Why moving fast breaks trust in teams

I’ve seen urgency culture wear down some of the most thoughtful and dedicated leaders I know. And it always starts with good intentions. “We need to move fast,” or “Let’s just push through this quarter.” The pace feels necessary. But over time, it starts to pull leaders away from the very things that make them effective: the ability to think long-term, to develop people, to lead with presence instead of pressure. Then, top talent burns out and starts chasing goals out of fear, not purpose. And performance becomes less about excellence and more about endurance. That’s the real cost of urgency culture. It convinces you that speed is strategy, when in reality, it’s undermining the leadership and alignment your team needs to succeed. This week’s issue of The Performance Review breaks it down: the habits that reinforce urgency, the quiet signals it sends across a company, and what it takes to reset how you lead under pressure. If your team is moving fast but still falling behind, this one’s for you. 📩 Read the full issue here👇🏾 And tell me, what’s one “urgent” thing you realized isn’t actually urgent at your company?

Solving problems too quickly might actually be… the problem. Our instinct is to jump in and fix things fast. But intervention isn’t always impact. Historically, I’ve been notorious for stepping in too soon. I thought I was helping but really I was breaking process, impacting experiences, eroding trust, and damaging confidence. My intentions were always good, but intentions don’t erase impact. When a CSM answers a support ticket before the support team can… the customer gets help, but the process breaks, visibility is lost, and experiences can get inconsistent. When a leader gives the answer instead of asking their employee how they’d solve it… speed wins, but growth and confidence lose. When sales reaches out directly to a customer for a reference before checking with the CSM… momentum moves forward, but trust and relationship capital take a hit. The what matters less than the when. The impact matters more than the intent. Before stepping in, I now pause and ask myself: 👉 Is this the right moment? 👉 What ripple effects could my action create? 👉 Who else is impacted by my timing? Sometimes solving the problem too quickly just creates a bigger one later. The best teams and the best leaders, know when to pause.

We broke something during internal testing. It was a tiny Slack parsing bug in one of our early Deemerge prototypes. But that “tiny” bug made a sales manager at Legend miss a client follow-up. The order was lost. That moment snapped me out of the “move fast and break things” mindset. In B2B, breaking things doesn’t just slow you down, it breaks trust. And trust is the only thing that matters when teams rely on your product to do their jobs. That’s why we’ve adopted a different mantra at Deemerge: Move Fast and Build Trust. We still move fast. We experiment daily. But every change we ship is designed to earn trust — not burn it. Because in B2B, a small bug isn’t just a bug. It’s a missed shipment. A lost client. A broken promise. Are you still “breaking things”? Or building trust? #B2BSaaS #StartupLessons #BuildInPublic #FounderJourney #TrustMatters

We all admire leaders with high standards, right? The ones who do everything in their power to “model the way” by driving hard themselves? It sounds heroic—until you try it. (And for sure, I have tried it!) Moving faster than your team feeds a cycle that destroys morale, squashes initiative, stunts development, and keeps you working weekends. Research backs this up. Daniel Goleman’s study found that the pacesetting leadership style is nearly as damaging to organizational performance as coercive leadership (HBR). What’s the alternative? Instead of sprinting ahead hoping your team will follow, slow down. Set clear performance goals with your team. Then, ask what they need from you to accomplish the promise. What’s one step you can take this week to align your leadership pace with your team’s potential?