From Resolution to Responsibility

"This is the year we grow."

"This is the year we scale."

The echoes of every LinkedIn post and founder address for the new year. But quietly, beneath those declarations lies a more dangerous assumption; That clarity is something you can delegate once you’re “big enough.”

That brand thinking is a function you outsource after the fact.

That growth is synonymous with rapid movement, output volume and loud visibility.

But sturdy brands? They are the ones that don’t fracture from foundational friction.

In case you hadn't heard, growth isn’t about momentum.

Most brands struggle in their growth phase because ambition outpaces ownership.

Hustle culture taught us to equate growth with speed: more posts, more channels, more hires, more agencies, more noise. More. MORE!

Virality became the proxy for relevance and delegation became synonymous with relief.

But without clarity, delegation is just abdication.

When founders outsource thinking before it’s been fully articulated, the result isn’t scale.

Teams start to execute without context. Agencies fill gaps with assumptions. Messaging multiplies while thinning out meaning.

"We're growing!" is the proud exclamation. "This is just growing pains", is the muted excuse But really, what looks like growth on the surface often masks a deeper problem:

No one is holding the centre.

Branding is not Marketing Function

In my 20+ years I have seen Branding become dilute, abused and overused.

It’s treated as aesthetics. You know, just governing tone, campaigns and content calendars. Something that can be “handled” by marketing.

Quelle horreur!

I'm sorry, but branding is decision-making infrastructure.

It is the codified answer to questions leaders face every day:

• What do we say yes to?

• What do we refuse?

• How do we behave under pressure?

• What trade-offs are we willing to make?

• What will we never sacrifice in the name of speed?

  
  

These are not marketing questions. They are leadership ones.

When branding is reduced to output, leaders lose a shared language for strategic thinking and discernment. Instead, strategy becomes knee-jerk reactions, bottle-neck compound and teams start compensating by trend-chasing.

Any culture built previously begins to fragment quietly, and soon after you'll start seeing revenue dips.

The messy middle is an opportunity to reinforce clarity.

There’s a moment in every growing business where things start to falter.

The founder is no longer in every decision.

The team expands.

Systems start to show cracks.

What once lived intuitively in one person’s (or two or three people's) head is now expected to travel across departments, documents, and deliverables.

This is the messy middle, and it’s where most brands make the wrong call.

They rush to outsource clarity instead of sitting with the harder work of articulating it.

The problem with this is that clarity is not something you can just purchase off the shelf. It doesn’t arrive fully formed. It’s built through pressure-testing, pattern recognition, and deliberate choice.

It requires leaders to slow down long enough to name what’s actually happening—internally and externally—before asking others to amplify it.

This phase can’t be skipped, and it definitely can’t be delegated.

True leadership lies in your accountability.

Real leaderships means bandoning the fantasy of frictionless growth long to accept that:

• Scale WILL amplify system flaws.

• Visibility WILL expose misalignment.

• Fancy campaigns and content calendars cannot replace strategy

  
  

Well founded and led brands don’t chase growth as an outcome. They take responsibility for the conditions that make growth sustainable.

True leadership is understanding that clarity is not just another deliverable—it’s a foundational discipline.

A final note..

If you're expecting to hire someone to come in and “handle” branding so you can focus on the business, let me just tell you, you're going nowhere fast.

Leaders must be willing to think, question, and recalibrate in real time WITH their strategic partners. Once you understand that brand decisions are leadership decisions, you'll understand why you need a thinking partner, and not just a marketing proxy.

Lasting brands aren’t built by outsourcing responsibility, but by leaders who are willing to hold it alongside their strategic team.