3 Hard Leadership Truths
THE LEADERSHIP EDGE NEWSLETTER | Your Guide to Exceptional Leadership
December 2025 | 987 words = 3-minute 35 second read
FROM LAST MONTH'S EDGE on Leading Through Uncertainty
1. Share What You Know and Don’t Know: Stop viewing partial information as weakness. Your team doesn't need you to have all the answers.
2. Explain the Decision-making Process: When you can't provide clarity on the "what," provide clarity on the "how."
3. Name the Emotional Reality: the most powerful thing you can do is acknowledge what everyone is feeling, but no one is saying.
THIS MONTH'S FOCUS
Hello Leaders! This month, I share insights about a leadership imperative: Your leadership effectiveness must outpace the rate of change and complexity—or you're already falling behind.
Here's the uncomfortable reality: Most leaders are failing this test. They're confusing management with leadership, authority with influence, and control with trust. If that stings, good. Let's fix it.
If this sparks an interest and you'd like to schedule a discussion, you can do so here: Select a Date & Time - Calendly.
HARD TRUTH #1: LEADERSHIP ISN’T MANAGEMENT & IT’S NOT A TITLE
If people don't rave about working for you, you're missing something fundamental.
It's not making decisions alone or solving problems in isolation. Strip away your title and authority—if everyone on your team were volunteers, would they still follow you? That's the test.
Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner nailed it in The Leadership Challenge: Leadership is the art of mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations. Anyone can dangle carrots or wield sticks. Real leaders create genuine desire in others to sacrifice for something bigger. That's the difference between compliance and commitment.
The solution? Zenger Folkman's 2024 research on leadership effectiveness shows that organizations that focus on leadership strength development can move from below-average to top-tier performance. Their longitudinal studies prove that well-designed leadership development creates measurable, organization-wide change—when you focus on the competencies that actually matter.
Stop learning random leadership tips and tricks. Get specific feedback through a 360-degree assessment. When you determine the one thing that will leverage your leadership effectiveness improvement more than anything else, you will say it was worth it. Former World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said: "No matter how good you think you are as a leader, the people around you will have all kinds of ideas for how you can get better."
Without feedback, you're guessing.
HARD TRUTH #2: YOU CAN’T LEAD OTHERS UNTIL YOU LEAD YOURSELF
How many brilliant people fail at leadership because they can't manage themselves?
Anderson and Adams put it bluntly: "The inner game runs the outer game." Your values, beliefs, mental models, psychology, and emotional intelligence either amplify or sabotage everything you do. If you lack self-awareness, you're building on quicksand.
The leaders who outperform? They're ruthlessly reflective. They review their interactions with others. They journal their insights. They actively seek to understand why they do what they do. They review their performance, as if they were an NFL team that evaluates every play.
Your negative attributes create noise and drag. Your unexamined psychology creates blind spots. Your lack of self-management makes people hesitant to follow.
Get yourself out of the way, or no one will choose to follow you.
HARD TRUTH #3: YOUR TEAM WANTS THE SAME THING YOU DO — AND YOU’RE PROBABLY NOT GIVING IT
According to Gallup's research, 50% of employees who leave do so because of their manager. Not compensation. Not benefits. Their boss.
Multiple 2024-2025 retention studies confirm what leadership experts have been warning: 66% of HR executives still cite retention as their biggest workforce challenge. But here's the critical finding from the analysis of 25 respected retention studies in HR's Greatest Challenge: trust in leadership—not pay—is the top driver of long-term employee retention.
Yet organizations keep defaulting to salary adjustments while ignoring the root cause.
ADP's 2025 research reveals that employees who trust their teams, managers, and leaders are significantly more motivated and committed. Yet 63% of workers say they don't get the autonomy, flexibility, and freedom they desire. When leaders rely on authority instead of influence, engagement collapses.
Stress and anxiety are at record levels. BCG's 2024 research on psychological safety shows that empathetic leadership creates environments where diverse employees achieve the same workplace satisfaction as their more advantaged colleagues. The American Psychological Association's 2024 Work in America report found that 95% of workers say feeling respected is very or somewhat important—and psychological safety is the differentiator.
Great leaders respond with genuine compassion and empathy—not performative gestures, but real understanding. They embrace vulnerability. Brené Brown's TED talk on vulnerability has 17 million views for a reason—people are starving for authentic leadership. Patrick Lencioni's concept of Vulnerability-Based Trust explains why the strongest teams are built by leaders willing to show their imperfections.
When you're vulnerable, others feel safe, and they trust. When they trust, they stay.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Leadership development isn't keeping pace with change for most leaders. The gap is widening. Either close it through an intentional development process or accept that your best people will find another place to develop their strengths and abilities. Three Questions You Must Answer:
How good are you, really? How will you get honest, meaningful feedback?
What personal habits and traits sabotage your leadership? Where are your blind spots?
How vulnerable have you been with others? Do all types of people feel trusted and respected by you?
DIVE DEEPER
Books
The Leadership Challenge (6th Edition, 2023) by James Kouzes and Barry Posner
Mastering Leadership by Robert J. Anderson and William A. Adams
Recent Leadership Research:
Harvard Business Publishing's 2024 Global Leadership Development Study - Available at harvardbusiness.org
Seton Hall University's The Future of Leadership Survey 2024 - Global research on next-generation leadership expectations
American Psychological Association: Work in America 2024: Psychological Safety in the Changing Workplace
BCG: Psychological Safety Levels the Playing Field for Employees (2024)
Gallup: Research on manager impact (showing 70% of variance in team engagement stems from managers)