Why so Many Growth Leaders Get Fired After 16 Months

The 3 patterns I've watched repeat across 90+ growth leaders, including myself

I’ve had the Head of Growth role twice.

The first time, at Wistia. I started and scaled the growth team, did some of the best work of my career, and stayed for 4.5 years. It was long enough that the role became part of my identity.

The second time, at Postscript, I lasted a fraction of that time. I wasn’t that successful.

And in retrospect, it was my fault.

Budgets were tight, and I told myself I was being a team player. Instead of pounding the table for what I actually needed, I scoped everything down to singles and doubles. Projects I could execute with the limited resources I had available - and hoped my effort would be visible.

It wasn’t. And eventually I left because it felt like there was no other option.

That experience stuck with me. So when I started coaching growth leaders, I paid close attention to who stays in the role - and who doesn’t. After working with 90+ Heads of Growth, the same 3 reasons come up over and over.

I made a video breaking all of this down in more depth, including the specific interview questions I’d ask before accepting any Head of Growth role. Watch it here:

The 3 real reasons growth leaders leave in 16 months

1. Their skills don’t match the company’s stage

Sometimes you have the right skills at the wrong moment. You join a company that needs someone to do the work and manage people. A year and a half later, the company has quadrupled (this is happening at a lot of AI companies right now) and suddenly they need a pure executive. Someone who builds strategy, delegates everything, and almost never does the hands-on work.

If that’s not you, the role has outgrown you. And if you’re not honest about that mismatch early, it surfaces in much messier ways later.

2. The culture isn’t ready to be challenged

Growth teams need to question the way things have always been done. That’s not optional. You have to run tests, which means proving that pre-existing ideas might be wrong.

A lot of executives say “yes, we’re ready for that” in the interview.

Then you start, and you find out that the product team is protective of their roadmap and the marketing team isn’t excited to share their channels. What looked like alignment was just enthusiasm about hiring someone new.

You won’t know this until you’re 3 months in. Which is why you need to ask much more specific questions before you sign.

3. They don’t have enough resources and don’t fight for them

This is the one that got me at Postscript.

Short-term growth leaders work with whatever they’ve got, thinking they’re being reasonable - trying to scrap and claw their way to whatever wins are available. Long-term growth leaders push hard for what they actually need, or at minimum make sure leadership understands the trade-off they’re accepting.

When you quietly absorb a resource gap and then underperform against your goals, nobody remembers that you were trying to be a team player. They just see you didn’t hit your goals.

What the long-term ones do differently

Growth leaders who last 3+ years tend to do 3 things that shorter-tenure ones skip:

1. They market their strategy constantly.
   They spend real time upfront getting alignment, and then they keep communicating what they’re doing and why. They don’t assume people can see it.
   

2. They have the uncomfortable conversations early (and often).
   Ownership confusion between growth, marketing, and product? Surface it in the first few weeks, not when people start getting territorial.
   

3. They fight for what they need.
   They don’t absorb resource gaps quietly. They surface the trade-off and make sure it’s a conscious choice.

Looking back, I did all of this at Wistia without realizing it.

I had been there long enough that the relationships and communication were just natural.

But at Postscript, I jumped into execution mode and skipped the foundation. I paid for it.

If you’re about to start a Director, VP, or Head of Growth role

Slow down in the interview process.

Ask: what does success look like at 6 months and 12 months? What resources will I have from day one? Who do I actually work with, and how are decisions made? What’s a recent project that touched multiple teams, and how did it go?

And if they can’t answer those clearly, that’s your answer.

Once you start, spend your first 30 to 60 days getting alignment. It feels slow. But in the long run, it will help you go way faster.

It’s the difference between 16 months and 3 years.

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ps - If you're a Director, VP, or Head of Growth who's tired of navigating this stuff alone, I'm opening a group coaching program in Q2. Join the waitlist here.