The problem with performative leadership in high-growth companies

When a startup hits traction and the growth curve start to look like a ski jump, there’s an almost inevitable leadership reflex: ramp up visibility. Press interviews. All-hands pep talks. Aesthetic vision decks. Strategic slogans with trendy acronyms. It feels good, it looks good, and it sounds like leadership.

However, in hyper-growth companies, where execution speed is your competitive edge and talent burn rate is high, performative leadership can be worse than no leadership at all.

Performative leadership is leadership theatre: big gestures, bold proclamations, and a spotlight that always finds the most polished performer. This may win applause in stale multi-national conglomerates, but for the rest of us it often leaves the people doing the heavy lifting feeling unsupported, unseen, and increasingly sceptical.

Why Performative Leadership Develops

High-growth environments are chaotic by definition. Product-market fit obliges rapid iteration, shifting priorities, and constant firefighting. Founders and executives often feel a dual pressure:

1. Internal Pressure — to maintain confidence and momentum within the company.

2. External Pressure — from investors, media, and customers to project certainty and control.

As a consequence, leaders compensate for ambiguity with performance. They answer uncertainty with certainty, quantity with quality, and optics with substance.

This isn’t just a personality problem; it’s a structural one too. With rapid scaling, companies often outgrow their leadership capacity faster than their organisational design. The instinct then becomes not to develop leadership, but to simulate it.

Erosion of Trust

Performative leadership feels good in the moment. But it comes with measurable downsides that quietly erode a company’s foundation.

A leader who talks big but doesn’t couple words with action quickly loses credibility. Employees start to decode messages sceptically, not with healthy discernment, but with resigned cynicism. When leaders say, “We value your input,” but consistently make decisions in closed rooms, people notice. Trust isn’t just a soft metric; it directly correlates to retention, collaboration, and discretionary effort.

Talent Flight

Top performers don’t stick around for pep talks. They stay for substance, clarity, autonomy, and impact. When leadership becomes synonymous with presentation polish rather than problem-solving, the most capable individuals start looking for places where results are the currency, not rhetoric.

Cultural Fragility

Performative leadership often hides real cultural issues. Big speeches about “openness” or “inclusivity” might disguise an environment where feedback is discouraged, conflict is swept under the rug, and difficult conversations get framed as “not aligned with our culture.” This leads to a brittle culture that collapses under real stress. Ditch the jargon, let departments interact more closely, introduce more workplace benefits, allow time for brainstorming and team activity and when a complaint is raised, be a human not a robot.

What Real Leadership Looks Like in High-Growth Company

So how do you lead without putting on an act? Real leadership in a scaling company requires a shift from spectacle to signal. Clear, meaningful actions that create momentum and reinforce trust.

Show don’t tell. Instead of painting visions that can’t be directly connected to daily work, leaders should anchor big ideas in specific actions. For every strategic objective shared publicly, there should be a corresponding operational step that individuals can see happening in real time.

Example: Instead of saying, “We’re building a culture of accountability,” demonstrate what that means. Publish decision criteria, create feedback loops, and show how performance discussions lead to development, not punishment.

Decentralise Authority

Great leaders in fast-moving companies expand the decision space, they don’t restrict it. They equip teams with clear guardrails and then step back. When the organisation learns to make good decisions without needing a memo from the C-suite, execution accelerates and everything works seamlessly. Your role as a leader is bound to evolve, so embrace the structural changes, and even better be the one to suggest them! Mentoring the next generation is a huge privilege. It emphasises your authority and builds your credibility. Your career won’t suffer just because you let more voices into the boardroom.

Normalise Vulnerability

You don’t have to be like a LinkedIn influencer to be vulnerable as a leader. People appreciate it when higher-ups acknowledge what they don’t know and bring the team together to figure it out. Being your true self doesn’t mean oversharing, instead you are showing character by taking responsibility and letting other ideas be the solution rather than yours.

Hold Up the Mirror

Feedback should flow both ways. Too many leaders talk at their teams instead of with them. Structured channels for candid feedback and more importantly, visible response to that feedback, reinforce that leadership is accountable to the organisation, not above it.

The Leadership Shift That Actually Scales

Performative leadership is a short-term dopamine hit applause, visibility, perceived confidence. But in the long run, it creates a vacuum where real leadership should be. In high-growth companies, that vacuum gets filled by bottlenecks, disengagement, and turnover.

The leaders who are popular and keep employer turnover down don’t have the best sound bites but they’re the ones with the clearest signals. Connecting teams, admitting fault, instilling confidence and reinforcing trust every single day. This type of action is what makes people stay, because it is authentic and doesn’t shy away from the hard decisions.

If you’re scaling fast, don’t just look like a leader - be one. In the granular, unglamorous, relentlessly practical ways that actually make growth sustainable.

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About Rebecca Sutherland

CEO & Founder, HarbarSix

Rebecca Sutherland is the visionary force behind HarbarSix, a hybrid investment fund and business accelerator designed to power up high-potential founders with more than just capital. At the heart of her mission is a belief that exceptional businesses are built not only with smart strategy but with empowered leaders and the right ecosystem of support.

With over 20 years of experience in scaling small businesses and transforming overlooked ventures into sustainable success stories, Rebecca brings a unique blend of commercial acumen, leadership insight, and emotional intelligence to the table. She has a sharp eye for spotting potential where others see obstacles, and she’s on a mission to make sure bold ideas don’t fall through the cracks simply because they don’t fit the traditional startup mould.

Through HarbarSix, Rebecca leads a highly selective programme investing in six standout businesses every six months. But this isn’t your average accelerator. HarbarSix offers deep partnership, one-on-one coaching, access to expert networks, and a shared toolkit that founders can use. It’s a growth ecosystem built for those who are ready to do the work and scale with integrity.

Rebecca’s approach is grounded in the belief that mindset drives results. She champions founders who lead from within, and she’s known for combining big-picture strategy with the kind of practical, hands-on support that truly moves the needle. Whether guiding a business through a make-or-break quarter or helping a founder breathe through a boardroom curveball, her leadership is clear, calm and unapologetically committed.

At HarbarSix, Rebecca isn’t just investing in businesses; she’s backing people, because she knows that when founders grow, their companies follow.