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Leaders worry about making the wrong decision. But some of the greatest leadership risks emerge after they make the right one. They hire the right executive. Approve a sound strategy. Restructure the organization. Promote a high-potential leader. Invest in growth. Make the difficult call they have postponed for too long. Then something happens between the decision and the result. The new executive struggles to gain traction. The strategy is clear, but the leadership team interprets its priorities differently. The restructuring creates new roles, but decision authority remains unclear. The CEO delegates responsibility, yet important decisions continue finding their way back to the CEO. None of these necessarily means the original decision was wrong. The decision may have been right. The risk emerges in what happens next. Leaders understandably put enormous energy into consequential decisions. They gather data, seek advice, debate alternatives, assess risk, and build consensus. Eventually, they almost always decide. But a decision alone does not create the intended value. The Gap Between Decision and Performance Between a consequential leadership decision and the organizational performance it is intended to enable is a period I call the Risk Zone. It is where: Expectations can become unclear Alignment can weaken Decisions can slow Candor can become filtered Leadership behavior can drift Execution can stall Organizations often invest heavily in the front end of important decisions. They conduct executive searches. They build strategic plans. They redesign structures. They select new systems. They announce change initiatives. Then the meeting ends. The search closes. The strategy is approved. The new leader starts. And attention moves to the next priority. But organizational value has not been created yet. The decision creates the opportunity. What happens next determines the return. Why Good Decisions Still Produce Poor Results There is a temptation to assume that if the decision was good, the result should follow. Organizations do not work that way. Consider hiring a senior executive. Selecting the right person matters enormously. But the executive still has to understand the culture, establish credibility, build stakeholder relationships, clarify expectations, navigate organizational dynamics, make decisions, and begin producing results. Research on CEO succession indicates that leadership changes can affect strategy, governance, stakeholder relationships, and organizational performance. Or consider strategy. The strategy itself may be sound. But if the senior team isn't aligned on priorities and trade-offs, if decision rights remain unclear, or if leaders leave the room agreeing only to behave differently afterward, strategy becomes increasingly difficult to execute. The same pattern appears during growth. Systems and leadership practices that worked when an organization was smaller can become constraints as complexity increases. A highly involved founder who once accelerated decisions can eventually become the bottleneck through which too many decisions must pass. These look like different leadership problems. But they share something important: the organization made a decision intended to create value, and risk emerged while trying to turn that decision into performance. The Risk Leaders May Not See The higher a leader rises in the organization, the harder it can become to receive unfiltered information. That does not necessarily mean people are dishonest. Positional power itself changes conversations. Employees become more careful about what they say. Bad news may travel more slowly. Disagreement may happen after the meeting rather than during it. Assumptions may go unchallenged. Research on psychological safety connects interpersonal safety with behaviors such as speaking up, asking questions, learning, seeking feedback, and discussing mistakes. Research on employee voice and silence likewise highlights leadership’s influence on whether employees communicate concerns upward. For an executive, that makes candor more than a culture issue. Filtered information is a decision risk. The challenge is not merely whether leaders have enough information. Most already have dashboards, reports, advisers, peers, employees, boards, and increasingly artificial intelligence producing more analysis than they can realistically absorb. The harder challenge is seeing the situation clearly enough to act well. Evidence-based management offers a useful discipline: integrate scientific findings, organizational information, professional expertise, and stakeholder perspectives rather than relying too heavily on any one source. The question becomes less: Do we have enough information? And more: Are we seeing the situation clearly enough to act well? Diagnose Before You Prescribe Leadership risk rarely has a single cause. Suppose a CEO is frustrated with an executive who no longer appears capable of operating at the level the organization requires. The obvious conclusion may be to replace the executive. Maybe. But several other explanations are possible. Has the organization outgrown the role? Has the role changed without expectations changing with it? Is decision authority unclear? Has growth created complexity the existing structure cannot support? Has the executive received clear feedback? Has the CEO avoided a difficult conversation? And perhaps the most uncomfortable question: How might the CEO’s own leadership be contributing to what is happening? The visible problem may sit in the leader, the system, or both. A strategy, structure, role-design, or decision-rights problem may require an organizational solution. Avoidance, control, fear of conflict, overconfidence, or unexamined assumptions may also be contributing to the problem. The work is to diagnose the actual constraint before engaging the solution. That is why effective leadership work often should not be limited to either coaching or consulting. Some moments require reflection, ownership, and behavioral change. Others require organizational diagnosis, operating-mechanism redesign, evidence, options, and a clear recommendation. Often, leaders need both. Insight Is Not the Finish Line Even correctly diagnosing the problem is not enough. A leader can leave a meeting with greater self-awareness and still change nothing. A leadership team can agree on a new operating model and continue behaving exactly as it did before. Knowing is not the same as doing. Insight has to become visible through decisions, conversations, habits, accountability, and follow-through. The practical questions are: What will you do differently? What conversation needs to happen? What decision needs to be made? What behavior needs to change? What will tell us whether it is working? That is where insight becomes traction. Start With the Risk This changes the way we should think about leadership support. Instead of beginning with: Does this executive need coaching? Or: Does this organization need consulting? A better starting question is: Where is the risk? Is the risk in a leadership transition? Is something important stuck? Has growth outpaced the organization’s leadership systems? Is seniority filtering the information reaching the executive? Is the executive team insufficiently aligned to make trade-offs and execute? Is the organization unprepared for a critical succession? Those are different leadership risks. They require different interventions. Sometimes the leader needs someone who will ask the question no one else is asking. Sometimes they need evidence. Sometimes they need an organizational diagnosis. Sometimes they need a recommendation. And sometimes they need someone willing to challenge the assumption beneath the entire conversation. Where Is Your Greatest Leadership Risk? The decision still belongs to the executive. But making the decision is only the beginning. The real leadership question is what happens next. I developed the white paper, Executive Advisory: Where Coaching and Consulting Come Together, to explore that question more fully. It introduces the Risk Zone, examines six recurring forms of leadership risk, and outlines an evidence-informed approach for moving from consequential decisions to organizational performance. Download the white paper: Executive Advisory: Where Coaching and Consulting Come Together References Berns, K. V. D., & Klarner, P. (2017). A review of the CEO succession literature and a future research agenda. Academy of Management Perspectives, 31(2), 83–108. Doolittle, J. (2023). Life-changing leadership habits: 10 proven principles that will elevate people, profit, and purpose. Organizational Talent Consulting. Edmondson, A. C. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383. Edmondson, A. C., & Bransby, D. P. (2023). Psychological safety comes of age: Observed themes in an established literature. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 10, 55–78. Morrison, E. W. (2023). Employee voice and silence: Taking stock a decade later. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 10, 79–107. Rousseau, D. M. (2020). Making evidence-based organizational decisions in an uncertain world. Organizational Dynamics.

The hidden risk may be your executive team's decision architecture—not your analytics. Two executive teams can have access to the same information, comparable analytical capability, and equally experienced leaders, and still reach decisions of very different quality. That gap has economic consequences. Research on group decision-making shows that when the best decision depends on combining insights, groups are far less likely to identify the optimal answer. The difference is not just data. It is often the discipline around how the team challenges assumptions, distinguishes symptoms from root causes, responds to unfavorable findings, and converts conclusions into results that matter. This makes decision quality observable. Teams that consistently make better decisions demonstrate recognizable patterns in how they use evidence, not because data replaces judgment, but because it refines judgment. For executive teams, this distinction matters. Better decisions are not simply the product of smarter individuals or more sophisticated dashboards. They emerge from habits that reduce bias, expose flawed assumptions, clarify what the evidence actually supports, and connect conclusions to action. The Value of Data-Driven Decisions Data-driven decision-making has become somewhat of a buzzword as organizations invest in analytics, artificial intelligence, and other technologies designed to improve decision quality. A useful working definition of data-driven decision-making is: Using facts extracted from data and metrics to guide business decisions that support business goals rather than relying on experience, intuition, and stories alone. This does not mean experience and intuition are unimportant. Executive judgment remains essential, especially when leaders operate with uncertainty, incomplete information, or rapidly changing conditions. The problem occurs when intuition becomes the default, evidence is selectively considered, or data is introduced primarily to support a conclusion already reached. Data can speed up and improve decision-making. It can help leaders understand what is and is not working. It can expose patterns that are difficult to see through experience alone. Predictive analytics can improve strategic foresight and preparedness as market conditions change. Data-driven decisions can be descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive. Descriptive analytics helps leaders understand what happened. Predictive analytics considers what may happen. Prescriptive analytics addresses the more consequential question: What should we do? But data alone cannot answer that question. Leaders still have to interpret the evidence, evaluate competing alternatives, exercise judgment, decide, and act. The quality of that process matters. The following seven characteristics distinguish teams that use evidence not simply to become more informed, but to make better decisions. 1: They Seek Truth Rather Than Confirmation Deming is often attributed with saying, “In God we trust. All others must bring data.” The underlying principle is important. Data-driven teams use evidence to seek truth rather than confirm what they already believe. This sounds straightforward. In practice, it can be difficult. Leaders naturally develop beliefs about markets, customers, employees, competitors, and organizational performance. Experience creates valuable pattern recognition, but it can also create assumptions that become increasingly difficult to question. The real test occurs when credible evidence contradicts a strongly held position. What happens when the data challenges a preferred strategy? What happens when an investment fails to produce the expected result? What happens when evidence contradicts the prevailing explanation for a performance problem? Teams that consistently make better decisions are willing to examine evidence that challenges their assumptions. The objective is not to eliminate judgment. It is to prevent judgment from becoming immune to evidence. 2: They Look for Patterns and Root Causes Data-driven teams aggregate information to identify patterns, predictions, and potential root causes. They treat problems as possible symptoms of deeper issues rather than isolated events that simply need resolving. Organizations can become very efficient at solving recurring problems without ever addressing the systems producing them. Turnover may look like a recruiting problem when the underlying issue is leadership. Declining performance may look like an employee problem when decision rights are unclear. Customer complaints may appear to be a service issue when the root cause exists upstream in process design. Looking for patterns changes the leadership question. From: How do we fix this problem? To: What is causing this problem to continue occurring? Identifying root causes protects the organization from repeatedly treating symptoms while systemic problems remain unchanged. 3: They Examine Variation Rather Than Relying on Averages Averages can distort organizational reality because they conceal variation. An enterprise-wide average may look acceptable while significant problems exist within particular teams, departments, geographies, customer segments, or business units. Average employee engagement can obscure a struggling division. Average customer satisfaction can conceal deterioration among strategically important customers. Average operating performance can hide substantial differences between locations. Teams that consistently make better decisions examine information at a sufficiently granular level to understand what is actually happening. The goal isn't greater analytical complexity for its own sake. Granularity helps leaders distinguish isolated events from patterns and determine where attention, accountability, or resources are needed. Sometimes the most consequential insight is hidden inside an acceptable average. 4: They Use Data to Interrogate Assumptions and Stories Stories and anecdotal evidence provide powerful personal connections. They are also dangerous when treated as representative evidence. One customer complaint can redirect executive attention. One successful employee can reinforce assumptions about an entire talent strategy. One memorable failure can shape investment decisions long after the underlying conditions have changed. Teams that consistently make better decisions do not eliminate stories. They test them. They ask whether the story represents a broader pattern, an isolated exception, or something the organization does not yet understand. Data provides a way to examine the narratives that naturally develop inside organizations. The question is not whether the story is compelling. The question is whether the evidence supports the conclusion being drawn from it. 5: They Value Negative Findings Finding out that something does not work can be as valuable as finding evidence that supports an idea. This is one of the more difficult characteristics of a genuinely data-driven team. A major initiative may not create the anticipated value. A long-held assumption may prove incorrect. A strategy may underperform. An investment may fail. Unfavorable findings can create defensiveness, particularly when significant resources, executive credibility, or organizational identity are attached to the decision. But negative findings are still information. The strategic value of evidence is not that it continually proves leaders right. Its value is that it enables an organization to discover when an assumption may be wrong before the consequences become more expensive. Teams that consistently make better decisions do not treat unfavorable evidence as failure to be hidden. They treat it as intelligence to be understood. 6: They Convert Evidence Into Decisions and Action Analysis without action creates little organizational value. Teams can have excellent analysts, sophisticated dashboards, and extensive reporting while repeatedly failing to act on what the evidence reveals. Data's purpose is not simply to improve understanding. It is to inform a decision. What are we going to do differently because of what we now know? What will we stop? What will we continue? Where will resources move? Who owns the action? When will the decision be evaluated? These questions connect analysis to execution. Teams that consistently make better decisions don't let evidence stay trapped in presentations, dashboards, or meetings. They translate what they learn into decisions, ownership, and action. 7: They Know When the Evidence Is Sufficient to Decide Being data-driven does not mean waiting until uncertainty disappears. Leaders rarely have complete information. Markets move. Competitors respond. Customer expectations change. Technologies develop. Unexpected events occur. At some point, leaders have to decide. The discipline lies in understanding what evidence the decision requires, how reliable that evidence is, what remains unknown, and what risks accompany acting—or waiting. Some decisions warrant extensive analysis. Others require speed and informed judgment. The danger exists at both extremes. Leaders can make consequential decisions primarily through intuition when relevant evidence is readily available. They can also create analysis paralysis by continuing to gather information long after additional data is unlikely to materially improve the decision. Teams that consistently make better decisions understand that the objective is not certainty. It is making the best defensible decision available under the circumstances and remaining willing to adjust as new evidence emerges. Building a Culture That Supports Better Decisions These seven characteristics do not develop simply by investing in analytics. Culture influences how employees interpret and use evidence. Leaders reinforce that culture through what they consistently pay attention to, how they respond when performance deteriorates, where they allocate resources, what behaviors they reward, and who receives greater organizational responsibility. Several leadership actions are particularly consequential: Pay attention to metrics that matter and review them consistently. Respond to organizational problems by examining evidence rather than relying on anecdote alone. Allocate appropriate resources to analytical capability. Develop employees' ability to interpret and apply evidence. Recognize disciplined, evidence-based decision-making. Support constructive challenge when data contradicts established assumptions. Connect decisions to clear ownership and follow-through. Culture is also reinforced through organization design, policies and procedures, rituals, performance systems, traditions, stories, and leadership behavior. Employees pay attention to these signals. If leaders say data matters but routinely dismiss inconvenient findings, employees notice. If teams are encouraged to challenge assumptions but disagreement creates personal risk, employees notice. If analytics are reviewed but never influence decisions or resource allocation, employees notice. Over time, those repeated signals teach people how decisions are actually expected to be made. These patterns also reveal why better decision-making cannot be separated from leadership habits. The way leaders respond to disagreement, examine assumptions, seek evidence, allocate attention, and follow through on decisions becomes part of the operating environment others experience. In Life-Changing Leadership Habits, I examine the recurring leadership practices that shape people, performance, and organizational outcomes. In the context of data-driven decision-making, those habits matter because evidence does not interpret itself or act on its own. Leaders determine whether evidence creates inquiry or defensiveness, whether disagreement produces learning or compliance, and whether decisions ultimately translate into accountable action. The connection is important: decision quality is not only analytical. It is behavioral. What leaders repeatedly do becomes part of how the organization repeatedly decides. Better Decisions Require Decision Discipline The advantage of a data-driven culture is not that every decision becomes correct. No decision process can eliminate uncertainty, incomplete information, or the need for executive judgment. The advantage is that the organization becomes better at discovering when its assumptions are wrong, distinguishing evidence from narrative, identifying patterns beneath individual events, learning from unfavorable outcomes, and adjusting before errors become more expensive. That is a more demanding standard than simply being data-driven. Organizations can possess extraordinary amounts of data without developing this discipline. They can also employ highly capable people and still allow confirmation bias, anecdote, hierarchy, or analysis paralysis to weaken decisions. Better decision-making requires something more. It requires teams that can use evidence to discipline judgment without surrendering judgment to the evidence. For executives, the central question is therefore not simply: How much data does our team use? A more consequential question is: Does the way our team uses evidence consistently improve the quality of judgment, action, and organizational learning? Because the objective is not to create an organization that uses more data. It is to create an organization that makes better decisions. References Bartlett, R. (2013). A Practitioner’s Guide to Data Analytics: Using Data Analysis to Improve Your Organization’s Decision-Making and Strategy. McGraw-Hill. Davenport, T., Harris, J., & Morison, R. (2010). Analytics at Work: Smarter Decisions, Better Results. Harvard Business Press. De Smet, A., Lackey, G., & Weiss, L. M. (2017, June 21). Untangling your organization’s decision making. McKinsey Quarterly. Doolittle, J., (2023). Life-changing leadership habits:10 Proven Principles That Will Elevate People, Profit, and Purpose. Organizational Talent Consulting. Deloitte. (2019). Deloitte Survey: Analytics and Data-Driven Culture Help Companies Outperform Business Goals. Greenstein, B., & Rao, A. (2022). PwC 2022 AI Business Survey. PwC. Lu, L., Yuan, Y. C., & McLeod, P. L. (2012). Twenty-five years of hidden profiles in group decision making: A meta-analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 16(1), 54–75. Upadhyay, P., & Kumar, A. (2020). The intermediating role of organizational culture and internal analytical knowledge between the capability of big data analytics and a firm’s performance. International Journal of Information Management, 52, 102100

AI is expanding analytical capacity. The greater leadership risk may be assuming better decisions will follow. AI is rapidly expanding analytical capacity in most organizations. In McKinsey’s 2025 global study, 88% of respondents reported that their company regularly uses AI in at least one business function, up from 78% the previous year. Yet only 39% reported any EBIT impact from AI. This gap between adoption and realized value matters. Generative AI is changing the availability of analysis. It enables more people, across more areas of an organization, to generate, interpret, and interact with information at a speed and scale. But just as a larger navigation system in your car doesn't determine where you should go any better, greater analytical capacity does not necessarily produce better organizational decisions. Organizations that invest heavily in generative AI, analytics, and talent while continuing to make decisions through the same authority structures, incentives, assumptions, and operating routines that existed before those capabilities arrived are doomed to create an increasingly important enterprise risk. When analytical capability advances faster than the organization’s decision architecture, more analysis can produce more competing interpretations, faster reinforcement of existing assumptions, and greater ambiguity about who is accountable for acting on the evidence. The strategic challenge is therefore larger than adopting generative AI or becoming more data-driven. It's designing an organization capable of converting greater analytical capacity into better decisions. Talent Strategy Must Follow Decision Strategy Organizations often begin their analytical transformation by asking what technology they need or what analytical talent they should hire. A more consequential starting point is the decisions the organization needs to make better. Which decisions have the greatest effect on customer value, capital allocation, operating performance, risk, and growth? Which require stronger predictive capability? Where is judgment being exercised without sufficient evidence? Where does useful analysis already exist but fail to influence action? Where are analytical resources disconnected from the business decisions they are intended to support? These questions change talent planning from a staffing exercise into an enterprise capability decision. Once critical decisions are clear, leaders can identify the knowledge, skills, and abilities required to support them. Technical competence remains essential. Depending on the organization, this may include modeling, forecasting, statistical analysis, visualization, analytical applications, and tools such as R, Python, or other specialized platforms. But technical competence alone is insufficient. Analytical capability also requires people who can negotiate, consult, communicate, interpret quantitative evidence, develop others, and translate analysis into consequential business decisions. The objective is not to accumulate analytical talent. It is to place the right analytical capability around the decisions where better evidence can materially alter enterprise outcomes. Analytical Capability Is an Enterprise Capability Treating analytics primarily as a technical function creates another organizational limitation. Analytical leadership cannot reside exclusively with the CTO, CIO, data function, or another specialized group. Leaders throughout the enterprise determine whether evidence becomes part of the organization's normal decision process. They establish performance measures. They determine which questions receive analytical attention. They allocate resources. They decide when evidence is sufficient to act. And they inform whether data is expected to challenge prevailing assumptions or merely validate decisions that have effectively already been made. The distinction matters because analysis rarely creates value in isolation. Value emerges when analytical capability intersects with business judgment, operating context, authority, and action. For executive teams, the question is not simply whether the organization has enough analytical talent. The question is whether sufficient analytical capability exists at the points where consequential decisions are actually needed. Culture Determines Whether Evidence Has Authority Even when analytical talent is positioned around important decisions, the organization's culture determines whether that capability carries meaningful influence. Culture is sometimes treated primarily as a matter of shared attitudes or employee sentiment. At the enterprise level, culture is also reinforced through concrete organizational mechanisms: what leaders monitor, how they respond under pressure, where resources go, which behaviors they model, what they reward, and who advances through the organization. These mechanisms reveal whether evidence actually has authority inside the organization's decision system. What Leaders Consistently Monitor Attention communicates priority. The measures executives routinely request, review, and challenge tell the organization which evidence matters. What is consistently measured gains organizational visibility. What is rarely examined can remain strategically invisible regardless of its importance. A useful executive question is not simply: Do we value data? It is: What evidence routinely changes our decisions? How Leaders Respond When Conditions Deteriorate Critical incidents reveal the organization's actual decision architecture. When performance deteriorates, markets shift, customers respond unexpectedly, or a strategic initiative misses expectations, leaders face a choice. They can examine evidence that challenges existing assumptions, or they can revert to familiar narratives, hierarchy, and intuition. Organizations learn from what leaders do under pressure, not merely from what leaders say during planning cycles. How Resources Are Allocated Budgets expose operating assumptions. Investment decisions communicate which capabilities the organization considers strategically consequential. Analytical ambitions unsupported by appropriate talent, technology, time, access, and decision authority remain aspirations rather than operating capabilities. What receives resources is reinforced. What Leaders Model Employees observe whether executives themselves use evidence when making consequential decisions. Leaders who expect analytical discipline from others while relying primarily on assertion, hierarchy, or selectively chosen information create an organizational contradiction. This does not mean executives should surrender judgment to analytical models. Judgment remains essential. The issue is whether evidence is allowed to inform—and, when appropriate, challenge—executive judgment. What the Organization Rewards Formal incentives and informal recognition shape behavior. Organizations may say they value analytical rigor while rewarding speed without sufficient examination, certainty over inquiry, or agreement over constructive challenge. Over time, employees learn whether presenting inconvenient evidence improves decision quality or creates personal risk. That lesson can matter more than any formal analytics initiative. Who Gets Hired, Promoted, and Removed Talent decisions institutionalize organizational priorities. The capabilities and behaviors associated with advancement communicate what the organization actually values. Hiring, succession, promotion, and separation decisions therefore influence analytical culture far beyond the individuals directly involved. If analytical judgment is strategically important, it should be visible in the criteria governing who receives greater organizational responsibility. The Organizational Design Question Even organizations with strong analytical talent and supportive cultures face another challenge: where should analytical capability reside? Analytical resources need sufficient proximity to the business to understand operating realities and concentrate on consequential problems. Yet excessive decentralization can fragment capability, duplicate work, create inconsistent standards, and limit learning across analytical professionals. Centralization creates different risks. Analytical teams can become technically sophisticated while increasingly disconnected from the business decisions they exist to improve. There is no universally correct organizational structure. The appropriate design depends on strategy, analytical maturity, culture, scale, and the nature of the decisions being supported. The governance objective is more important than the organizational chart. Analytical resources must be close enough to decision-makers to influence action while connected enough to one another to preserve standards, learning, capability development, and an enterprise perspective. That is an organizational design problem, not simply a staffing problem. From Analytical Capacity to Decision Capability Data, analytics, and AI are expanding what organizations can know. They do not determine what organizations will do with that knowledge. That distinction belongs to organizational architecture. Decision rights determine who has authority. Accountability determines who owns the consequences. Culture determines whether evidence can challenge established assumptions. Incentives influence which evidence receives attention. Resource allocation determines where analytical capability develops. Organizational design determines whether analytical expertise is sufficiently connected to both enterprise learning and business action. Talent matters. Technology matters. Analytical methods matter. But their enterprise value depends on the system into which they are introduced. This is why more data does not guarantee better decisions. The advantage does not belong simply to organizations capable of generating more intelligence. It belongs to organizations designed to convert intelligence into sound judgment, coordinated action, and organizational learning. For executives and boards, the central question is no longer merely: Do we have the data, technology, and analytical talent we need? A more consequential question is: Is our organization designed to make better decisions with the analytical capability we are building? As generative AI continues to increase the speed and availability of analysis, the gap between analytical capacity and organizational decision capability may become increasingly visible. For some organizations, that gap will constrain the return on their investments in data and AI. For others, closing it may become a source of durable enterprise advantage. If you are examining whether your leadership system is keeping pace with the capabilities AI is creating, schedule a confidential Leadership Strategy Conversation. We can explore where decision architecture, leadership habits, and organizational accountability may be limiting execution. Life-Changing Leadership Habits provides a foundational framework for examining the leadership practices behind those systems and the organizational outcomes they reinforce. References Abina, A., Salaj, A., Cestnik, B., Karalič, A., Ogrinc, M., Lukman, R., & Zidansek, A. (2024). Challenging 21st-Century competencies for STEM students: Companies' vision in Slovenia and Norway in the light of global initiatives for competencies development. Sustainability, 16, 1295. Bughin, J., Hazan, E., Lund, S., Dahlström, P., Wiesinger, A., & Subramaniam, A. (2018). Skill shift: Automation and the future of the workforce. McKinsey Global Institute. Davenport, T. H., Harris, J. G., & Morison, R. (2010). Analytics at Work: Smarter Decisions, Better Results. Harvard Business Press. Doolittle, J. (2023). Life-Changing Leadership Habits: 10 Proven Principles That Will Elevate People, Profit, and Purpose. Organizational Talent Consulting. Grossman, R. L., & Siegel, K. P. (2014). Organizational models for big data and analytics. Journal of Organization Design, 3(1), 20–25. Schein, E. H. (2004). Organizational Culture and Leadership (3rd ed.). Jossey-Bass. Tambe, P. (2014). Big data investment, skills, and firm value. Management Science, 60(6), 1452–1469. Singla, A., Sukharevsky, A., Hall, B., Yee, L., Chui, M., & Balakrishnan, T. (2025, November 5). The state of AI in 2025: Agents, innovation, and transformation. McKinsey & Company.

Why Vulnerability Determines Organizational Trust Great leaders are often associated with certainty. Executives are expected to make difficult decisions, inspire confidence, and project competence in the face of ambiguity. Decisive leadership is admired. It mobilizes people amid uncertainty. Yet an expectation to always appear certain carries an unintended consequence. Leaders who protect their appearance of certainty can accidentally create cultures where the truth is not spoken freely. It's dangerous for the organization and the executive when employees choose silence over candor. The result is not simply diminished trust. It is reduced decision quality. Important information arrives late, emerging risks remain hidden, innovation slows, and preventable problems grow into organizational crises. Difficult conversations teach employees what is safe to say inside the organization. When leaders respond with defensiveness, image management, or an insistence on certainty, people learn that protecting perceptions is more valuable than confronting reality. Leadership amplifies everything. A whisper becomes a shout when it comes from authority. An executive's words, questions, reactions, and even moments of silence shape what others believe is acceptable. Employees rarely remember every decision a leader makes, but they remember how it felt to speak honestly when the stakes were high. Vulnerability is often misunderstood. Appropriate leadership vulnerability is not about deep emotional disclosure or abandoning professional boundaries. Nor is it a surrender of confidence or executive presence. It is the disciplined willingness to acknowledge uncertainty, invite perspective, admit when additional information is needed, and remain open to learning while maintaining accountability for decisions. Rather than slowing the action of others, appropriate vulnerability strengthens organizational trust because it lowers the perceived personal cost of speaking honestly. High-performing organizations are built on much more than talented leaders. They depend on cultures where truth travels faster than assumptions, where healthy conflict is viewed as valuable information rather than disloyalty, and where difficult conversations improve decisions instead of threatening relationships. The question is not whether executives should be appropriately vulnerable. The question is whether your organization tolerates leaders who are not. Why Leadership Vulnerability Matters Today's workplace requires organizations to make better decisions with imperfect information. Markets change rapidly, customer expectations evolve continuously, and operational challenges emerge with little warning. In this environment, no executive possesses all the answers, and no leadership team can anticipate every risk. What ultimately distinguishes resilient organizations is not the talent of a few leaders but the quality of information flowing throughout the enterprise. Unfortunately, research continues to reveal a troubling reality. Many employees hesitate to speak up when they observe ethical concerns, operational risks, or flawed assumptions. Even fewer believe their opinions meaningfully influence organizational decisions. These findings point to a challenge that extends far beyond communication skills. They reveal an organizational system where the perceived cost of honesty outweighs the perceived benefit of contributing. Your company is perfectly designed for the results you are getting. Employees make decisions based on the culture leaders reinforce. When admitting uncertainty is interpreted as incompetence or raising concerns is viewed as opposition, silence becomes the safest option. Teams stop sharing bad news early. Managers filter information before it reaches senior leadership. Executives unknowingly begin making decisions based on incomplete or distorted information. The consequences are significant. Innovation slows because new ideas carry unnecessary risk. Collaboration weakens because individuals become more concerned with protecting credibility than solving problems. Small operational issues grow into major disruptions because no one feels safe identifying them early. In time, organizations begin losing their ability to accurately understand themselves. This is why leadership vulnerability matters. Appropriate vulnerability changes the economics of organizational communication. When leaders openly acknowledge uncertainty, ask thoughtful questions, admit mistakes, and genuinely seek feedback, they reduce the personal risk associated with speaking honestly. Employees no longer view candor as something to avoid but as something that contributes to better collective decisions. Research consistently associates healthy expressions of vulnerability with higher levels of trust, collaboration, innovation, employee retention, and psychological safety. These outcomes are important, but they are not the ultimate objective. Their real value lies in what they make possible: stronger decisions, healthier organizational cultures, and greater long-term effectiveness. Vulnerability is not valuable because it makes leaders appear real. It is valuable because it creates organizations that learn faster than the challenges they face. The Power of Vulnerability For many leaders, vulnerability is mistakenly equated with weakness, indecision, or diminished authority. The assumption is understandable. Leaders are promoted because they demonstrate competence, solve problems, and make difficult decisions under pressure. Admitting uncertainty can seem inconsistent with those expectations. Yet the most effective leaders understand a different reality. Confidence without curiosity often becomes overconfidence. Authority without openness becomes isolation. Certainty without feedback becomes organizational blindness. Leadership vulnerability is not exposing personal weakness. It is the discipline of refusing to allow ego, image management, or positional authority to interfere with organizational learning. This distinction is critical. Employees rarely expect leaders to possess every answer. In fact, they already know you don't. They do expect leaders to create an environment where difficult truths can be discussed without fear of embarrassment, retaliation, or dismissal. When leaders acknowledge uncertainty while remaining accountable for decisions, they strengthen—not weaken—their credibility. Vulnerability demonstrates confidence in the organization's collective intelligence rather than confidence in one's individual certainty. Simon Sinek has often observed that trust is built when leaders are willing to be human before expecting extraordinary commitment from others. Similarly, Brené Brown's research has shown that vulnerability is not weakness but courage—the willingness to step into uncertainty despite the possibility of discomfort or failure. Together, these perspectives reinforce an important leadership principle: vulnerability is not the absence of strength; it is the disciplined exercise of it. Organizations do not become stronger because leaders always know the answer. They become stronger because leaders create environments where the best answers can emerge. Five Executive Disciplines That Lower the Cost of Truth Trust is rarely built through a single conversation. It is established through consistent leadership behaviors that shape how employees interpret risk, authority, and accountability. Every interaction either increases or decreases the likelihood that people will speak honestly when the stakes are high. The following disciplines are not communication techniques. They are leadership practices that determine whether organizations learn quickly or slowly, adapt effectively or defensively, and solve problems before they become crises. 1: Replace Image Management with Transparency Many leaders enter difficult conversations focused on protecting credibility. They carefully choose their words, avoid acknowledging uncertainty, and attempt to project complete confidence. While understandable, this instinct often produces the opposite effect. Employees quickly recognize when a leader is managing perceptions rather than engaging authentically. Transparency is not the same as complete disclosure. Effective leaders exercise appropriate discretion, particularly when conversations involve confidential information or pending decisions. Transparency means helping others understand how decisions are being made, what information is known, what remains uncertain, and why certain conclusions have been reached. Employees are remarkably capable of handling uncertainty. What they struggle with is unnecessary ambiguity created by incomplete communication. Leaders who acknowledge what they know—and what they do not yet know—signal confidence rather than insecurity. They demonstrate that credibility comes from intellectual honesty, not from pretending to possess perfect information. Transparency also invites reciprocal openness. When leaders stop protecting the appearance of certainty, employees become more willing to surface concerns, ask difficult questions, and contribute ideas that might otherwise remain unspoken. The objective is not to appear vulnerable. The objective is to make honesty less expensive for everyone else. 2: Pursue Understanding Before Influence Many difficult conversations fail before they begin because leaders enter the discussion focused on persuading rather than understanding. Authority often creates an unintended blind spot. The higher leaders rise, the more likely people are to tell them what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear. Unless leaders intentionally seek perspectives different from their own, decision-making gradually becomes isolated from organizational reality. Vulnerability begins with curiosity. Asking thoughtful questions communicates that understanding matters more than defending a position. Listening without immediately preparing a response demonstrates confidence in the collective intelligence of the organization rather than confidence in one's own assumptions. This does not mean leaders surrender decision-making authority. Leaders remain responsible for making difficult choices. However, those choices are stronger when they are informed by perspectives that might otherwise have remained hidden. One of the greatest risks in executive leadership is not making unpopular decisions. It is making uninformed decisions because employees concluded it was safer to remain silent than to challenge prevailing assumptions. Organizations improve when leaders become students before becoming advocates. 3: Lead with Stewardship Rather Than Self-Protection Every difficult conversation reveals what leaders are ultimately trying to protect. Some protect their reputation. Some protect their authority. Some protect their comfort. Exceptional leaders protect the organization's future. This distinction fundamentally changes the nature of difficult conversations. Instead of asking, "How will this conversation affect me?" effective leaders ask, "What outcome best serves the long-term health of the organization and the people entrusted to my leadership?" Leadership is stewardship. Stewardship requires the courage to place organizational health above personal image, short-term comfort, or the desire to be perceived as right. It requires humility to recognize that preserving trust is often more valuable than winning an argument. This perspective also reshapes empathy. Empathy is not avoiding difficult conversations to spare someone's feelings. Nor is it lowering standards or avoiding accountability. Genuine care means addressing difficult issues in ways that preserve dignity while strengthening performance and relationships. Employees are far more willing to accept difficult feedback when they believe the leader is genuinely committed to their success rather than simply protecting organizational authority. The strongest leaders do not avoid difficult conversations. They conduct them in ways that strengthen both accountability and trust. 4: Address Tension Before Silence Becomes Culture Most organizational problems do not emerge overnight. They develop gradually as leaders postpone difficult conversations, hoping additional information, better timing, or changing circumstances will resolve the issue. While thoughtful preparation is wise, delay often communicates something unintended: difficult truths are negotiable. Employees pay close attention to what leaders consistently avoid. When recurring issues remain unaddressed, people begin drawing their own conclusions about what is truly important. Accountability becomes inconsistent, trust begins to erode, and uncertainty fills the vacuum left by silence. Timely action does not require impulsive action. Effective leaders prepare carefully, gather the necessary facts, and consider the broader organizational implications before engaging in difficult conversations. However, they also recognize that waiting indefinitely rarely improves the quality of the discussion. More often, it increases misunderstanding, damages relationships, and allows minor concerns to become significant organizational problems. Vulnerability plays an important role in this process. Difficult conversations require leaders to enter situations where outcomes are uncertain. They cannot fully predict how people will respond or whether complete agreement will be reached. Yet leadership has never been about eliminating uncertainty. It has always been about leading responsibly through it. Addressing tension early communicates confidence in the organization's ability to solve problems rather than confidence that problems will solve themselves. Healthy organizations are not defined by the absence of conflict. They are defined by their willingness to confront reality before reality becomes a crisis. 5: Invite Correction Before Authority Creates Isolation Leadership inevitably creates distance between the follower and leader. As responsibility increases, honest feedback often decreases. Employees naturally filter information, soften criticism, or avoid sharing concerns they believe leaders may not want to hear. While rarely intentional, authority can gradually isolate leaders from the very information they need most. This is why vulnerability must extend beyond difficult conversations to include a genuine willingness to receive feedback. Seeking feedback is more than asking, "How did I do?" It is intentionally creating opportunities for others to identify blind spots, challenge assumptions, and offer perspectives that might otherwise remain unheard. Leaders who consistently invite correction communicate that organizational learning is more important than protecting personal credibility. Receiving feedback well requires humility. Not every observation will be accurate, and not every suggestion should shape future decisions. Yet listening without defensiveness demonstrates confidence that leadership is strengthened—not diminished—through continuous learning. Perhaps the greatest test of vulnerability is not admitting mistakes. It's making it safe for others to identify them before they become costly. Organizations become healthier when leaders view feedback as a strategic asset rather than a personal evaluation. The most effective executives understand that leadership is not measured by how little correction they receive. It is measured by how effectively they respond when correction is offered. Key Leadership Takeaways Leadership vulnerability is frequently misunderstood because it is often discussed as a personal characteristic rather than an organizational capability. In reality, vulnerability influences far more than individual relationships. It determines how information moves, how decisions improve, and whether employees believe honesty is rewarded or punished. Throughout this article, five executive disciplines have emerged: Replace image management with transparency. Pursue understanding before influence. Lead with stewardship rather than self-protection. Address tension before silence becomes culture. Invite correction before authority creates isolation. Together, these disciplines create an environment where truth travels more quickly, accountability becomes healthier, and better decisions become possible. Final Thoughts Every organization develops a culture around difficult conversations. Does your culture encourage candor or reward caution? Employees are watching how you respond when information is incomplete, opinions differ, or mistakes become visible. Those moments communicate far more about organizational values than mission statements, leadership competencies, or employee engagement initiatives ever will. Leaders who consistently protect certainty unintentionally teach others to protect themselves. Leaders who appropriately demonstrate vulnerability teach others that truth matters more than appearances. That distinction shapes the quality of every decision that follows. Ultimately, vulnerability is not about becoming a different kind of leader. It's about creating a different kind of organization. One where people trust that honesty will be met with curiosity instead of defensiveness. One where difficult conversations strengthen relationships rather than weaken them. One where information reaches decision-makers before problems become crises. One where accountability and compassion reinforce rather than compete with one another. Leadership is never defined by having every answer. It is defined by creating an environment where the best answers have the opportunity to emerge. The next difficult conversation you have will accomplish more than resolving a single issue; it will teach your organization what is truly safe to say. Choose wisely. References Brown, B. (2012). Daring greatly: How the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent, and lead. Gotham Books. Brown, B. (2018). Dare to lead: Brave work. Tough conversations. Whole hearts. Random House. Doolittle, J. (2023). Life-Changing leadership habits: 10 proven principles that will elevate people, profit, and purpose. Organizational Talent Consulting. Edelman. (2023). 2023 Edelman trust barometer: Navigating a polarized world. Edmondson, A. C. (2019). The fearless organization: Creating psychological safety in the workplace for learning, innovation, and growth. Wiley. Grenny, J., Patterson, K., McMillan, R., Switzler, A., & Gregory, E. (2021). Crucial conversations: Tools for talking when stakes are high (3rd ed.). McGraw Hill. Patterson, K., Grenny, J., McMillan, R., & Switzler, A. (2005). Crucial confrontations: Tools for resolving broken promises, violated expectations, and bad behavior. McGraw-Hill. Schein, E. H., & Schein, P. A. (2021). Organizational culture and leadership (6th ed.). Wiley. Sinek, S. (2014, September). Why good leaders make you feel safe [Video]. TED Conferences. TED Conferences. (2010, June). Brené Brown: The power of vulnerability [Video].

"The promise given was a necessity of the past; the word broken is a necessity of the present." — Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince Manipulative personalities exist in every organization. Yet manipulative people alone rarely create dysfunctional cultures. More often, poorly designed organizational systems unintentionally reward manipulative behavior, and culture follows. The common assumption is that toxic cultures of manipulation are created by a few unethical leaders or difficult personalities. That assumption is comforting because it suggests replacing the individual will solve the problem. It rarely does. When political behavior consistently produces better outcomes than collaboration, manipulation ceases to be an individual behavior and becomes a rational organizational strategy. Leaders learn that visibility matters more than contribution, relationships matter more than accountability, and influence matters more than sound judgment. I am not aware of organizations that intentionally design their systems to reward these behaviors. Yet many do. The executive challenge, therefore, is not only identifying manipulative personalities. It is examining whether the organization's governance, incentives, decision-making processes, and accountability systems unintentionally make manipulation one of the most effective ways to succeed. Perhaps the wrong question is, "Who is manipulating the organization?" Perhaps the better question is, "What about our organization makes manipulation a rational strategy?" Manipulation Is Rarely the Root of a Culture Problem More than 500 years ago, Niccolò Machiavelli examined the relationship between power, influence, and leadership in The Prince. His writings remain controversial because they expose a timeless tension between achieving results and preserving principles. Business leaders continue to wrestle with that tension today. Should a leader withhold information during negotiations? Is exploiting a competitor's weakness simply good strategy? When pressure mounts, do results justify behaviors that erode trust? These are not merely ethical questions. They are organizational design questions. Psychologists Richard Christie and Florence Geis later transformed Machiavelli's observations into what we now recognize as the personality construct of Machiavellianism. Their research described individuals who tend to be strategic, calculating, emotionally detached, and willing to manipulate others to achieve desired outcomes. While extreme levels of Machiavellianism are uncommon, the underlying behaviors exist along a continuum. Most people possess some degree of political awareness and strategic influence. The difference lies in how those behaviors are expressed—and whether the organization rewards or discourages them. Too often, organizations focus exclusively on identifying difficult individuals while overlooking the conditions that allow those individuals to succeed. That is where leadership should begin. Organizations Teach People How to Succeed Culture is often described as shared values. In reality, culture is shaped by repeated decisions. Employees learn what matters by observing who gets promoted, whose behavior is tolerated, how decisions are made, and what ultimately gets rewarded. Every organization has formal values. Every organization also has an operating system. When those two become disconnected, employees quickly learn which one actually determines success. If promotions consistently favor political visibility over measurable contribution, employees adapt. If leaders who achieve exceptional results face little accountability for how those results were achieved, others notice. If transparency is optional while influence is rewarded, manipulation becomes rational. Executives rarely intend to reward these behaviors. Yet organizational systems often communicate exactly that message. Why Manipulative Leaders Often Appear Successful One reason Machiavellian behavior persists is that it can look remarkably similar to effective leadership, at least initially. Research has found that individuals with stronger Machiavellian tendencies often display characteristics organizations admire. They may remain composed during uncertainty, think strategically, understand organizational politics, and pursue objectives with exceptional focus. They are often deliberate rather than impulsive and can be both competitive and cooperative when doing so advances their goals. These qualities can create the impression of executive effectiveness. Unfortunately, they can also mask significant organizational risk. The same behaviors that produce rapid decisions and visible short-term wins may quietly erode trust, reduce collaboration, suppress psychological safety, and increase internal competition. Teams begin protecting information rather than sharing it. Colleagues become competitors. Innovation slows because people become more concerned with political consequences than organizational learning. Results may improve temporarily. The organization's capacity to sustain those results often declines. The Incentive Trap Manipulation rarely becomes widespread because employees suddenly become unethical. More often, the system teaches them what is necessary to succeed. For example: A sales organization rewards revenue without considering how customers were acquired. A leadership team celebrates heroic individual performance while overlooking damaged relationships. A company promotes executives based primarily on visibility with senior leadership rather than enterprise contribution. A manager consistently delivers numbers despite creating high turnover, low trust, and disengaged teams. Each decision appears reasonable when viewed independently. Collectively, they create a powerful organizational message. Outcomes matter more than conduct. Once employees internalize that message, manipulative behavior no longer feels exceptional. It becomes adaptive. Governance Determines Culture Boards and executive teams often spend significant time discussing organizational culture. Culture, however, cannot be managed through slogans or annual values campaigns. Culture follows governance. It follows decision rights. It follows accountability. It follows incentives. Every executive decision reinforces what leadership truly values. Who receives promotions? Who receives recognition? Whose behavior is excused? Who controls information? Who is held accountable—and who is not? The answers to these questions shape culture far more than mission statements ever will. Healthy organizations reduce opportunities for manipulation by making expectations clear, decision-making transparent, and accountability consistent. Strong governance does not eliminate political behavior. It simply makes integrity the more effective strategy. What Executive Leaders Should Be Asking When concerns about manipulation surface, the immediate reaction is often to ask: "Who is causing the problem?" A more productive question may be: "What about our organization makes this behavior successful?" Leaders should examine whether: Performance expectations emphasize outcomes without evaluating how those outcomes were achieved. Promotion decisions reward influence more than contribution. Information is concentrated among a few individuals rather than shared appropriately. Accountability differs depending on position or performance. Competition between departments undermines enterprise-wide collaboration. Incentive systems unintentionally encourage self-interest over organizational success. These questions move the conversation beyond personality and toward organizational architecture. That is where sustainable change occurs. Executive Leadership Is About Designing Better Systems Executive assessments, leadership development, coaching, and personality assessments all have an important role. They help leaders develop greater self-awareness and improve decision quality. However, individual development alone cannot overcome poorly designed organizational systems. Even highly ethical leaders struggle when incentives reward behaviors inconsistent with organizational values. Leadership is not simply about influencing people. It is about designing environments where the right behaviors consistently become the easiest and most rewarding choices. When governance reinforces transparency, accountability, collaboration, and ethical decision-making, manipulative behavior loses much of its advantage. Organizational culture doesn't become healthier because difficult personalities disappear. It becomes healthier because its systems make manipulation ineffective. So, What Is Your Real Leadership Challenge? Every organization has individuals who are highly political, ambitious, and skilled at navigating power. Also, evidence suggests we all have Machiavellian personality tendencies. That is not your company's greatest risk. The greater risk is unintentionally creating an environment where those behaviors become the most effective path to success. Every promotion communicates what leadership looks like. Every incentive communicates what success requires. Every accountability decision communicates what the organization is willing to tolerate. Culture is not defined by the values displayed on a wall. It is defined by the behaviors an organization consistently rewards. Perhaps the most important leadership question, then, is not whether manipulation exists within your organization. It is whether your systems have unintentionally made manipulation the smartest way to succeed. Because organizations rarely become what they intend. They become what they consistently reward. References Argyris, C. (1990). Overcoming organizational defenses: Facilitating organizational learning. Allyn & Bacon. Christie, R., & Geis, F. L. (1970). Studies in Machiavellianism. Academic Press. Doolittle, J. (2023). Life-changing leadership habits: 10 proven principles that will elevate people, profit, and purpose. Organizational Talent Consulting. Edmondson, A. C. (2019). The fearless organization: Creating psychological safety in the workplace for learning, innovation, and growth. John Wiley & Sons. Kumar, D. (2019). Good, bad, ugly: Exploring the Machiavellian power dynamics of leadership in medical education. Journal of Advances in Medical Education & Professionalism, 7(1), 42–46. March, J. G., & Simon, H. A. (1958). Organizations. John Wiley & Sons. North, D. C. (1990). Institutions, institutional change and economic performance. Cambridge University Press. Page, N., Bergner, S., & Wills, S. (2017). Who empathizes with Machiavellian or narcissistic leaders? Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org Reason, J. (1997). Managing the risks of organizational accidents. Ashgate. Rehman, U., & Shahnawaz, M. G. (2021). Machiavellianism and task-oriented leadership: The moderating effect of job autonomy. Leadership, Education, Personality: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 3, 79–85. Schein, E. H., & Schein, P. A. (2021). Organizational culture and leadership (5th ed.). John Wiley & Sons. Simons, T. (2002). Behavioral integrity: The perceived alignment between managers' words and deeds as a research focus. Organization Science, 13(1), 18–35. Van Dierendonck, D., & Patterson, K. (2015). Compassionate love as a cornerstone of servant leadership: An integration of previous theorizing and research. Journal of Business Ethics, 128(1), 119–131.

During World War II, the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) produced the Simple Sabotage Field Manual, a guide for resistance movements seeking to disrupt enemy organizations from within. Its recommendations were intended to weaken decision-making, slow execution, and diminish organizational effectiveness. Now declassified, many of those recommendations sound eerily familiar to modern workplace challenges. Organizations rarely decline because of a single catastrophic decision. More often, performance erodes gradually as operating systems evolve beyond the problems they were originally designed to solve. Not because leaders intentionally sabotage their organizations, but because accidental habits unintentionally normalize the same patterns. This should give every executive team and board pause. Few organizations deliberately create bureaucracy, reward delay, or weaken accountability. Yet over time, governance mechanisms expand, approval layers multiply, and processes outlive the risks they were created to address. What begins as prudent oversight can gradually become organizational friction. Collaboration becomes decision paralysis. Controls expand until ownership becomes unclear. Your greatest organizational risk is rarely intentional sabotage. It's more likely accidental leadership habits that reinforce organizational drift. When Yesterday's Solution Becomes Today's Constraint Every policy, approval process, committee, and reporting requirement was originally someone's solution to a legitimate problem. The challenge is that organizations regularly revisit strategy while rarely revisiting the assumptions embedded in their operating model. As markets evolve, customers change, technology advances, and competitive pressures accelerate, governance structures often remain largely unchanged. The organization becomes increasingly effective at managing yesterday's risks while becoming less prepared for today's opportunities. The result is predictable. Decisions take longer than the value they create. Accountability becomes shared instead of owned. Innovation slows as organizational friction increases. High-performing employees become frustrated by unnecessary complexity. Administrative activity begins to replace strategic progress. These outcomes are frequently diagnosed as leadership or talent problems. In many cases, they are equally problems of organizational design. Consider a common challenge I see in organizations. An exception to a hiring plan that once required executive approval now requires five approvals across multiple functions because each new layer was added to address a past issue. What should be resolved within two days now takes several weeks and a large cross-functional meeting. The system no longer manages risk efficiently. It unintentionally institutionalizes delay. Three Organizational Conditions That Shape Performance The OSS manual identified three fundamental conditions that enabled effective sabotage: personal motivation, encouragement, and reduced personal risk. While intended for disruption, these same dynamics offer useful insight into how organizations either strengthen or weaken execution. 1. People Commit When Purpose Is Personally Relevant Employees rarely contribute discretionary effort to priorities they neither understand nor believe affect them. Executives often communicate organizational objectives exceptionally well while spending less time connecting those objectives to individual responsibility. When people understand how their decisions contribute to enterprise outcomes, accountability becomes intrinsic rather than imposed. Organizations do not scale because executives make more decisions. They scale because responsibility does. 2. Organizational Climate Shapes Decision Quality Culture is often described as an intangible asset. In practice, it is experienced through thousands of daily interactions that influence how people assess risk, raise concerns, and make decisions. During periods of uncertainty, leaders shape more than direction. They shape the environment in which judgment is exercised. Clear communication, measured confidence, and psychological stability improve the quality of collaboration and decision-making throughout the organization. The question is not whether leadership influences culture. The question is whether the culture encourages thoughtful decisions—or cautious avoidance. 3. Systems Should Reduce Friction People naturally adapt to the systems in which they work. When desired behaviors require excessive effort, unnecessary approvals, or disproportionate personal risk, individuals modify their behavior to navigate the system more efficiently. Over time, those adaptations become organizational norms. Effective performance management is therefore less about motivating people than about designing systems in which the desired behavior is also the easiest behavior. Removing unnecessary friction often improves execution more effectively than increasing oversight. An Executive Audit of Organizational Drift One of the most compelling sections of the Simple Sabotage Field Manual lists recommendations for managers seeking to slow organizational performance. Among them are: Demand excessive documentation. Encourage lengthy meetings and endless discussions. Delay decisions whenever possible. Resist adopting improved tools or methods. Assign critical work to less capable individuals. Reward poor performance while tolerating mediocrity. Expand policies beyond necessity. Create unnecessary administrative work. Today, these recommendations are less about historical artifacts than about diagnostic questions you can apply. Ask your leadership team or board: Where has oversight replaced ownership? Which approval processes still address current risks—and which protect against problems that no longer exist? Where are decisions taking longer than their consequences justify? Which meetings continue because of tradition rather than necessity? Where has coordination become a substitute for accountability? Which policies create administrative work without improving decision quality? These questions rarely reveal intentional dysfunction. They reveal accumulated assumptions that have quietly become institutional habits. The Executive Responsibility Executives are responsible for more than setting strategy. They are responsible for designing the organizational conditions under which strategy can succeed. Governance is not measured by the number of controls an organization creates. It is measured by whether those controls improve the quality and speed of consequential decisions. When governance slows decisions without improving them, it has shifted from creating value to consuming it. The strongest organizations are not those that avoid complexity. They are those that continually examine whether their systems still serve the purpose for which they were created. Every organizational system was originally someone's solution. Executive leadership requires recognizing when yesterday's solution has become today's constraint and having the discipline to redesign it before organizational drift becomes organizational decline. References Aaker, J., & Bagdonas, N. (2021). How to be funny at work. Harvard Business Review. Chevrier, S., & Viegas-Pires, M. (2013). Delegating effectively across cultures. Journal of World Business: JWB, 48(3), 431-439. Daniels, A. C., & Daniels, J. E. (2006). Performance management: Changing behavior that drives organizational effectiveness. Performance Management Publications. Doolittle, J. (2023). Life-Changing Leadership Habits: 10 Proven Principles That Will Elevate People, Profit, and Purpose. Organizational Talent Consulting. Drescher, G. (2017). Delegation outcomes: Perceptions of leaders and followers' satisfaction. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 32(1), 2-15. Joiner, T. A., & Leveson, L. (2015). Effective delegation among Hong Kong Chinese male managers: The mediating effects of LMX. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 36(6), 728-743. United States. Office of Strategic Services. (1944). Simple Sabotage Field Manual. Project Gutenberg. Yukl, G. and Fu, P. (1999), "Determinants of delegation and consultation by managers," Journal of Organizational Behaviour, Vol. 20 No. 2, pp. 219-232.

It's rarely on the balance sheet. It is felt everywhere else. Amid increasing uncertainty, building trust is both more difficult and more important for executive leadership teams. Many organizations view trust as a part of their culture. In reality, trust is an operational necessity. When trust declines, decision-making slows, collaboration weakens, and resistance to change increases. Distrust introduces friction that slows decision-making, reduces information flow, and weakens alignment, ultimately degrading execution and performance. Evidence from a large global study suggests fewer than one-third of employees are willing to help, live near, or work alongside someone who disagrees with their point of view on issues that matter (Edelman Trust Institute). As polarization in society increases, leaders face a growing challenge of maintaining trust while leading change. Trust is the currency of business. It holds organizations together during uncertainty. Executive leaders are expected to provide vision, guide strategy, and lead transformation. Yet many leaders privately wonder whether it is possible to be viewed as trustworthy while asking others to embrace significant change. The good news is that trust can be strengthened, even after it has been damaged. However, trust is rarely restored through communication alone. Employees evaluate whether leadership decisions, behaviors, and actions consistently align with organizational values and commitments. Understanding how trust is built and lost is a strategic leadership responsibility. Why executive leadership trust matters Numerous studies demonstrate that leadership is a critical determinant of successful organizations and change. Regardless of whether a change is department-specific or company-wide, it benefits from executive engagement. Executive leadership teams provide vision, establish strategy, prepare the corporate culture for change, and motivate employees to change. This is important because trust has been shown to mediate employee openness to change and, ultimately, the outcome of change. When trust is present, organizations navigate and manage change more effectively. Change events heighten emotional responses, making it challenging for even the most skilled leaders to communicate effectively. The hidden cost of distrust Distrust rarely appears on a balance sheet, but its effects are felt throughout an organization. When trust is low, employees become more cautious, information flows more slowly, and collaboration requires greater effort. Leaders often interpret these symptoms as engagement, talent, or communication challenges when the underlying issue is trust erosion. Organizations with high levels of trust tend to adapt more effectively during change because employees are more willing to share concerns, consider new ideas, and support difficult decisions. Trust does not eliminate resistance to change, but it increases openness to understanding the rationale behind it. For executive leaders, trust should be viewed as organizational infrastructure rather than a soft skill. It influences how quickly decisions are made, how effectively teams align, and how resilient the organization becomes during uncertainty. How to build trust with your communication A boss-subordinate relationship and transactional leadership style are not helpful when trying to build trust. The most effective leaders are transparent and vulnerable, and they demonstrate care and respect for others. Two common themes emerge from research on building trust: transparency and relationships. To communicate effectively, leaders need to understand others' contexts and perspectives and avoid jumping to conclusions too quickly. In the book, Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get Extraordinary Results, Judith Glaser provides a helpful way to remember these attributes: T – Transparency R – Relationship U – Understanding S – Shared success T – Testing assumptions Establishing trust during change requires building rapport, inviting and responding to emotions, and explaining the change event clearly and concisely. Communications that create openness to change and build trust include: Vision The idealized goal for the organization to achieve in the future. Communication during change events should align with organizational values and provide enough detail so employees can see the roadmap and benefits of the change. The goal is to create positive attitudes toward change and support for change. Energy Demonstrating personal excitement. An executive leader's positive emotions and mood are contagious. Research has shown that leadership communication that enables followers to experience positive emotions enhances happiness and well-being. In return, followers' improved positive emotions increase employee motivation, cooperation, and support for change. Support Executive leaders demonstrate support by providing encouragement, reassurance, listening, and sharing feelings. Research has found that when individuals receive help, they are more receptive and willing to cooperate with change. How to be a trustworthy leader Trust takes place between two people and is earned. Successful businesses are built upon relationships. In his book Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity, Francis Fukuyama presented that business would not be productive without trust. The International Coaching Federation has identified six behaviors essential for building trust-based relationships: Show genuine concern for the other person's welfare and future. Continuously demonstrate personal integrity, honesty, and sincerity. Establish clear agreements and keep promises. Demonstrate respect for others' perceptions, learning styles, and personal being. Provide ongoing support for and champion new behaviors and actions, including risk-taking and a fear of failure. Ask permission to coach others in sensitive, new areas. Trustworthy leadership attributes Many leaders assume trust is primarily built through expertise and credibility. While credibility matters, it is rarely enough. Employees often respect leadership competence while simultaneously questioning leadership intentions or consistency. In many organizations, trust failures do not result from a lack of capability. They result from gaps between what leaders say, what leaders decide, and what employees experience. Leadership trustworthiness is built through four essential attributes: Credibility Credibility is the most frequently achieved attribute of trustworthiness. However, having the title of leader does not always equate to being perceived as credible. Credibility has rational and emotional aspects related to an individual's expertise and personal presence. Reliability Reliability is based on the frequency of interactions with someone and the consistency of expected behavior. Saying what you are doing, doing what you say, and saying what you did matter for building reliability. Intimacy Intimacy requires your willingness to be vulnerable and have a courageous conversation when needed. This is one of the key differentiating attributes of trustworthiness. Self-Orientation (aka. Humility) Self-orientation refers to the degree of focus on oneself versus on the other person. A high degree of self-orientation creates significant distrust from others. Self-orientation is linked to the leader's conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to experience personality traits. The attributes of trustworthiness (see Figure 1) can be placed into the following equation to measure your trustworthiness. Are you a trustworthy leader? High-quality relationships are high-trust relationships. Evidence suggests that improved workplace relationships increase individual and organizational productivity and profitability. The Relationship Trust Checker is a free quiz you can use to gauge your level of trust in a relationship and identify opportunities to improve your trustworthiness. "The unexamined life is not worth living." Socrates Final thoughts Trust is often viewed as a byproduct of strong leadership. In reality, it is one of the conditions that determines whether leadership can be effective at all. Employees decide every day whether to share information, raise concerns, collaborate across boundaries, and support change initiatives. Those decisions are influenced by the degree of trust they have in leadership and the organization. For executive leaders, the question is not whether trust matters. The question is whether organizational systems, decisions, and leadership behaviors consistently reinforce it. As you reflect on your own organization, consider: Where is trust accelerating performance? Where is distrust creating friction? Do employees trust leadership intentions, leadership competence, or both? What experiences are shaping trust more than your communications? The answers may reveal opportunities to strengthen relationships and the organizational conditions that drive long-term success. GET ACCESS References: Bono, J., & Ilies, R. (2006). Charisma, positive emotions, and mood contagion. The Leadership Quarterly, 17(4), pp. 317-334. Doolittle, J. (2023). Life-changing leadership habits: 10 Proven principles that will elevate people, profit, and purpose. Organizational Talent Consulting. Edelman Trust Institute. (2023). 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer: Navigating a Polarized World. Edelman. Fukuyama, F. (1995). Trust: The social virtues and the creation of prosperity. Free Press. Glaser, J. (2016). Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get Extraordinary Results. Routledge. Men, L. R., Yue, C. A., & Liu, Y. (2020). Vision, passion, and care: the impact of charismatic executive leadership communication on employee trust and support for organizational change. Public Relations Review, 46(3). Kanfer, R., & Ackerman, P. (1989). Motivation and cognitive abilities: An integrative aptitude-treatment interaction approach to skill acquisition. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74, pp. 657-690. Maister, D. H., Green, C. H., & Galford, R. M. (2000). The trusted advisor. Free Press. Shamir, B., House, R., Arthur, M. (1993). The motivational effects of charismatic leadership: A self-concept based theory. Organization Science, 4(4), pp. 577-594 Wanberg, C., & Banas, J. (2000). Predictors and outcomes of openness to changes in a reorganizing workplace. 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The Hidden Cost of Leadership Blind Spots Whether you're the CEO or a frontline leader, financial performance is one important measure of effectiveness. Organizations rarely struggle because leaders lack good intentions. More often, they struggle because leadership teams operate with distorted self-perception while organizational systems suppress corrective feedback. As positional authority increases, candid feedback often decreases. Teams may begin managing executive reactions instead of surfacing operational truth. Over time, leadership confidence can drift from organizational reality, creating execution risk long before financial indicators reveal the damage. This is why leadership self-awareness is not simply a personal trait. It's also an organizational performance variable. Research involving 486 companies over a 30-month period found that organizations with a higher percentage of self-aware leaders financially outperformed organizations with lower levels of leadership self-awareness. Poor-performing businesses had 20 percent more leaders with blind spots than high-performing businesses. The issue is not whether leaders possess good intentions. The issue is whether leaders can accurately assess how their behaviors, assumptions, communication patterns, and decisions affect organizational execution. Without that ability, organizations begin operating on distorted information. When you can't see yourself objectively or don't accurately understand others' perspectives, you can't make the right transformational changes necessary for business growth. Why leadership self-awareness matters The connection between self-awareness and organizational performance is not theoretical. It directly affects decision quality, adaptability, talent retention, operational alignment, and strategic execution. Recently, Korn Ferry established a positive connection between self-awareness and improved company earnings. Leaders who accurately understand their strengths, limitations, behavioral tendencies, and impact on others are better positioned to make calibrated decisions under pressure. They are also better able to recognize when organizational friction is a deeper systems issue rather than an isolated personnel problem. In increasingly complex and culturally diverse workplaces, leadership effectiveness depends heavily on the ability to interpret both organizational signals and interpersonal dynamics accurately. Research has consistently demonstrated that leaders with heightened emotional intelligence and self-awareness are perceived as more effective by followers and teams. Increased awareness also contributes to stronger psychological safety, healthier working relationships, and greater organizational adaptability. The importance of self-awareness for achieving success and significance is not new. The researched benefits of knowing yourself are numerous beyond improving a business's bottom line. Some of these include: higher quality leadership relationships improved self-control better decision-making enhanced life satisfaction More importantly, self-aware leaders are less likely to unintentionally create environments where information becomes filtered, politicized, or withheld. That distinction matters. In today's increasingly complex and culturally diverse workplace, leaders who can accurately perceive, assess, and regulate their own and others' emotions can better promote unity and team morale⁠. Organizations depend on reliable upward communication to maintain execution quality. When leaders lack self-awareness, employees often adjust communication patterns to avoid conflict, preserve approval, or manage leadership reactions. The result is reduced organizational transparency and slower strategic correction. Over time, this weakens performance reliability across the enterprise. The Reality of Leadership Blind Spots It is natural to see the world from our unique point of view. We tell ourselves stories about our strengths and the areas where we need to improve, as well as what constitutes good leadership and what does not. Our leadership habits are shaped by reinforcement, organizational culture, prior success, and the language organizations use to describe effectiveness. Most leaders are unaware of the degree to which those filters shape decision-making. A global study found that 95 percent of leaders believed they were self-aware, yet only 10–15 percent met the criteria associated with genuine self-awareness across essential leadership competencies such as empathy, trustworthiness, and leadership effectiveness. This gap between perceived self-awareness and actual self-awareness creates substantial organizational risk. Leaders do not merely influence culture through what they intentionally communicate. They shape culture through emotional responses, informal reactions, decision consistency, conflict management, listening patterns, and the behaviors organizations learn are rewarded or avoided. “To know yourself, you must sacrifice the illusion that you already do.” Vironika Tugaleva Without accurate self-perception, leaders often normalize patterns that quietly damage trust, alignment, and execution. The danger is not simply having blind spots. The danger is operating without mechanisms capable of revealing them. Why Self-Awareness Becomes More Difficult at Higher Levels The higher leaders move within organizations, the less objective feedback they typically receive. Executive isolation creates informational asymmetry. As authority increases, honest feedback frequently declines. Senior leaders are often surrounded by individuals who unintentionally filter information, soften concerns, or avoid difficult conversations altogether. This creates an environment where leaders can become increasingly disconnected from how their decisions and behaviors are experienced operationally. The consequence is not merely interpersonal misunderstanding. It is a strategic miscalibration. Organizations cannot adapt effectively when leadership teams lack accurate visibility into operational realities, cultural friction, execution barriers, or emerging performance concerns. For this reason alone, self-awareness shouldn't be viewed as optional in leadership development. It is a necessary component of organizational governance and decision reliability. The quality of leadership decisions is directly connected to the quality of feedback leaders are willing and able to receive. Here are two strategies to increase self-awareness and performance. Leadership Assessment One of the most effective methods for increasing leadership self-awareness is the use of structured leadership assessments, particularly 360-degree feedback instruments. A 360-degree assessment gathers feedback from multiple organizational perspectives, including peers, direct reports, supervisors, and stakeholders. When properly administered, these assessments provide leaders with insight into behavioral patterns, communication effectiveness, relational impact, and leadership consistency. The value of these assessments is not validation. Their value lies in exposing discrepancies between self-perception and organizational experience. Leaders often discover that behaviors they intended as decisive are experienced as dismissive, that communication believed to be clear is interpreted as inconsistent, or that leadership habits developed under pressure are creating unintended organizational consequences. These insights create opportunities for meaningful recalibration. Research demonstrates that 360-degree feedback can significantly improve leadership effectiveness across cultures, particularly in environments that value lower power distance and open communication. More importantly, these assessments help organizations restore informational integrity by creating structured pathways for honest feedback. “Look outside and you will see yourself. Look inside and you will find yourself.” Drew Gerald Executive Coaching Executive coaching is most valuable when it functions as an external creative thought partner rather than encouragement or performance motivation. When combined with leadership assessments, executive coaching helps leaders identify hidden assumptions, behavioral distortions, relational patterns, and decision-making tendencies that internal organizational systems often normalize. Research supports that executive coaching combined with leadership assessments contributes to improved self-awareness and stronger organizational outcomes. The goal is not personality refinement. The goal is to increase leadership accuracy. Effective coaching creates space for leaders to critically examine how they process information, respond under pressure, interpret resistance, exercise authority, and influence organizational behavior. This level of reflection becomes increasingly important as leadership complexity grows. Without intentional reflection, leaders often become trapped inside patterns reinforced by positional success, organizational hierarchy, and unchallenged assumptions. Signs you might lack self-awareness Organizations can recognize the symptoms of low leadership self-awareness often long before executive leaders do. Common indicators include: Persistent firefighting despite repeated strategic initiatives Frequent surprise or defensiveness in response to feedback Declining trust or communication transparency within teams Difficulty retaining high-performing employees Chronic overestimation of organizational alignment Repeated execution breakdowns despite clear direction Increasing reliance on authority rather than influence Stalled professional growth or adaptability These symptoms rarely exist in isolation. They often signal deeper issues related to leadership perception, organizational communication, and decision architecture. Leaders who possess strong self-awareness are not immune to mistakes or blind spots. However, they are more likely to recognize patterns early, seek corrective feedback, and adapt before organizational damage becomes systemic. Final Thoughts Leadership failure rarely begins with intent. It begins when organizations lose the ability to see themselves accurately. Self-awareness is not about becoming overly introspective or personality-focused. It is about ensuring leaders possess sufficient clarity to interpret organizational reality accurately, receive corrective information effectively, and make decisions aligned with operational truth. Organizations that cultivate leadership self-awareness strengthen more than individual leadership capability. They improve decision quality, execution consistency, communication reliability, adaptability, and organizational trust. In environments defined by complexity, uncertainty, and rapid change, those capabilities increasingly determine whether organizations sustain performance or quietly drift into misalignment. References Athanasopoulou, A., & Dopson, S. (2018). A systematic review of executive coaching outcomes: Is it the journey or the destination that matters the most? The Leadership Quarterly, 29(1), 70-88. Baldoni, J. (2013). Few executives are self-aware, but women have the edge. Harvard Business Review. Bratton, V. K., Dodd, N. G., & Brown, F. W. (2011). The impact of emotional intelligence on accuracy of self-awareness and leadership performance. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 32(2), 127-149. Doolittle, J. (2024). Life-Changing Leadership Habits: 10 Proven Principles That Will Elevate People, Profit, and Performance. Organizational Talent Consulting. Goldstein, G., Allen, D. N., & Deluca, J. (2019). Handbook of psychological assessment. Elsevier Science & Technology. Gorgens-Ekermans, G., & Roux, C. (2021). Revisiting the emotional intelligence and transformational leadership debate: Does emotional intelligence matter to effective leadership? SA Journal of Human Resource Management, 19(2), e1-e13. June, C. (2020). 10 signs you lack self-awareness. Psych2Go. Oltmanns, T. F., Gleason, M. E. J., Klonsky, E. D., & Turkheimer, E. (2005). Meta-perception for pathological personality traits: Do we know when others think that we are difficult? Consciousness and Cognition, 14(4), 739-751. Pekaar, K. A., Bakker, A. B., van der Linden, D., & Born, M. P. (2018). Self- and other-focused emotional intelligence: Development and validation of the Rotterdam emotional intelligence scale (REIS). Personality and Individual Differences, 120, 222-233. Wilson, T. D., & Gilbert, D. T. (2005). Affective forecasting: Knowing what to want. Current Directions in Psychological Science: A Journal of the American Psychological Society, 14(3), 131-134. Zes, D., & Landis, D. (2013). A better return on self-awareness. Korn Ferry Institute.

Life is never meant to be done alone. There are moments that don’t just test us; they change our identity. Sometimes it's personal: the unexpected loss of a job, a health scare, a crisis at home. Sometimes it's professional: a board-level decision, layoffs, a major change initiative, a public failure. These moments change the air in the room with colleagues, friends, and family. They shift time. They make certain tasks feel heavier, and familiar meetings feel different. And in the middle of these times, something else can rise up; something strong enough to be felt, even amid hard seasons. People show up. Texts you didn’t expect. Phone calls that don’t need fixing words. Stories shared. A simple “I’m here if you want to talk” that feels like a firm hand on your shoulder. When pressure strips away the non-essentials, community becomes unmistakably essential. The recent passing of my father last week has been one of those moments for me. Waves of grief stripping away the noise in my calendar and leaving what’s truly important. And in the days surrounding his death, one leadership truth is undeniable: Community matters more than we notice when life is “normal.” The outpouring of support for the loss of my father has reminded me that strength isn’t only personal courage and grit. Strength is also often relational. It’s the steady presence of people who choose to show up, without needing to fix anything. A hike that made the point for me This Sunday afternoon, I took a walk on a familiar trail and snapped this photo of a tree that had stopped me in my tracks before: two trunks joined together. This time I noticed how strongly they were intertwined, growing as if they’d decided it's better connected than separate. It felt like a living metaphor for my recent experiences with friends and family. Because community at its best isn’t a crowd. It’s a shared trunk—people connected deeply enough that when one bears weight, the others lean in. Why this matters to executives In business, we often reward independence and celebrate self-sufficiency. But leadership has a shadow side: the higher you go, the easier it is to become isolated. And isolation doesn’t just affect your well-being—it affects your judgment, your energy, and your ability to lead through pressure. One of the simplest leadership lessons research keeps reinforcing is how much supportive people influence our performance and resilience—especially in chaotic, uncertain moments. In other words, isolation isn’t a badge of honor. It’s a risk factor. And community isn’t just sentimental or a nice-to-have. It produces tangible outcomes—belonging, trust, reduced anxiety, and increased self-esteem. Those are personal outcomes, yes. But they also translate into organizational outcomes: stronger relationships, healthier teams, and cultures that can withstand stress without fracturing. Rev. Dr. Ronald D. Doolittle, Sr. A few lines of legacy (without telling the whole story) When a father passes, what remains isn’t only memory—it’s influence. My dad wasn’t trying to be a “thought leader.” He simply lived certain values with consistency—the kind that shows up in small decisions and steady character. If I had to summarize his legacy without oversharing, it would be something like: Loving people well. Presence with others. Living consistently with your words and actions. Perserverance and deliberateness in doing the right thing. Nothing flashy. But deeply humble. And what struck me about the support I received is this: when people show up for you in grief, they’re not only caring for you. In a quiet way, they’re also honoring the kind of life that shaped you. The leadership habit that chaos, uncertainty, and loss demand If you lead people, hard seasons, uncertainty, and loss put an uncomfortable question on the table: Are you actively building community or merely managing relationships and resources? Building community requires being deliberate and isn't accidental. It’s a Life-Changing Leadership Habit of "living in balance." And it requires intentionality. Here are three practical steps you can take to strengthen your community (starting now): Build connections on purpose, not by convenience. Don’t wait for crisis to find out who is connected to whom—and how deeply. Reduce psychological distance. Proximity doesn't mean community, but hybrid work and high pace can create polite, efficient disconnection. Connection requires pursuit. Lead with the intent to will the good of others. People can feel when they’re loved or a means to an end. They can also feel it when they are genuinely valued. Reflection: What is your real challenge? When leaders experience uncertainty, chaos, and loss, the instinct is often to tighten up, push through, and protect everyone else from the weight. But it reveals a hard truth: carrying it alone is costly—personally and professionally. This is one of the reasons executive coaching is so transformational. Coaching creates a protected space, a creative thought partner to process what you’re carrying, regain clarity, and translate pressure into purposeful action. While not leaking stress into your relationships, your culture, or your decision-making. Remember that pressure is a privilege. Coaching won't remove the burden of leadership, but it can keep the burden from reshaping you and your organization in ways you never intended. If you’re not ready for coaching right now, start by choosing one trusted person and telling the truth about what you’re carrying. If you’re in a moment where life and leadership are colliding, you don’t have to navigate it alone. Life is not meant to be done alone. The strongest leaders build a “shared trunk” around themselves—trusted, wise, objective support that helps them lead with steadiness, humanity, and intent. Where have you normalized isolation as “part of leadership”? Who are your “shared trunk” people—the ones who steady you and tell you the truth? What’s one habit you could practice this week that increases trust and belonging on your team? References Doolittle, J. (2023). Life-changing leadership habits: 10 Proven principles that will elevate people, profit, and purpose. Organizational Talent Consulting. Godfrey, C. M., Harrison, M. B., Lysaght, R., Lamb, M., Graham, I. D., & Oakley, P. (2011). Care of self – care by other – care of other: The meaning of self-care from research, practice, policy and industry perspectives. International Journal of Evidence-Based Healthcare, 9(1), 3–24. Richards, S. (2010). The benefits of self-care. British Journal of Healthcare Assistants, 4(5), 246–247. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2016). Creating a healthier life: A step-by-step guide to wellness. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)

Language does not simply describe reality. It shapes what is elevated, what is questioned, and what the organization ultimately acts upon. Communication is one of the most central functions of life. Like air, the words leaders speak can give life to a business. But words can also constrain and limit realities. When leaders consistently talk about what is wrong, they ignore what might be and limit what's possible. Fixing what is wrong is important, but considering the best of what is and what might be is necessary to inspire a shared vision. Shared vision unlocks a growth mindset, embodies hopes, and gives an organization a sense of purpose. Leadership language is not just communication. It's part of the organization’s operating system. Often overlooked, leadership language does more than communicate priorities. Research has shown that it not only reflects thought but systematically shapes what individuals are able to perceive and act upon. What leaders communicate sets the stage for what the organization sees, discusses, and ultimately decides. Over time, language patterns influence not only how people think but also the quality of decisions an organization can make. Changing Your Mindset to Change Your Results Many current work processes are designed to identify deficits and problems rather than find strengths. A deficit-thinking approach starts with leaders identifying shortcomings and selecting solutions to address them. The goal is to see all the potential gaps so that continuous improvements can be introduced. While this approach leads to progress, it does not identify what you want beyond knowing the solution to the problem. It can also unintentionally narrow how individuals and teams define success and opportunity. Deficit thinking leadership approaches are failing business and society. This mindset has led to incremental workplace improvements, a flood of low-cost, high-quality disposable products, and a lack of innovation. While deficit thinking has been used successfully in many organizations, it is not without risks. Deficit thinking techniques can put people on the defensive, create resistance, a lack of buy-in, and in some cases develop a culture of blame rather than encourage change. How engaged will employees be if they believe leadership views them as problems needing to be fixed? Additionally, when leaders are always approaching employees about what is wrong, eventually, employees associate the leader with being the problem—even if what the leader has to share is helpful to the business. You know this link has occurred when hearing others say sarcastically, "I am from corporate, and I am here to help." They are saying this because they know they are not being viewed as helpful. Over time, this pattern can do more than affect engagement—it can influence what employees choose to share, what they withhold, and how openly they contribute to decision-making processes. Compared with strengths-based approaches, deficit-oriented thinking leads to lower employee engagement, lower levels of performance improvement, and higher employee attrition rates. In learning studies, it has been found that individuals engaged in approaches to identify deficits have lower perceptions of competence and lower intrinsic motivation than strength-based approaches. Strength-Based Thinking I define strength as the best of what is and potential for the best of what can be within a person, team, or organization. Strength-based thinking is not ignoring weaknesses; instead, it is about prioritizing and pursuing understanding, reinforcing, and leveraging the best of what can be. This shift is not simply about positivity—it influences how individuals and teams interpret challenges, identify opportunities, and contribute to outcomes. Appreciative framing and appreciative interviews are two strength-based skills that support strength-based thinking. Appreciative Framing Individuals, teams, and organizations move in the direction that is repeatedly discussed and where questions are asked. Appreciative inquiry assumes that our inquiries define outcomes, and we influence the results by discussing them. Appreciative framing is taking a given focal point for transformation and restating it as an opportunity. In doing so, leaders influence not only how challenges are viewed, but also how people engage with them and what actions are considered possible. The following are some examples: Framed as Concerns Bias in the workplace Customer complaints Missed opportunities Absence of leadership Framed as Opportunities Embracing differences at work Exceptional customer support Seeing new challenges Growing exceptional leaders Facilitating Appreciative Interviews Every employee and team has strengths. In contrast to deficit thinking, the focus is on what has worked, what is working, and the strengths. An appropriately developed appreciative interview builds on these points to guide the individual and team toward a positive future. When listening, it is essential to focus on the positive things happening in the story, how they unfold, and the attributes that make their dreams and wishes so exciting. This focus can shape how individuals understand their roles, capabilities, and contributions to the organization. Once the focal point of the discussion is framed appreciatively, a couple of my favorite appreciative questions are: What would you wish for if you had three wishes to dramatically improve your organization's health and vitality? (no, you cannot wish for more wishes) Imagine it is five years from today, and everything you had hoped for related to the appreciative focal point of the interview has come true. What would you see and hear? Describe the changes with people, processes, places, products, and services. Describe what you or others have done to make these changes possible. Embracing a strength-based habit prompts us to explore new and creative ways to approach our work, solve problems, and complete projects. Instead of our words working against us or limiting us, strengths-based thinking works in our favor. Over time, the words leaders consistently use become institutionalized realities. They shape how the organization operates, regardless of whether those realities reflect the full truth of the business. When leaders are intentional with their language, they influence not only perception but also the range of possibilities people are willing to pursue. If you are looking for executive coaching or need change consulting, we're ready to partner with you to craft a solution tailored to your organization's context and challenges. References: Brown, T. (2009). Change by design: How design thinking transforms organizations and inspires innovation. Harper Collings Publishers. Cooperrider, D. and Srivastva, S. (1987). Appreciative inquiry in organizational life. In R. Woodman and W. Pasmore (Eds.), Research in organizational change and development, Vol. 1, pp. 129–169. Doolittle, J. (2023). Life-changing leadership habits: 10 Proven principles that will elevate people, profit, and purpose. Organizational Talent Consulting. Greenaway, K. H., Wright, R. G., Willingham, J., Reynolds, K. J., & Haslam, S. A. (2015). Shared Identity Is Key to Effective Communication. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41(2), 171–182. Hodges, T. D., & Clifton, D. O. (2004). Strengths‐based development in practice. In P. A. Linley, & S. Joseph (Eds.), (pp. 256-268). John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Hiemstra, D., & Van Yperen, N. W. (2015). The effects of strength-based versus deficit-based self-regulated learning strategies on students' effort intentions. Motivation and Emotion, 39(5), 656-668. Wolff, P., & Holmes, K. J. (2011). Linguistic relativity. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews. Cognitive Science, 2(3), 253-265.

Most organizations don’t lack empowered people; they lack systems that support them. Many leaders achieve their goals and even increase company revenue. But in a world of fast-paced change and complexity, businesses need empowered employees who will proactively engage in problem-solving, drive change, and take initiative to innovate. To create a competitive advantage, leaders need a committed team that can take charge. But, challenging the status quo often requires working against decision systems, acceptable risk tolerance, and accountability structures that keep people from taking greater ownership. Research from McKinsey & Company suggests that ineffective decision-making can consume 20–30% of organizational time, often driven by unclear authority and excessive approval structures. The result is a quiet but persistent tension where employees are encouraged to step up, but remain uncertain about authority and consequences. Leaders promote ownership, but retain control over key decisions. In this environment, hesitation is not a failure of motivation. It is a rational response to ambiguity. If leaders don't know how to empower others effectively, and organizations aren't structured to support greater ownership, evidence suggests that team morale and the business suffer. Empowerment as an Organizational Condition The word empowerment has come in and out of favor with leadership. “As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” Bill Gates Sadly, a common, overly simplified misconception of empowerment is that leaders give away power. Empowerment in action is the promotion of the skills, knowledge, and confidence necessary to take charge. At scale, empowerment is better understood as an organizational condition. One where individuals can make decisions, act, and be held accountable without unnecessary friction. Leadership behaviors can support this condition. They do not create it on their own. When empowerment is inconsistent across the organization, it is usually a signal that something in the system is misaligned. Where Empowerment Efforts Break Down Most organizations pursue improving empowerment through leadership development: Encouraging active listening Teaching leaders to ask better questions Promoting delegation Reinforcing vision and purpose These efforts matter. But they often conflict with an operating system that has not been updated to support these new behaviors. In this case: Decision rights remain unclear Risk tolerance varies by leader Accountability is inconsistently applied. Over time, leaders and employees learn to navigate the system as it actually operates, not as trained. Your culture shapes behavior far more than leadership messaging. 3 Structural Conditions That Enable Empowerment For empowerment to translate into performance, three conditions need to be aligned. 1. Clarity of Decision Rights People are more likely to take initiative when they understand where they have authority and where they don't. This includes: Defined ownership of decisions Clear escalation paths Agreed thresholds for involvement Without this clarity, initiative becomes uneven and difficult to sustain. 2. Alignment on Risk Empowerment assumes that individuals will make decisions in the face of uncertainty. That requires alignment on: What level of risk is acceptable How failure within those boundaries is handled How consistently leaders respond If similar decisions lead to different consequences depending on the leader, employees will default to caution. Not because they lack capability or the will to take risks, but because the system lacks consistency. 3. Consistent Accountability Empowerment and accountability must move together. When individuals are given authority without clear accountability, execution fragments. When accountability exists without authority, decision-making slows. Organizations that sustain empowerment over time tend to: Tie ownership to outcomes Maintain visibility into decisions Apply accountability consistently across levels This balance is what allows autonomy to scale. The Role of Leadership Behaviors The leadership practices often associated with empowerment matter. Active listening, thoughtful questions, effective delegation, and a compelling vision all contribute to how people experience the organization. But it is important to place them in context. These behaviors tend to be reinforcing mechanisms , not primary drivers. They are most effective when: Decision rights are already clear Risk expectations are understood Accountability systems are functioning Without that foundation, even strong leadership behaviors can produce uneven results. 5 Empowering Leadership Habits Although there is limited research into the most effective means for a leader to empower others, your leadership plays a key role. Managerial practices and leadership are the primary drivers of whether followers voluntarily take charge. You can encourage others to take charge by applying good active listening skills, asking for input, and delegating authority. Leadership Habit 1: Active Listening Being truly heard is rare in the workplace. Listening leaves your team feeling valued, affirmed, and emotionally connected to you. Active listening is the ability to hear and improve mutual understanding. When you actively listen, you pay attention, show interest, suspend judgment, reflect, clarify, summarize, and share to gain clarity and understanding. When you listen, you are available to the other person. The following video from Simon Sinek is about creating an environment where the other person feels heard. Leadership Habit 2: Leading with Questions Questions grounded in curiosity create influence. Not all questions are equal. For example, if you ask followers why are they behind schedule? You will likely get a defensive response rather than a solution. If you ask, what key things need to happen for you to achieve the goal? You will encourage followers to apply critical thinking to identify a solution. Learning to ask the right question instead of always having the answer benefits you, your team, and the organization. Leaders who ask questions become better listeners and gain deeper insights into how to bring out the best in others and guide the organization. Followers asked questions develop greater self-awareness, self-confidence, and empowerment. Leadership Habit 3: Delegating Authority Caught between the pressure of urgent and important work demands, delegating is often one leadership approach that gets cut. One of the more complex and essential things for a leader is going from doing to leading. Giving up authority and responsibility can seem counterintuitive to leadership. Spending a little time and effort upfront to consider the task, situation, employee, communication, and leadership support is crucial to delegating effectively. If you want to do a few small things right, do them yourself. If you want to do great things and make an impact, learn to delegate. – John C. Maxwell Leadership Habit 4: Vision Articulating a compelling vision clarifies direction, inspires confidence and action, and coordinates efforts. Evidence suggests that a compelling vision is directly and positively related to creative performance. To be considered compelling, a vision needs to be desired, beneficial to others, challenging, and visual. Stories and metaphors are powerful ways to connect with others. Developing a vision is an exercise of both the head and the heart, it takes some time, it always involves a group of people, and it is tough to do well. Kotter, Leading Change Leadership Habit 5: A Servant Leadership Style Leading from a follower's first point of view, such as servant leadership , results in a willingness to take charge, set high standards, and a devotion to each other. Trust, love, and belonging unlock the team's ability to excel because of their differences rather than in spite of them. The following short video from leadership guru Ken Blanchard provides some thoughts on the power of servant leadership in today's workplace. Robert Greenleaf is attributed by most as the founder of servant leadership, described a servant leader as a servant first and used the following test to answer the question, are you a servant leader? The best test, and difficult to administer, is: do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society; will they benefit, or, at least, will they not be further deprived. ~Greenleaf & Spears To learn more about servant leadership , check out this article, which includes an assessment to help you determine whether your current leadership style aligns with servant leadership and the ten leadership characteristics. The Cost of Misalignment When organizations promote empowerment without aligning their systems, the effects are subtle but significant: Decisions are delayed or escalated unnecessarily Informal influence begins to outweigh formal authority Effort increases, but execution speed does not Confidence in leadership messaging gradually erodes None of this happens all at once. But over time, the gap between what is said and how the organization operates becomes more visible and increasingly more consequential. A New Framing of the Challenge The question is not simply whether leaders are empowering their teams. A more useful question is: Where might the organization be limiting the very behavior it is asking for? Are decision rights clear enough to support initiative? Is risk handled consistently enough to encourage action? Is accountability structured in a way that reinforces ownership? In many cases, the answers to these questions determine whether empowerment is experienced or remains aspirational. Final Thought Empowerment cannot be delegated solely to leaders. It is shaped by how the organization defines authority, distributes risk, and enforces accountability. When those elements are aligned, leadership behaviors amplify performance. When they are not, even well-intentioned efforts tend to stall. The opportunity is not simply to encourage empowerment. It is to ensure the organization is designed to support it. What is your real empowerment challenge? References: Doolittle, J. (2023). Life-changing leadership habits: 10 Proven principles that will elevate people, profit, and purpose. Organizational Talent Consulting. Edelmann, C. M., Boen, F., & Fransen, K. (2020). The power of empowerment: Predictors and benefits of shared leadership in organizations. Frontiers in Psychology, 11 , 582894-582894. Greenleaf, R. K., & Spears, L. C. (2002). Servant-leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness (25th-anniversary ed.). Paulist Press. Leavy, B. (2020). The dynamics of empowering leader-follower relationships. Strategy & Leadership, 48 (6), 27-33. Li, S., He, W., Yam, K. C., & Long, L. (2015). When and why empowering leadership increases followers' taking charge: A multilevel examination in china. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 32 (3), 645-670. McKinsey & Company. (2019). Untangling your organization’s decision-making .

Often, organizational culture problems are governance design failures in disguise. Organizational culture does not fail because leaders lack a desire for something better. It fails because the systems that govern decisions, incentives, and authority are allowed to drift. Over time, organizations default toward entropy, misalignment increases, decision quality erodes, and informal norms override the written strategy. Culture is a silent operating system determining what actually happens, regardless of what leaders say they want. Culture architecture is not a discretionary or soft leadership initiative. It's the one thing in your business that impacts everything. When leaders do not deliberately design and reinforce the mechanisms that shape behavior—what gets attention, resources, rewards, and advancement—the default culture will continue to reproduce itself despite any strategic priorities. The challenge leaders face today is not whether culture matters. Organizational culture is everyone's responsibility, and leaders play a central role in influencing and reinforcing the desired culture. Leaders need to be able to operate within and upon the business. The challenge is the professional will to engineer the system that produces culture, rather than being constrained by it. The good news is that culture change does not require grand programs or proximity in shared offices. It requires disciplined attention to a small number of levers that quietly govern how people decide, act, and adapt. The Control System That Produces Culture What people think, feel, and perceive is the byproduct of six reinforcing mechanisms that govern how the organization actually operates: 1. What leaders pay attention to regularly Your attention is one of the most potent mechanisms for culture change that leaders always have at their disposal. What leaders choose to systematically measure, reward systematically, and control matters, and the opposite is also true. For example, suppose an organization wants to build an analytical orientation  within the culture. In that case, a great starting point is to ask leaders what data they use to make decisions or reward leaders for making data-driven decisions. 2. How leaders react to critical incidents When a business or a leader faces significant stress, the organization's actual decision framework is revealed. These crucible moments are like refining fires. The heightened emotional intensity increases individual and organizational learning. For example, the recent global pandemic revealed much more about an organization's values than any about page on a website or company orientation ever would. Sodexo is one positive example of an organization demonstrating its commitment to employees through leadership's pandemic response . 3. How leaders allocate resources and control costs Capital allocation is the most accurate indicator of an organization's beliefs. Follow the money. Additionally, resources include physical assets such as equipment and tools, as well as human resources. What gets resourced gets reinforced. Going back to the example of creating an analytical orientation, leaders should consider what tools and resources employees have available for data analytics. 4. Deliberate role modeling and training Observed executive behavior establishes the boundary of acceptable action. How leaders act and behave is more significant than what they say or demonstrate during training. Leaders looking to build an analytical cultural orientation would benefit by explaining to and demonstrating to the organization how they use data to make routine decisions. 5. How leaders allocate rewards Compensation, recognition, and advancement systems encode the organization’s true priorities. Rewards and recognition come in many different forms. What is considered a reward varies from person to person. What gets rewarded, how it gets rewarded, and what does not get rewarded reinforce organizational culture. There are tangible rewards and social rewards. Simply saying thank you for presenting a decision using data analytics is a social reward. 6. How leaders recruit, promote, and fire Hiring, promotion, and termination decisions determine the durability of culture. Who gets hired, promoted , and fired, and for what, creates and reinforces your organization's culture. Talent management decisions can be viewed as a subtler nuance of culture change because they are influenced by explicitly stated criteria and unstated value priorities. A leader looking to influence an analytical cultural orientation would benefit from assessing the skills needed within the organization and then hiring based on them. The word culture gets used differently by different people at different times. Edgar Schein is considered to be one of the most influential contemporary thought leaders on organizational culture, and below is his organizational culture definition: "a pattern of shared basic assumptions  that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems." It is easy to focus on the visible things that describe an organization's culture. However, an organizational culture framework consists of artifacts, values, and underlying assumptions: Artifacts:  These are the things you can see, feel, or hear in the workplace. Examples include what is displayed, office layouts, uniforms, identification badges, and what is discussed and what is not. Espoused Values:  What you are told and the beliefs you can use to make decisions. Examples include a company's vision and values or mission statement. They are explicitly stated official philosophies about the company. Basic Assumptions:  These things go without saying or are taken for granted. Examples could include speaking up in meetings, holding a door for someone, smiling, or greeting someone by name as you walk down the hall. Why Culture Change Efforts Fail Most culture initiatives fail because they attempt to intervene at the level of behavior while leaving the underlying system intact. Organizations introduce new values, communication campaigns, or training programs while continuing to: Fund conflicting priorities Reward outdated behaviors Tolerate misaligned decision-making Maintain unclear authority structures Under these conditions, resistance is not emotional—it is rational. Employees do not resist change. They adapt to the system that governs consequences. Psychological safety can enable dialogue, but it cannot override structural contradictions. If the system penalizes the desired behavior, no level of safety will consistently produce it. The Leadership Responsibility Culture change is not an initiative. It is a governance obligation. Leadership teams are responsible for ensuring that the organization’s control mechanisms are coherent, aligned, and reinforcing the intended strategy. This requires confronting a more difficult reality. Most organizations are not misaligned in intent. They are misaligned in the systems they tolerate. Culture does not degrade over time. It stabilizes around whatever the system consistently reinforces. Organizations with strong cultures are defined by a culture deeply rooted in how they operate. The following three companies are frequently recognized for their organizational culture: Southwest Airlines   operates within an industry routinely made fun of for its poor customer service; however, it is known for the opposite. Employees at Southwest can do what is needed to make customers happy, and as a result, their customers are loyal. Zappos  is an organization that has tightly connected its culture with its hiring practices. Zappos offers new hires $2000 to quit if they feel the job is not the right fit for them within the first week of employment. Check out this Zappos organizational culture video: Keeping culture strong becomes more challenging as the organization grows. Google has faced many challenges on its path to becoming the 5th most valuable company by market capitalization in the world. Businesses have to reinvent themselves to grow and adapt to changes. Google is known for being unique and leveraging data everywhere. Google uses people analytics not just for feedback but also for organizational culture analysis. Explore Google  Project Aristotle   to discover how data drives improvements in teamwork. How Do You Overcome Culture Change Resistance? Organizations are likely to deny the need for change and become defensive when the suggestion is made. If leaders are not attentive to the resistance, they can underestimate the change needed. Just mentioning the word change creates anxiety. Creating momentum within the organizations around the desire to survive and thrive reduces learning anxiety by creating psychological safety. Psychological safety is when you feel included, able to learn, contribute, and provide critical feedback without fear of embarrassment, exclusion, or punishment. Leaders increase psychological safety by consistently helping followers comprehend and accept the challenge. A critical takeaway observation from the six strategies for change is that they are about the leader's habits rather than a one-and-done culture change intervention. Also, these strategies tap into critical drivers of organizational change: The inspiration of employees. Involvement  is for everyone as much as possible. The internalization of the change. The six controls discussed in this article are not episodic interventions or change management tactics. They are continuous control mechanisms that operate whether leaders choose to engage them or not. Every organization already has a culture because every organization already reinforces behavior through attention, response, resource allocation, rewards, and talent decisions. The only question is whether those cultural reinforcements are intentional or accidental. Resistance to culture change is often misdiagnosed as emotional reluctance or lack of commitment. More often, it is a rational response to misaligned incentives, unclear authority, or conflicting signals embedded in the system. Psychological safety matters, but it cannot compensate for governance structures that reward the very behaviors leaders claim they want to change. Organizations that succeed at culture change do not attempt to “fix” people. They redesign the conditions under which people make decisions. They clarify what the organization truly values by making those values observable in budgets, promotions, consequences, and executive behavior. Culture changes when the system makes it easier to act differently—and harder not to. For leaders, the real work of culture change begins with an uncomfortable but necessary question: What behaviors does our organization reliably produce—and what system is producing them?   Until that question is addressed directly, culture will remain an outcome of design by default, not by choice. Organizational culture is the one thing that influences every aspect of your business. It directly impacts the overall success of your organization, your people, your customers, and your communities. The underlying values of an organization influence the behaviors of employees and their decisions. Much has been written on the impact of culture on business effectiveness. Scholarly research has directly linked the effects on customer satisfaction, employee teamwork, cohesion, and employee involvement. Organizational culture creates an internal and external brand identity that influences what and how people think about your organization. Organizational culture is also key to unlocking innovation . Just as some organizational culture characteristics can support innovation, others can also inhibit innovation. For example, a hierarchical organizational culture type has been proven to decrease an organization's ability to innovate. Let’s clarify your culture’s decision levers and remove hidden barriers to reinforce and drive strategic execution. Schedule a Strategic Leadership Conversation References: Büschgens, T., Bausch, A., & Balkin, D. B. (2013). Organizational culture and innovation: A meta‐analytic review. The Journal of Product Innovation Management, 30 (4), 763-781. Cameron, K. S., & Quinn, R. E. (2011). Diagnosing and changing organizational culture: Based on the competing values framework (Third ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Doolittle, J. (2023). Life-changing leadership habits: 10 proven principles that will elevate people, profit, and purpose. Organizational Talent Consulting. Gregory, B. T., Harris, S. G., Armenakis, A. A., & Shook, C. L. (2009). Organizational culture and effectiveness: A study of values, attitudes, and organizational outcomes. Journal of Business Research, 62 (7), 673-679. Nieminen, L., Biermeier-Hanson, B., & Denison, D. (2013). Aligning leadership and organizational culture: The leader-culture fit framework for coaching organizational leaders. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 65 (3), 177-198. Pater, R. (2015). Advanced culture change leadership. Professional Safety, 60 (9), 24. Schein, E. H., & Schein, P. (2016). Organizational culture and leadership, 5th edition (5th ed.) John Wiley & Sons.