In last month’s post, we shared that many leaders become frustrated when people don’t take initiative and do what’s needed in the organization. In that post, I proposed some ways leaders responsible for the development of others can support individuals to grow their own leadership abilities. The right skills can help a leader step up to rally others to succeed together.
While individual leadership skills are vital to success, an often overlooked factor is how much the existing team and culture can influence a person to take action -or not.
Expecting a developing leader to overcome a negative team culture is like tossing seeds onto dry sand and expecting them to flourish. While possible, it’s pretty unlikely.
A few examples of cultures and teams not supporting healthy leadership:
A senior leadership team is working through some critical cross-functional problems when one vice president interrupts the discussion with, “You all can do what you want, but here’s what I’m committing to.” People roll their eyes - this behavior is one of the main causes of the cross-functional issues - yet they just move on and try to get to results anyway.
A management team is trying to get the attention of their leader about a lack of information and support coming from one of their peers. The leader chastises them with, “You need to work that out among yourselves. Come back when you have a solution.” The peer’s eventual failure months later causes layoffs and turmoil for the entire organization.
An executive team is meeting to get a do-or-die project back on schedule. Each team member’s update is attacked with questions from other members like: “Are you happy with the results?”, “Why don’t you fix this?”, and “Isn’t this something you created?” Someone mutters “I’m kinda scared to bring up any problems now!” as everyone continues defending themselves from blame.
So how can behavior like this happen on a team of professional leaders?
We get the culture we tolerate.
These patterns don’t emerge overnight. It’s something I call Leadership Debt. I’m borrowing from the tech world’s idea of "quality debt," where you patch a product repeatedly until it can’t be patched anymore. Patches are essentially workarounds for some larger problem that can only be solved by a new version of hardware or software.
Similarly, when leaders don’t take action to address behaviors in individuals or in teams because “We’re just too busy to deal with that right now”, “It’ll work for now”, or “It’s not a big deal”, these bad habits pile up until even good leaders can’t make a positive difference.
In other words, leadership debt occurs when poor leadership behaviors are ignored or patched over, accumulating over time until they cause significant dysfunction like the examples above.
So how can we shift the culture?
The good news is that shifting “bad” culture to enable better leadership is possible.
Here are three simple - and challenging - actions leaders and teams can take to upgrade teams to make a culture that encourages leaders to step up and help everyone win:
First, address behaviors as they arise.
Don’t sweep them under the rug. Provide feedback and mentorship to individuals and teams on how they can work together effectively to solve embedded problems and challenges. While we may feel like we can’t stop to deal with these issues, we will have to stop to deal with the results - and the costs are bound to be substantially greater.
Second, shift from individual to collective focus.
Good leadership isn't about one person’s ambition; it's about shared success. Encourage leaders to commit to the team’s goals, not just their own. Make collaboration non-negotiable. If someone dominates with their agenda, help them see how this erodes trust and effectiveness.
Finally, integrate people development into real work.
The “people stuff” isn’t separate from the work of leaders - it is the work. Invest in relationship-building and leadership skills. Make it clear that developing people is as crucial as delivering results. When leaders understand this, they set a tone where everyone can thrive. Even their peers.
The reality is if we want our organizations to innovate and grow sustainably, we have to invest now to avoid leadership debt. Leaders must learn to listen deeply, work collaboratively, and develop the skills to lead people as well as projects. Addressing this isn’t easy, but it’s worth it. Let’s have a conversation about what is going well and what could be better as you work to invest in your people.
PS - On Thursday, December 12th, we’re hosting a free, interactive webinar “Dealing with the Leadership Development Dilemma: What You and Your Organization Really Need.” We’ll talk about what’s working across different organizations and crowdsource ideas and actionable tools for effective professional development. Register here.
