Oct 8, 2026 · 30 min
Scale the business without sacrificing its people
1588: 40 Red Flags Killing Your Business Growth (and How to Scale Without Losing Your Soul!) w/ Jeri Larsen
Growth can expose weak leadership, disconnected systems, and misplaced talent before founders recognize the underlying problem.
- 1Sustainable growth aligns people, operations, and sales instead of treating them as separate functions.
- 2Strong individual contributors need coaching, infrastructure, and the right ambitions before stepping into leadership roles.
- 3Outside advisors can identify hidden organizational problems and sequence changes before they become crises.
Don't miss
Larsen explains why hiring an executive assistant before the budget feels comfortable can mark a crucial growth inflection point.
The brief
Jeri Larsen traces a path from pre-med and English teaching through defense contracting and public-sector leadership to entrepreneurship and consulting.
Her central argument challenges growth-at-all-costs thinking: companies scale more durably when they build loyalty, capability, and healthy teams alongside revenue.
Larsen urges leaders to match people with the right roles, distinguish strong individual contributors from ready managers, and invest in coaching and infrastructure.
A telling inflection point is hiring an executive assistant before the budget feels comfortable—a decision that can unlock an entrepreneur’s capacity for growth.
As an outside advisor, Larsen diagnoses problems across people, operations, and sales, then helps leaders sequence changes before dysfunction becomes a crisis.
Books & mentions
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Signals of Impact
Larsen’s book expands the episode’s focus on recognizing organizational warning signs and directing attention where it matters.
Manage for Good Signals of Impact
This related book entry offers another route into Larsen’s framework for identifying early signals of meaningful organizational impact.