Reflections on Leadership

The Problems We Keep Trying to Solve

Leadership Drift This Week

The Problems We Keep Trying to Solve

Organizations are busy. Leaders make decisions, employees work hard, and problems receive attention. Yet important priorities keep getting crowded out. Capable people become frustrated. The same problems return, even after considerable effort to resolve them.

When this happens, the instinct is to work harder, introduce another process, or ask people to do better. Sometimes those responses are appropriate. But when the same difficulties persist, you must ask: “Are we addressing the problem, or are we treating its symptoms?”

The Fall 2026 Leadership Problems Pulse offers a useful starting point for that inquiry. The study asked respondents from 20 organizations to assess 30 leadership-related conditions to better understand the challenges they face and how those conditions affect organizational effectiveness. The results reveal several areas worth examining. They describe what respondents reported, not what caused those conditions or why they persist. Understanding that requires a closer look at the decisions and practices surrounding the problems.

When priorities keep getting crowded out

The condition with the highest percentage of high-severity ratings was “Important priorities keep getting crowded out.” More than half of respondents (54.5%) rated it a significant or serious problem. Its average severity score was 2.3 on a 0-to-4 scale.

A crowded priority list can look like a time-management problem. Leaders may conclude that employees need to organize their work better, that teams are taking on too much, or that the organization simply has more demands than available hours.

But what determines which work gets protected when competing demands arrive?

An urgent request can displace an important initiative. A short-term opportunity can repeatedly take precedence over a longer-term commitment. A decision that requires further consideration can remain open long after enough information is available to act. Each decision may seem reasonable in isolation. Over time, however, the organization can become busy without making sufficient progress on the work that matters most.

This is one way a Direction Deficit may appear. Leaders may identify the right priorities but fail to protect them when circumstances make doing so difficult. Their stated priorities and their repeated choices begin to tell different stories.

People learn what an organization values not only from what leaders announce, but from what they protect, postpone, and allow to be displaced.

The issue is not whether leaders can name the priorities. It is whether their decisions give those priorities a meaningful chance to succeed.

When too much depends on a few people

Half of respondents rated “Too much depends on a few key people” as a significant or serious problem. The condition received an average severity score of 2.2.

This can be difficult to recognize because the people carrying the burden are often highly capable. They know the organization, resolve difficult situations, and keep important work moving. Their contribution is substantial. But an organization can become dependent on the very people who compensate for its weaknesses.

When decisions routinely require a particular leader's approval, work waits for that person. When a manager repeatedly resolves problems others cannot address, the immediate difficulty disappears, but the organization's ability to handle the next one may remain unchanged. When second-line leaders carry responsibility without sufficient authority, they can be held accountable for outcomes they are not empowered to produce.

The organization continues to function, sometimes impressively. Yet its effectiveness depends on a few people absorbing the strain.

This may be consistent with Capacity Constraints. What looks like exceptional personal performance can also reveal an organizational weakness: knowledge is concentrated, authority is bottlenecked, or too little responsibility can be exercised without intervention from above.

A consequential difference exists between a leader who strengthens an organization's capacity and one whose efforts leave the organization dependent on that leader. In one case, people gain the knowledge, authority, and judgment to handle more of the work themselves. In the other, decisions still wait for approval, problems still travel upward, and progress still depends on the same person stepping in.

The question is not whether capable people should intervene when necessary. It is whether their intervention helps others become more capable, or simply makes the existing dependence easier to sustain.

When good people become frustrated

The Pulse found that “Good people are becoming frustrated” had an average severity score of 2.3, tied for the highest average among the individual conditions highlighted in the report. 45.5% of respondents rated it a significant or serious problem.

Frustration is easy to misinterpret. Leaders may regard it as a matter of morale, personality, motivation, or resistance to change. Those explanations can sometimes fit. But frustration can also signal that capable people face obstacles they cannot resolve on their own.

The written comments included accounts of declining trust, constant firefighting, and a hostile executive environment in which good people joined an organization and then left. These are individual respondents' accounts, not proof of a universal pattern. They nevertheless illustrate why employee frustration deserves closer examination.

People can remain committed to their colleagues and responsibilities while losing confidence in their working conditions. They may keep cooperating, meeting immediate obligations, and helping one another while becoming increasingly discouraged by decisions or behaviors beyond their control.

In those circumstances, asking people to become more resilient or introducing another morale initiative may address the visible frustration without addressing what people are experiencing.

This is one reason to examine Team Neglect. It doesn't mean leaders are indifferent to their employees. Neglect can lie in failing to address the conditions people repeatedly endure or work around.

Are expectations inconsistent? Are decisions delayed? Is accountability applied unevenly? Do people have the authority and resources required to fulfill their responsibilities?

Frustration isn't just an employee experience. It may also be information about the organization. Dismissing it as an attitude problem can leave leaders blind to the conditions eroding people's willingness to contribute.

When the same problems keep returning

“The same problems keep coming back” received an average severity score of 2.2, with 45.5% of respondents rating it as significant or serious. Recurring problems expose a limit of solutions that address only the immediate situation.

A missed commitment prompts a conversation. When a project falls behind, the team schedules another meeting. People revisit a decision, rewrite a procedure, or introduce a temporary workaround. The organization addresses the immediate problem and moves on.

Then the problem returns.

Recurring problems may signal weak accountability. Assigning responsibility is not enough when expectations remain inconsistent, authority is insufficient, or commitments go unaddressed. The Pulse's written comments pointed to inconsistent follow-through, unclear accountability, inconsistent expectations, and competing priorities, conditions that may help explain why some solutions fail to last.

A recurring problem does not necessarily mean the original response was wrong. Circumstances change, and some problems require repeated attention. But when the same difficulty returns under substantially similar conditions, leaders should examine what has, and has not, changed.

Who is responsible for the outcome? Does that person have the authority to act? Are expectations clear? What happens when commitments are not met? Has the organization changed the conditions that contributed to the problem, or has it simply found another way to manage the consequences?

Accountability isn't established by simply assigning a name to a task. It requires expectations, authority, resources, and follow-through to work together. When they do not, repeated conversations and interventions can create the appearance of action without making a lasting difference.

Leadership work is not finished when a problem temporarily disappears. It includes determining whether the response has made the problem less likely to return.

Pressure reveals something about leadership

Growth, complexity, limited resources, and change all place pressure on the people responsible for keeping an organization effective. But pressure does not inevitably produce dysfunction.

The Pulse included accounts of organizations facing difficult circumstances, including a complex merger, where respondents described effective accountability and rapid execution. These accounts do not establish why one organization succeeds while another struggles. They do remind us that difficult circumstances alone do not explain organizational performance.

How leaders respond matters. Under pressure, they choose what takes precedence, who decides, what gets challenged, and what must change. Those choices can strengthen an organization's ability to respond, or reinforce the weaknesses that made the situation difficult in the first place.

The broader category results also suggest looking beyond isolated execution problems. Organizational Health recorded the highest average severity score among the four areas measured, at 1.9, followed by Execution at 1.8, Leadership Capacity at 1.7, and Problem Cognizance at 1.2. These differences reflect respondents' reported concerns; they do not establish their causes.

Still, they invite a broader inquiry. An organization can be full of capable people working hard and still struggle to produce the results it needs. The effort is visible. The conditions shaping that effort may be less so.

The problem we see isn't always the problem we need to solve

Leadership responsibility extends beyond responding to visible problems. It includes examining how our decisions, expectations, and habits may be contributing to the conditions we are trying to change.

When a priority keeps getting displaced, leaders must consider the choices that allow it to happen. When an individual becomes indispensable, they must ask why knowledge, authority, or problem-solving remain concentrated in that person. When capable people become frustrated, leaders must be willing to hear what their experience reveals. When a problem returns, they must look beyond the latest failure to the conditions that remain.

None of this means that leadership causes every organizational problem. It means that leadership decisions help shape how organizations set priorities, distribute authority, maintain accountability, and respond when things go wrong.

The uncomfortable question is whether our own decisions, expectations, or habits have helped preserve the conditions that keep the problem going.

A problem that keeps returning deserves more than another attempt at solving it; it deserves an examination of what keeps producing it.

What leadership problems are organizations struggling to solve, and what might be sustaining them?

The Leadership Problems Pulse examines 30 leadership-related conditions, including crowded-out priorities, overreliance on key people, employee frustration, and recurring problems.

The findings offer a starting point for a closer look at the conditions that may be affecting organizational effectiveness.

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If the findings resonate with challenges in your organization, I’d welcome a conversation about what you’re experiencing and what may be contributing to it.

Drift Pattern of the Week:

Direction Deficit

Leaders may establish clear priorities but fail to protect them when competing demands arise. Urgent requests, short-term opportunities, and unresolved decisions repeatedly displace important work. Because each decision may seem reasonable in isolation, leaders often overlook the cumulative effect. Over time, employees learn that stated priorities are negotiable, strategic initiatives lose momentum, and organizational activity substitutes for meaningful progress. The problem isn't necessarily a lack of direction. It's the failure to make daily decisions consistent with that direction.

Leadership Practice

Before accepting a new priority, identify what existing commitment it will displace. If nothing is being removed, determine whether the organization is quietly asking people to do more than its capacity allows.

Diagnostic Question

If your employees judged your priorities by what you consistently protect, rather than what you announce, would they identify the same priorities you would?

From My Desk

Organizations can become remarkably skilled at compensating for their own weaknesses. A capable manager steps in, an experienced employee finds a workaround, or a senior leader makes another exception. The immediate problem gets resolved, and everyone moves on.

Successful workarounds can conceal the need for change. When people repeatedly compensate for unclear priorities, concentrated authority, or inconsistent follow-through, their competence can make the underlying problem less visible.

Eventually, the organization may mistake its ability to absorb dysfunction for evidence that its systems work. Leaders should pay attention not only to what gets accomplished, but also to what people must repeatedly overcome to accomplish it.

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