Years ago, I sat across from a baker in Milan whose croissants were the talk of the street, but whose staff turnover was the talk of his accountant. “They leave as soon as they learn the ropes,” he confided, “and I end up doing the night shift again.” His bakery survived on his talent but suffocated under his leadership. Talent scales dough. Leadership, or the lack of it, scales exhaustion.

THE WHY (Strategic Relevance)

Let’s name the taboo: Leadership in micro and small Dutch businesses rarely gets a second thought. You’re drowning in compliance, cashflow, and tax deadlines, who has time to reflect on “style”?

But here’s the sharp edge: Every small business lives or dies by the daily decisions of its owner. If your way of leading is barely tolerable for you or your team, it will quietly poison your business’ trust, speed, and resilience. Scalability isn’t a luxury. It’s a test of whether your business will outlast your next vacation, or even a mild case of the flu.

THE NUMBERS (Structural Impact)

• Average Dutch micro business loses up to €19,000/year to inefficiencies caused by poor delegation, owner bottlenecks, and preventable staff exits.
• 45% of employee churn in small firms is directly linked to “management issues,” not pay.
• One in three tax penalties for small companies trace back to missed deadlines, usually when the owner is “doing everything.”

Multiply these hidden costs by three years and you’ll see why scalability isn’t an abstract worry. It’s a bill. And it always comes due.

WHAT NO ONE TELLS YOU

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

The very habits that made your business survive its first two years, control, hustle, “I’ll just do it myself”, are precisely what will cap its growth and exhaust your team. Dutch business culture politely ignores this, praising “hard work” while quietly mocking the control-freak boss at the borrel.

Most business owners don’t have a “leadership style.” They have survival reflexes, hardened into routine.

Scalability doesn’t mean you need an MBA or a LinkedIn course. It means your team can make decisions, solve problems, and create value when you’re not in the room. If that thought makes you nervous, you’ve identified your ceiling.

DECISION COMPASS

Ask yourself, today, not tomorrow:

1. If I disappeared for two weeks, what would actually break?
2. Do my staff feel trusted to make decisions, or just tolerated?
3. When was the last time I changed a core process without consulting my team?
4. How much of my day is spent on urgent tasks that someone else could (or should) handle?
5. Does my business reward questions and feedback, or punish them?

Write your answers. Now decide: Are you building a business, or just buying yourself a job?

FINAL REFLECTION

True leadership isn’t a performance. It’s an architecture of trust, built moment by moment, error by error.

Scalability begins where ego ends, when you stop fearing the loss of control and start building the structures that make you, and your business, replaceable.

In the end, the real question isn’t, “Can my business grow?”

It’s, “Can I?”