Redefined HR Consultancy

06/01/2026

Most leaders don’t expect leadership to feel lonely. In the early stages of a business, leadership is built on proximity. You know your people, you share context, and decisions happen through conversation rather than layers. Trust is personal, and understanding is mutual. That closeness creates speed, alignment, and a sense that everyone is moving in the same direction.

Then the organization grows, and something shifts. You can’t stay as close to everything or everyone. Layers form, decisions travel farther, and context gets filtered as it moves through the business. Over time, people begin forming opinions about decisions they weren’t part of and don’t fully understand. That distance catches many leaders off guard, not because they’re doing something wrong, but because no one told them this is what scaling feels like.

Leadership isn’t breaking. The structure is changing.

The hidden cost of scaling leadership

Leadership loneliness often shows up at the same moment a business is succeeding. Growth introduces complexity at every level: more people, more decisions, and more moving parts. With that complexity comes distance between leaders and teams.

Without proximity, it becomes harder to explain decisions, intentions, and trade-offs in real time. Not because leaders don’t want to, but because it’s no longer practical to bring everyone into every conversation. As a result, people fill in the gaps. They interpret decisions based on fragments of information, without visibility into the constraints or – that underlie them. As the organization grows, fewer people will fully understand the pressures leadership carries.

That gap creates misunderstanding. And if leaders don’t address this with consistent, intentional communication, it grows.

This is especially difficult for leaders who value connection. If you’ve built trust through closeness, the loss of that closeness can feel personal, as if something important is slipping. But what’s happening is structural, not relational.

The mistake many leaders make is that leadership feels lonely” 📖 Read on...



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https://www.inc.com/tricia-sciortino/why-leadership-feels-lonely-as-you-scale/91350856?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=freeform&fbclid=IwZnRzaASJ69lleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEeXVO5LfC3zfEOjRueTlvuxuZopEiHNXotmfa1djYu8kHup9945pAQRFLBKmM_aem_ypxrZQPakNxlNg0VkbSEJg

Growth creates distance, forcing leaders to shift from proximity to alignment in order to build trust throughout the organization.

05/29/2026

“In all organizations, there are just some people (and I bet you know a few of them), who love to argue – mostly because they delight in the ensuing chaos. I know it’s impolitic in today’s world to say that some people are just jerks or overly dramatic, but anyone who’s worked as a frontline manager (or spent five minutes on social media) knows this is true.

Contrast these people with those who argue because they lack the metacognitive capacity to know that they have no idea what they’re talking about. Often known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect, this is a cognitive bias whereby people who are incompetent at something are both unable to recognize their own incompetence and are also likely to feel confident that they are actually competent.

Argumentative types in the workplace

The presence of these people has been proven many times. In a classic study, MBA students were asked to rate how they thought their emotional intelligence compares to that of American adults in general. Directly after their assessments, these same students then took an actual emotional intelligence test.

The results were intriguing. The lowest-scoring students – those whose actual tests showed them to be at the 10th percentile (i.e., they only scored higher than 10% of American adults) – actually thought their emotional intelligence would be around the 72nd percentile. In other words, the people with the lowest emotional intelligence thought they were fantastic. They overestimated their scores by 62 percentile points. When those folks got feedback about their poor results on the test, they saw the test as less accurate and relevant than those with high scores. They didn’t like the test results, so they concluded that the test was inaccurate or irrelevant.

The points being illustrated here are that, firstly, some employees love to argue because they love causing trouble, and some love to argue because they think they’re right, even though they’re actually clueless. Secondly, your chances of having a rational and logical argument with either group are near zero. In other words, if you enter into an argument with either group, you’re wasting your time and giving them exactly what they want.

Leaders aren’t usually good at managing personalities

Most leaders know this, at least intuitively. In the study, The Leadership Skills Gap, which asked more than 3,000 leaders to rate their own skills, only 31% said that they were proficient at managing difficult personalities. Most of us hope that people operate rationally with noble intentions. But again, that’s just not always true.

So, if there are some people out there trying to suck us into arguments that have little chance of resolving amicably or logically, how should we respond when it happens?

Take a topic relevant/irrelevant approach

I would counsel assessing whether someone is starting a topic-relevant or topic-irrelevant argument. A topic-relevant argument is when someone in a meeting, about a new change effort, says something like: “I think this change effort is guaranteed to fail.” A topic-irrelevant argument is when someone randomly says something like, “I think all these Gen Z employees are just lazy and entitled whiners.”

For the people who start topic-relevant arguments, your response will be to redirect the conversation away from theoretical and hypothetical concerns and back to the here and now. Use the phrase, “I hear you, but right now, I only want to talk about the issues we control.” This is a way of shutting down arguments about the CEO’s vision for this new change, whether the executive team made a smart decision, etc., and instead bringing the discussion back to a practical reality we can all influence. It’s a nicer and more productive way of saying, “If you don’t have anything helpful or immediately useful to say, please stop talking.”

For topic-irrelevant arguments, you’ll need to say something like, “I’m not sure I agree, but let’s get back to the project at hand.” As the social media advice goes, don’t feed the trolls. Don’t engage in an argument that is destined to veer into contentious, absolutist, and even unhinged territory. You don’t have to be nasty about it, but you do want to be crystal clear that you are not engaging in this discussion, and the easiest approach is simply to point the conversation back to something practical and work-related.

It all sounds simple, but in reality, most leaders don’t enjoy cutting off avenues for discussion, even if those avenues are unpleasant and unwinnable arguments." 📖 Read on...



negotiation ceiling



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In all organizations, there are just some people (and I bet you know a few of them), who love to argue – mostly because they delight in the ensuing chaos. I know it’s impolitic in today’s world to say that some people are just jerks or overly dramatic, but anyone who’s worked as a frontline ...

05/28/2026

“I’ve been trying to move up to the next level and want to be considered a candidate for senior leadership roles. I think I’m well liked, and I understand the company and our business deeply and care about the future of the organization. But recently I received feedback that I’m “not enough of a visionary leader.” What am I missing?

In most cases, leaders who receive this feedback do have a vision. When someone has decades of industry experience and extensive organizational knowledge, the problem is rarely a lack of strategic thinking. Rather, it is typically a lack of visible strategic signaling. You may be thinking like a visionary, but you are not showing it.

Boards and promotion committees are not mind readers. They might not have worked closely enough with you to understand the way you think, and they can’t evaluate your future potential based on what’s in your head. They can only evaluate you based on what you consistently project in meetings, interviews, and conversations.

Many high performers excel at answering interviewers’ questions with precision. They skillfully showcase their operational competence and deep knowledge — often the strengths on which they’ve built their success and that have won them promotions. But being seen as a visionary requires demonstrating a different set of strengths. Your priority in these interactions should be to show that you have a hypothesis about the future of your industry and your company’s place within that future, and that you are actively digging into data and trends to test that hypothesis.

A straightforward question often contains much that is unsaid, and your response can be framed to include strategic insights. A board member who asks about market share in the Midwest is also implicitly asking, “Why does this region matter? How does it fit into our long-term strategy? Who are our competitors, and what can we do to win?" 📖 Read on...



negotiation ceiling



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Success shouldn’t require you to compromise your well-being.

05/27/2026

“I’ve been trying to move up to the next level and want to be considered a candidate for senior leadership roles. I think I’m well liked, and I understand the company and our business deeply and care about the future of the organization. But recently I received feedback that I’m “not enough of a visionary leader.” What am I missing?

In most cases, leaders who receive this feedback do have a vision. When someone has decades of industry experience and extensive organizational knowledge, the problem is rarely a lack of strategic thinking. Rather, it is typically a lack of visible strategic signaling. You may be thinking like a visionary, but you are not showing it.

Boards and promotion committees are not mind readers. They might not have worked closely enough with you to understand the way you think, and they can’t evaluate your future potential based on what’s in your head. They can only evaluate you based on what you consistently project in meetings, interviews, and conversations.

Many high performers excel at answering interviewers’ questions with precision. They skillfully showcase their operational competence and deep knowledge — often the strengths on which they’ve built their success and that have won them promotions. But being seen as a visionary requires demonstrating a different set of strengths. Your priority in these interactions should be to show that you have a hypothesis about the future of your industry and your company’s place within that future, and that you are actively digging into data and trends to test that hypothesis.

A straightforward question often contains much that is unsaid, and your response can be framed to include strategic insights. A board member who asks about market share in the Midwest is also implicitly asking, “Why does this region matter? How does it fit into our long-term strategy? Who are our competitors, and what can we do to win?" 📖 Read on...



negotiation ceiling



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Showcasing your competence and deep corporate knowledge doesn’t reveal your vision. Conveying strategic insight does.

05/26/2026

“As an executive coach, I regularly work with leaders who appear successful externally but feel internally unclear, disconnected or overwhelmed. Many come to me asking some version of the same question: “Is this role actually right for me?”

Such uncertainty is more common than many leaders are willing to admit. Companies habitually promote high-performing professionals for their technical acumen and ex*****on strength rather than their leadership readiness or alignment with the leadership role itself. As visibility and responsibility increase, internal friction and uncertainty tend to surface. You begin to question your effectiveness, your fit and your abilities. This is normal, and it can feel incredibly disorienting.

Let’s explore three questions that may indicate you’re in the wrong leadership role and what each one may actually be pointing to.

1. Why does leadership feel harder for me than it does for others?

You’re not alone in this feeling. Many leaders quietly notice that leadership feels more effortful for them than it does for others. Few say it out loud, and I truly wish that would change.

When you’re in a misaligned leadership role, you may expend more energy or time than your peers to achieve similar outcomes.

You may over-prepare for situations that seem natural or intuitive to others. You may second-guess decisions that others move through with ease. This can quickly deplete and exhaust you.

This doesn’t mean you’re not meant to be a leader. If you’ve been in the role for more than a few months, such feelings rarely indicate a pure skills gap. More often, they reflect a mismatch between your natural strengths and the demands of the role.

I once worked with a client who stepped into a country manager role that looked like a natural next move on paper. On the surface, it was a clear progression. However, within months, it became obvious it wasn’t the right fit. They constantly felt like they were operating outside their strengths, even after significant effort and adaptation.

This didn’t mean they weren’t capable of leadership. Instead, it meant they needed a different type of leadership context that allowed them to operate from their natural strengths. Ultimately, they landed a CMO role that they found less exhausting and more aligned.

2. Why am I successful but not feeling fulfilled by my work?

Another common pattern is meeting — or exceeding — all expectations while feeling increasingly disconnected from the work itself. Wins may feel less meaningful or exciting than expected. Over time, this can feel frustrating or demoralizing, especially in high-intensity leadership environments." 📖 Read on...



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Adult grooming in the workplace does happen, and there are a handful of telltale signs to be aware of.

05/25/2026

Today, we pause to honor the remarkable men and women who gave everything for our country. Their unparalleled bravery and steadfast commitment to protecting our freedoms inspire us all every single day.

🇺🇸 As we remember the fallen, our entire team is overwhelmed with a deep sense of gratitude—one that goes beyond mere words. We stand proudly as Americans, dedicated to carrying forward our legacy of courage, resilience, and hope.

Let us honor their sacrifices by living fully, embracing life with intention, and serving our communities with love and purpose. Together, we can ensure that their sacrifices are not only remembered but also reflected in our actions, creating a brighter future for all. 🇺🇸

#𝐡𝐫𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭2026