In training, we regularly ask people to reflect on the leader behaviors that make them feel unwilling to speak up or share their opinion. The answer we hear most often is simple and sobering:

“I felt dismissed.”

Think about the last time someone brought you a problem. A teammate shared frustration about a peer. A direct report voiced concern about a decision. A colleague described something that felt stuck, unclear, or unfair. How quickly did you move to trying to solve it?

Last week we used a clip from Ted Lasso to explore the power of grace in building relationships. That moment showed us how unexpected compassion and empathy, especially when it feels undeserved, can become a turning point in trust and connection.

Human beings are wired with a negativity bias. When something goes wrong, our brains naturally give it more weight than everything that has gone right. A single disappointment, missed expectation, or awkward interaction can begin to color our entire view of a person.

There is no shortage of conversation about artificial intelligence right now. Executive teams are investing heavily in new tools, platforms, and infrastructure. Boards are asking about AI strategy. Leaders are under pressure to “do something” so they do not fall behind.

One of the most encouraging things we see at the beginning of each year is leadership teams doing the hard work of clarifying their shared focus. They step back and they commit to a small set of strategic objectives that will guide the year ahead.

There is something uniquely energizing about the beginning of a new year. Leadership teams re-enter the work hopeful, motivated, and ready to make meaningful progress. But hope without intention rarely leads to alignment, and it rarely leads to meaningful results.

As the year comes to an end, our team has been practicing something we encourage all our clients to do: slow down long enough to reflect on what went well, what could have gone better and what you learned on a regular basis.

Last week’s newsletter was about why your team needs a Charter. This week we dive deeper into each section, offering examples of each part to help your team start developing one.

Imagine an NFL team showing up to a game with no playbook, or no clear scheme to guide the way they play. Everyone is talented. Everyone is working hard. But each person is operating from their own playbook.

Leadership teams pride themselves on being problem solvers. It is one of the reasons they exist. But even the strongest teams struggle with something far more foundational: accurately identifying what their real problems are in the first place.

Every organization begins with belief. Before there is a mission statement or a strategic plan, there is a conviction, something that feels too important to ignore. It is the “why behind the why.” The deep conviction that made someone say, “This matters enough to build something around it.”

In recent years, the ability to “navigate ambiguity” has become one of the most celebrated leadership traits. It appears in job postings, competency models, and even company values. It sounds modern and adaptive, a badge of readiness for a fast-changing world.

But there is a tension worth naming. The more we elevate “navigating ambiguity” as a hallmark of great leadership, the easier it becomes to neglect one of leadership’s most essential responsibilities: creating clarity.

In every organization, change is constant. A new strategy, a restructuring, a product shift, or a realignment of priorities. Yet for all the energy leaders invest in designing change, far less attention is given to explaining it. According to a Gallup study, only 13% of employees strongly agree that leadership communicates effectively about what is happening in their organization.

A recent Harvard Business Review study found that leaders spend nearly 20% of their time managing conflict. That is one full day every week devoted to navigating tension, and that doesn’t come close to telling the whole story of impact.

James Clear once wrote, “We don’t rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems.”

When performance falls short, leaders often respond by raising the bar. They set a loftier vision, announce a bold new strategy, or demand higher expectations. It feels inspiring in the moment, but most recurring problems are not solved by aiming higher. They are solved by stepping back, looking deeper, and finding the forces that create them in the first place.

Last week I was speaking at a conference, unpacking the characteristics of high-performing leadership teams. When I got to the characteristic of “highly disciplined operating rhythms,” I asked the group to raise their hand if they were not satisfied with the quality of their meetings. Ninety-five out of one hundred hands shot up. I think the other five were daydreaming.

The number one driver of organizational health is the strength of your leadership team. When that team is cohesive and committed to supporting each other and carrying the weight of leadership together, it makes it much more likely that all the other teams in the organization will end up mirroring their performance. But the opposite is also true. When they are dysfunctional, disconnected and not realizing their potential, the effects ripple everywhere.

In a recent Harvard Business Review (HBR) article, researchers profiled what they call “super facilitators” - leaders who’ve stopped trying to be the smartest person in the room and instead create the conditions for their teams to think, decide, and execute together.​

Rather than dominating the room, they guide it. They slow down to make space for many voices. They actively shape team conversations so that decisions and accountability aren’t just flowing from the top, they’re being built together.

It’s a powerful reminder: The best leadership doesn’t come from one individual genius. It comes from teams who know how to lead together.

If you were asked to think of the leader who had the most positive influence in your life, and then asked to name the top three words that come to mind when you think of them, what would you say?

Gallup asked this very question to over 70,000 people around the world. And one word stood out clearly above the rest: Hope.

You might have guessed Trust, a concept often connected to psychological safety, strong culture, and high-performing teams. But in Gallup’s study, Hope was mentioned by 56% of respondents. Trust came in much lower at just 33%.

Offering a sense of hope matters, potentially more than we often realize. So what does this mean for us as leaders? It means it's our responsibility to cultivate hope and in this newsletter we will be sharing some ways you can do just that.