You.com COO Alex Triplett is one of 15 executives featured in Fast Company's Impact Council roundup, "15 leadership lessons that leaders learned the hard way," published August 3, 2026. Council members were asked to share one leadership lesson they learned the hard way.
His lesson: go fast to go slow
Triplett's entry, number two on the list, starts from a familiar saying: "Slow is smooth and smooth is fast."
He explains that leaders can usually get most things done quickly when they do them personally, but that approach does not scale. His alternative is to invest time at the start in explaining the reasoning behind how you see a problem, how you plan to approach it, and how the work will be carried out.
From there, he says, the job is to coach, give feedback, and let people try, miss, and try again until they succeed. In his view, that is how a leader gets the most impact out of an organization and builds the most leverage across the team.
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The roundup also features lessons from leaders at OneTrust, Bolt.new, UNICEF USA, ServiceNow, and others. Read "15 leadership lessons that leaders learned the hard way" on Fast Company.
