Leadership effectiveness often falls short of its potential, creating a significant gap between leaders’ capabilities and their everyday actions. This disparity can hinder team performance and overall organizational health. To address this issue, behavioral science offers several strategies that can help leaders enhance their impact and fulfillment in an ever-evolving landscape.
Understanding the Leadership Gap
Leadership is fundamentally about coordinating human activity. When executed effectively, it transforms groups into high-performing teams. Despite the availability of tools to evaluate leadership potential, approximately 50 percent of senior executives are likely to fail in their roles. This raises an important question: why is there such a discrepancy between the leaders we require and those we observe in practice?
Industrial-organizational psychologists distinguish between maximal and typical performance. Maximal performance reflects how leaders operate at their best, utilizing their full skill set and self-regulation. In contrast, typical performance captures their everyday behaviors and interactions. Evidence suggests that leaders who successfully bridge this gap consistently deliver superior results and foster healthier teams.
Strategies for Effective Leadership
To thrive in an unpredictable environment, leaders can implement several behavioral science-informed strategies:
1. Define Your Aspirational Self: Many leaders experience a misalignment between their actions and their desired identity. Despite achieving external success, such as status and compensation, they may feel unfulfilled. This disconnect often leads to burnout, where leaders prioritize outcomes that please others over their own purpose. Regular reflection and feedback can help leaders clarify their motivations and aspirations. As Herminia Ibarra states, leadership development is a journey of self-reinvention. Leaders should reassess their ideal selves every 90 days to ensure their aspirations evolve alongside their circumstances.
2. Challenge the System: Effective leadership involves questioning established norms. However, many leaders find themselves defending the very systems they are meant to disrupt. As noted by Gianpiero Petriglieri from INSEAD, organizations often hire leaders to maintain continuity rather than drive change. To counteract this tendency, leaders must cultivate contextual intelligence, distinguishing between adapting for impact and conforming for comfort. Practicing small acts of principled dissent can be a powerful way to foster a culture of innovation.
3. Prioritize Learning Over Performance: The pressure to appear competent can lead leaders to default to familiar strengths and avoid uncertainty. Research indicates that those who embrace continuous learning, even at the risk of failure, tend to outperform their peers. By fostering psychological safety within teams and modeling vulnerability, leaders can shift the focus from maintaining an image of competence to prioritizing growth. Setting monthly “ignorance goals” can encourage leaders to explore new topics, fostering a culture of curiosity.
4. Embrace Change: Many leaders resist change, preferring the comfort of established habits. Yet, true transformation requires unlearning outdated behaviors. Neuroscience suggests that behavioral plasticity declines with age, but it remains attainable. Leaders should actively identify identity attachments that no longer serve them and engage in practices that stretch their capabilities. Conducting quarterly unlearning rituals can help leaders detach from limiting habits and foster ongoing personal growth.
In summary, sustaining effective leadership is not merely about willpower or charisma; it demands awareness, intention, and a commitment to ongoing reinvention. The gap between a leader’s potential and their everyday actions is influenced by unconscious adaptations and identity narratives. By recognizing these patterns, challenging existing systems, prioritizing learning, and embracing discomfort, leaders can cultivate a more authentic and impactful presence. This journey of becoming is essential for creating high-performing teams and achieving meaningful organizational change.
