02 — Do we set our leaders up to succeed?
“I thought leading was easy. Then someone said no.”
We expect leaders to bring out the best in others…
But have we helped them understand what that really takes?
8 minute read
Over many years of interviewing people about their work, there's a question I've particularly enjoyed asking:
Think about the best team you've ever worked in — or witnessed. What made it so good?
I loved watching people's reactions. They would pause, look away and smile as they remembered. Many told me they were still friends with those colleagues years later — a strong bond forged through what they'd experienced together.
Often there had been a big, hairy problem to solve. Something that none of them could do alone. It might have meant long hours, considerable uncertainty and enormous effort. But what stayed with people wasn't simply the hard work. It was knowing they could rely on one another — and on a leader who would back them, help when needed and trust them to contribute.
They could ask questions, challenge ideas and admit what they didn't know without feeling that every moment of uncertainty put their place in the team at risk. And when someone was stuck, others stepped forward to help. Next time, the roles might be reversed.
We might call that psychological safety, but there was belonging and mutual commitment in it too. None of it meant low standards. These teams often achieved extraordinary things.
High expectations and psychological safety. Great leaders don't have to choose between them.
What struck me was that performance was rarely the first thing people remembered. It seemed to follow from the conditions in which they were working.
I've wondered what their leaders understood about building teams. Were some naturally attuned to people? Had others learned through experience? Probably both. Either way, these are capabilities we can develop, recognise and reinforce — not simply leave to chance.
Have we actually set our leaders up to succeed?
Have we helped them learn to build and sustain a high-performing team, rather than simply get individuals to perform? Or have we promoted capable people, given them a team, perhaps sent them on a course, and expected them to just work it out?
What does that say about how much we really value people leadership?
People leadership is real work — and an art form
We still promote people into leadership because they are good at the work they already do. Then we expect them to keep doing it — often at a higher level — while somehow coaching, developing and growing others.
Many have never been taught how. They draw on their own experience. Sometimes it was excellent. Sometimes it was terrible. Sometimes the conclusion is: Nobody showed me. I worked it out. They should too.
But a people leader is not simply a more senior worker.
One of the less obvious skills is stepping back from the day-to-day work to see what success looks like — and what it will take to achieve it. Not just what each person must deliver, but what the team needs to be really good at, individually and together.
Have we helped leaders understand the difference between being a high-performing individual and leading a high-performing team?
Seeing the whole, not just the parts — hello, Ted Lasso!
A team can be full of capable people meeting their KPIs yet still fall short of its potential. Perhaps they work in silos, knowledge isn't shared, or the strongest voices drown out other insights.
The leadership meta-skill is to see how the whole system works. What strengths are underused? Which capabilities are missing? When will collaboration add value, and when is independence better? Can the leader articulate not just the outcomes, but the conditions that will make exceptional team performance possible?
I remember saying to my teams when we took on challenging assignments:
“I don't know the answer yet. But I have every confidence in the people in this room that together we'll work it out.”
And I meant it. But I doubt I'd have said that early in my career. It took time to feel comfortable acknowledging what I didn't know, confident in what I did know and could contribute, and genuinely open to the expertise of others.
I hoped that admitting uncertainty gave others permission to do the same. And there was something else I came to appreciate: recognising another person's brilliance doesn't diminish your own contribution or authority. You can learn from the people who report to you, too.
I can't help thinking of Ted Lasso — a fictional leader who understands his people and draws on coaches with technical strengths he doesn't possess. The lesson isn't that expertise doesn't matter. It's that it doesn't all have to reside in the leader.
Understanding the human dynamics of work
Some leaders intuitively notice when confidence is faltering, someone is withdrawing or a relationship is strained. Others need help recognising those signals. And even the perceptive ones may struggle to find the words to raise them constructively.
Emotional intelligence includes recognising our own reactions and impact, not just reading other people's feelings.
We need to give leaders the language, confidence and permission to talk about the human dynamics of work — and recognise and celebrate the ability to do it well.
Not to diagnose or manage people's feelings, but to understand what supports their contribution, what gets in the way and how to help them develop.
We talk endlessly about what teams need to deliver. Perhaps we need to become equally comfortable talking about what helps them deliver it.
Developing people, not just assessing them
People bring different strengths and need different kinds of support. And sometimes a strength, under pressure, becomes a liability. Give a highly conscientious person uncertainty and self-doubt, for example, and their care can turn into paralysing perfectionism.
A good leader helps people notice their patterns, question assumptions and consider different perspectives — without turning colleagues into amateur psychological case studies.
Good leaders help people own their strengths, acknowledge what they are less skilled at, and draw on the complementary strengths of others.
They also make it safe to say, “I don't know how to do that yet.” Then they help someone learn, through coaching, practice, training or a colleague's expertise. The aim isn't to lower expectations, but to make learning part of achieving them.
I know what helps me thrive: clarity about what we're trying to achieve and why, encouragement, recognition, autonomy and the freedom to ask what might feel like the dumbest question in the room.
But that's me. Someone else may need more structure, less interaction or more regular guidance. Belonging isn't compulsory togetherness; people can feel valued and connected to a shared purpose while doing their best work independently.
Belonging frees up energy for contribution; shared purpose helps focus it.
Simple in principle. Not always easy in practice
It's relatively easy to feel like a leader when everyone agrees with you. The real test can come when they don't.
Having the authority to make a decision doesn't necessarily mean you've earned the influence required to really bring people with you.
I've found it easier to lead people who shared my sense of direction. Working with someone who saw things very differently challenged me — and still does.
How do you invite challenge, listen properly, explain your reasoning and sometimes make a decision another person doesn't agree with — while preserving their dignity and willingness to contribute?
Some leaders need help stepping confidently into their authority. Others need to reflect on how readily they use it.
Good leadership requires both the confidence to exercise authority and the humility to recognise its limits.
For me, this is part of the art of leadership — and something we continue to develop through experience, reflection and practice.
But who's setting the leader up to succeed?
Here's something else I've noticed. Organisations often pay close attention to what leaders deliver, and much less to how they lead.
If you lead people leaders, how do you judge whether they're doing that part of their job well? Do you look at how their people are growing, how the team works together and whether people feel safe to contribute? Or mainly at operational results and the absence of complaints or resignations?
The absence of problems isn't necessarily evidence of great people leadership.
And how much of a people leader's time should actually be spent leading? I don't have a universal percentage in mind. But if the calendar is filled with doing the work, managing upwards and putting out operational fires, when does the coaching and development happen?
We cannot ask leaders to bring out the best in others while giving them neither the capability nor the time to do it.
A course is a beginning, not the solution
A leadership course can provide useful concepts and language. It doesn't, by itself, change the habits people fall back on under pressure.
Those habits develop through practice, reflection, feedback and ongoing support. What if leadership meetings routinely explored team dynamics and what leaders were learning? What if promotion and performance discussions recognised what leaders helped their teams become capable of, not just what they delivered themselves?
And what if senior leaders modelled the curiosity, humility, confidence and commitment to people development that they expected of others?
A course can introduce the language. The organisation has to create the conditions in which that language becomes practice — and that practice becomes habit.
Thinking back to those memorable teams, I wonder how many of their leaders were deliberately supported to develop the capabilities that helped make those experiences possible.
So perhaps start with two questions.
Think about the team you're part of: would you describe it as genuinely high-performing — in both its results and how people work together?
And if you lead people, how might they describe the team you've helped create?
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Janine Carruthers is Founder of JC Common Ground and Co-founder & Director of Adoption at humansens.ai, where she works on earlier identification and better understanding of psychosocial risk.