Leadership doesn’t feel harder because the work has changed. It feels harder because the conditions for coherence are disappearing. This is not a failure of leaders. It is a structural and psychological shift in the conditions of leadership itself.

A strong leadership program can create a subculture, or a group that has a special connection. Max Dupree refers to this as leadership jazz.

We continue to act as though rationality sits above emotion—as if good leadership means suppressing feeling in favor of logic, objectivity, and control. This assumption runs deep in management culture, even as neuroscience has quietly dismantled it.

For those trying to make sense of the social and psychological disorientation many Americans are experiencing following the election of a second Trump administration, I find myself returning to a (1941) book I read nearly forty years ago while in school: Escape from Freedom by Erich Fromm. History does not repeat itself neatly, but it often echoes in recognizable ways.

In modern organizations, leadership focuses on alignment, execution, and performance. These priorities assumed relatively stable roles, shared norms, and institutions that quietly supplied meaning, identity, and moral orientation in the background. Leaders could concentrate on strategy and results because the system itself carried much of the psychological and ethical weight.

In this holiday season, as we celebrate the birth of Jesus amid the din of political rhetoric, it is helpful to return to something deeply human: the dignity within every person. This is also where the idea of wokeness — stripped of distortion — naturally intersects with postmodern leadership.

Most people want the title of “leader.” It sounds good. There’s a certain status that comes with being a supervisor, manager, or executive.

But the trouble comes when the toll must be paid.

Like anything in life—sports, business, popularity—leadership has its highs and lows. The real question is:

What kind of person can endure the darker side of leadership?

Every move you make
And every vow you break
Every smile you fake, every claim you stake
I'll be watching you

A New Age of Measuring Performance

“So, how am I doing?”

In decades past, that question was met with a stiff smile, a closed door, and a score: “3 out of 5 — Meets Expectations.” One hour a year to define your worth, your future, and your potential. For many, performance reviews were something to survive; a box to check, a form to fill, a score to justify.

That model? It’s fading. And for good reason.

Culture doesn’t live in a slogan. It lives in the behavior of your leaders.

When I ask senior executives to describe their organizational culture, they often respond with confident, well-worn phrases:

• “We’re a performance culture.”

• “We’re all about the patient.”

• “We like to have fun, we’re kind of quirky around here.”

These statements may be well-intentioned, but they often reflect a surface-level understanding of what culture really is and how it’s shaped.

While we’ve poured resources into “high potential” executives, supervisors have too often been left at the back of the developmental feeding line. The result? Organizations struggle with attrition, poor engagement, inconsistent safety or quality outcomes — and yet they look to the C-suite or launch top-down campaigns to solve the problem.

Corporate America is projected to increase its leadership development investment from $166 billion to over $200 billion in the next five years. That’s a massive bet on the power of leaders to move organizations forward.

But here's the real question: If we're investing this much, why aren't more organizations teeming with leadership talent?