It's Time to Change, We have a Leadership Crisis!
Todays blog is by Lois Burton, from Lois Burton Associates and someone who has supported me and my career over many years. Infact, I was trained in Coaching and Coaching Supervision by Lois a few years ago, and I would highly recommend her. So it was slightly fun, to ask her to write up an assignment!
You can connect with Lois on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lois-burton-22b19012/ ,on Instagram - @loisburtoncoach and on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/lois.burton.391
Lois also has a podcast Leadership Horizons, https://www.buzzsprout.com/2453096/episodes/17544856 which broadcast weekly where I discuss the topic of leadership and change with guests and provide practical tips for change.
Time to take some time out and read Lois’s blog, and share your reflections via LinkedIn.
We stand at a pivotal moment in leadership history. After 25 years of coaching senior leaders I can tell you with absolute certainty: the way we led yesterday is not going to lead us into tomorrow.
This isn't just another coaching insight or leadership theory. It's a reality I witness daily in boardrooms, executive teams, and leadership conversations across every sector imaginable, and we are seeing it play out very visibly in political and social contexts. The leaders who are thriving aren't the ones clinging to what worked before. They're the ones brave enough to acknowledge that it's time to change.
Image of Lois Burton
The Old Playbook Is Closing
When I founded my business in 2000, I had the privilege of working alongside coaching pioneers like Sir John Whitmore and Peter Bluckert during the early days of UK coaching development. Back then, we were writing the first chapters of what professional coaching could be. Today, I see leaders who are ready to write entirely new playbooks for what leadership itself can become.
But here's what I've learned: change doesn't happen because we intellectually understand it needs to. Change happens when we feel the friction between where we are and where we're trying to go. That friction? It's everywhere right now.
The leadership models that served us for decades, hierarchical decision making, respecting the “rules” of the line of command, the myth of the infallible leader, even the more thoughtful ideas of situational and servant leadership, they're not just outdated. They're actively holding us back, because one theory fits all circumstances is completely wrong for today’s world. And the leaders who recognize this? They're the ones asking the difficult questions: "What got me here won't get me there, so who do I need to become?"
What Needs to Change
Through my work with executive teams, I've identified critical shifts that leaders must make:
From perfection to progress. I've coached countless brilliant leaders paralyzed by the pursuit of perfection. They wait for the perfect strategy, the perfect moment, the perfect team. Meanwhile, the world moves on. The 80% rule isn't about lowering standards; it's about recognizing that action beats perfection every single time. In a rapidly changing environment, the ability to move, learn, and adapt completely ecplises the ability to plan flawlessly.
From knowing to learning. The leaders struggling most are those whose identity is wrapped up in being the person with all the answers. The leaders thriving are those who've made peace with uncertainty and built their leadership brand around curiosity, resilience, and the capacity to learn faster than the world is changing.
From stress to pressure management. In my resilience based leadership work, I see leaders whose nervous systems are perpetually dysregulated, making decisions from a state of chronic stress rather than optimal pressure. Understanding your pressure zones, where you perform at your peak, isn't soft skills. It's survival skills for modern leadership.
From isolation to connection. The strongest leadership teams I work with have learned that resilience isn't individual, it's relational. They've built the psychological safety and trust that allows them to navigate complexity together, not as lone warriors trying to solve everything themselves.
The Courage to Begin
Here's what makes change difficult: it requires us to let go of what's familiar before we've fully mastered what's next. It demands courage. And courage, as I often tell my coaching clients, isn't the absence of fear, it's the willingness to move forward despite it. This is not new, however, more than ever right now we need to understand that this is the way forward.
I've spent over two decades helping leaders develop their authentic leadership brands, not by following templates but by having the courage to explore uncharted territory. The leaders creating movements rather than just managing mandates? They're not necessarily the most experienced or the most “qualified”. They're the ones most willing to acknowledge that change starts with them.
Image of a horizon
Your Leadership Horizon
The future of leadership isn't about prediction, it's about preparation. It's about building the flexible thinking, the emotional intelligence, and the relationship foundations that allow you to adapt as the landscape shifts.
Through positive psychology, neuroscience, and evidence based leadership development, we now know more than ever about what makes leaders effective. But knowledge without application is just interesting information. The question isn't whether you know change is needed.
The question is: what are you willing to change today?
Answers on a virtual postcard please….#What will you change today? I will be on LinkedIn asking the question and I am going to be running a challenge in 2026, asking that very question. It’s not about others and its not about the environment, it’s always about changing ourselves to help change the world we live in.
The way we led yesterday won't take us into tomorrow. But the leadership we develop today? That's what will shape the future we're all moving toward. Let’s take time as we approach the end of the year to reflect and make 2026, the year of real change.
It’s time to stop playing small, its time to change
Are you with me?