rarely a lack of intelligence, drive, or vision—it’s a psychological mismatch between the skills that fuel early success and those required to lead at scale.
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The traits that make founders successful early on can become obstacles as organizations grow.
Early-stage founders thrive on speed, control, and personal execution. But as companies scale, those same traits can create bottlenecks, inhibit delegation, and erode trust within leadership teams. In The Psychology Behind Why Founders Fail as They Scale, I explore how identity attachment, over-reliance on personal strengths, and difficulty relinquishing control quietly undermine growth. These challenges aren’t failures of character—they’re predictable psychological transitions that often go unaddressed.
The article builds on Blindspotting themes by reframing founder struggles as developmental moments rather than leadership deficiencies. Scaling successfully requires founders to evolve how they see themselves, how they define value, and how they relate to power and decision-making. This post continues the Psychology Today series focused on helping leaders recognize when past success patterns no longer apply—and how to adapt before those patterns stall progress.
