"My CEO Said: 'Fix This or We’ll Find Someone Who Can'"
I interviewed a Chief Growth Officer who made a mistake big enough to put his job at risk.
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I recently interviewed a Chief Growth Officer who made a mistake big enough to put his job at risk.
This wasn’t hyperbole.
His CEO sat him down and said, “you need to fix this - or we’ll find someone who can.”
He didn’t expect to have that conversation that day. But he knew things had been breaking (all at once). And he knew the team was feeling it too.
He also knew he had a choice about what happens next.
He could hide from the mistake. Quietly start looking for a new job. Keep his head down until the dust settled. Then, leave and start over else where he had a clean slate.
Instead he paused, took a breath and realized something that altered the rest of his career:
He was in over his head - and needed help.
So he hired a coach (who I’ve also interviewed).
And first, they rebuilt his operating system from the ground up - how his team worked, how he communicated up the ladder, how he delivered feedback.
But more importantly they worked on rebuilding trust.
Becoming more predictable. More dependable for his team. And (somewhere along the way) rebuilding his confidence too.
In our convo, Luke Wallace shares the exact moment everything broke, the feedback that forced him to change, and how he rebuilt systems, trust, and team culture after a very public mistake.
He talks about the fear, the identity hit, and the inner dialogue leaders don’t usually say out loud.
And he explains why “working through the hard stuff” is a skill anyone can learn - and how it separates the good from the best.
Catch our entire conversation on YouTube:
Or, listen on Spotify:
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