Leadership Alignment in Crypto: Solving the Right Problems in the Business

Being a CEO in the crypto space is like trying to build a plane while flying it. You’re pulled in countless directions—fundraising, product development, regulatory headaches, talent acquisition, customer demands, and the ever-evolving market. It’s a whirlwind. And in early to mid-stage businesses, the problems often land squarely on your plate.

The instinct? Solve them yourself.

You see disorganization in a key department, so you personally oversee hiring someone to fix it. A customer complaint reaches you, and you jump in to smooth things over. Your team isn’t executing as expected, so you step in to ‘course correct.’ The result? You not only own the solution, but also the reporting and, ultimately, the outcome.

It feels like leadership. In reality, it’s a bottleneck.

Why Offloading Problems Feel Impossible

Delegation is often touted as the magic bullet, but for many CEOs, it’s a struggle. You hire a manager, expecting them to take full ownership of an issue, only to find yourself micromanaging the process. The reason? They weren’t truly empowered to own the problem in the first place.

Take hiring, for example. If your marketing function is chaotic and you decide to bring in a new head of marketing, but you personally vet every resumé, lead the interviews, and make the final call—what message does that send? It signals to the team that the decision is ultimately yours, not theirs. They become passengers in the process, not owners.

The Core Issue: Identifying the Right Problems to Solve

Leadership alignment in crypto in every business, no matter its size, has an overwhelming number of problems. The challenge isn’t just fixing them—it’s identifying the right ones to focus on.

But how do you do that amid the daily noise?

You pause.

The Power of Reflection

Stepping back might feel counterintuitive when there are fires everywhere, but without time to reflect, you risk solving symptoms rather than root causes.

A practical way to do this is to align your problems with the vision of the company. Ask yourself:

What is the most critical problem stopping us from reaching our next stage of growth?
Which challenges are most directly tied to our long-term vision?
Where is the disconnect between leadership and what’s happening on the ground?

Involve Your Team—But Focus on Problems, Not Solutions

It’s easy to gather your team, list problems, and immediately start throwing out solutions. But there’s a risk here—solutions often come before the problem is fully understood.

Why? Because problems are socially, emotionally, and time-sensitive. There’s an urgency to act. Your staff feels pressure to fix things quickly, which often leads to treating symptoms rather than the core issue.

Instead, bring together key team members and do one thing: focus on problems, not solutions.

Map out how these challenges are felt across the business. Ask your leadership team and frontline employees to articulate the pain points in their areas. You’ll start to see patterns emerge—recurring issues that, if fixed, will have an outsized impact.

Tackling the Crux of Leadership Alignment in Crypto

Once you’ve identified the central challenge, resist the urge to fix everything at once. Prioritize. Solve fewer problems, but solve them deeply. A fragmented approach leads to surface-level wins but long-term stagnation.

And always tie your focus back to your company’s vision. The crypto space moves fast, but the businesses that succeed aren’t the ones frantically patching holes—they’re the ones solving the right problems, at the right time, with the right people fully empowered to own them.

So, take a step back. Align your leadership. And focus on the problems that truly matter.