Most leaders believe they are building empowerment and capability. Yet over time, judgement, risk, and meaning quietly route through the strongest leaders. What looks like trust becomes dependence. The real leadership question is no longer how good you are, but how necessary you have become.
Even healthy teams have a dark side. Explore the "shadows" of the Five Movements model, like when "Belonging" mutates into "Artificial Harmony" or "Aligning" becomes "Rigid Dogma." A diagnostic guide for modern leaders on how to spot and fix hidden dysfunction.
OpenSpace Beta is a radical 90-day model for transforming hierarchical organisations into decentralised, self-organising teams. This practical summary explains how invitation, Open Space Technology and peer governance replace command-and-control, enabling faster decisions, stronger engagement and real ownership in complex environments.
Organisations behave like living systems, not machines. The Complexity Leadership Library introduces twenty-five leadership capabilities for leading complex adaptive systems under uncertainty.
Most teams are told they need a vision. But many teams quietly lose trust, clarity, and meaning because of it. This article explains when vision helps, when it harms, and what teams actually need instead.
Why do so many well-intentioned leadership resolutions fall apart by February? This article unpacks why traditional approaches to change fail and offers a design-based alternative grounded in behavioural science.
Mental models are often presented as the key to better leadership. But neuroscience and complexity science tell a different story. This article challenges the mental model myth and explores why leadership change comes from interaction, not introspection.
The Iceberg Model is one of the most enduring frameworks in systems thinking. But its promise, that by uncovering what lies beneath, leaders can solve complex problems, creates a dangerous illusion. It turns leadership into a technical exercise and overlooks the human, adaptive, and relational nature of real change. This article challenges the leadership myth embedded in the model and explores what it means to lead from within complexity, not above it.
Many leaders assume that silence means apathy or disengagement. But what if silence is something else entirely, a signal of caution, fear, or protection? This article challenges a persistent leadership myth and explores what silence really means, and what leaders can do in response.
Artificial intelligence is changing the nature of executive decision making and redefining what leaders contribute. This review highlights four leadership capabilities identified in new research that will help leaders navigate the growing presence of intelligent systems in their organisations.
Many leaders rely on the idea of “starting with why”, but this approach often oversimplifies how commitment forms. This article explains why purpose is not the starting point of leadership and shows how conversation, connection, and shared ownership build genuine engagement.
Many leaders still believe that a transformation programme can save an organisation, yet most large scale change efforts fail because they treat complex systems as if they can be controlled through planning. This article exposes the leadership myth at the heart of transformation, explains why organisations remain drawn to big programmes, and shows what research on complex adaptive systems reveals about how change really happens. It offers practical guidance for leaders who want to create real, sustainable transformation through learning, interaction, and shaped conditions rather than rigid roadmap
Many leaders still believe that a good plan guarantees successful change. This view, inherited from a more predictable era, persists in organisations that value control and certainty. Yet research from thinkers such as Kotter, Stacey, and Snowden shows that in complex environments, outcomes emerge through adaptation, not execution. This article explores why the myth endures, the costs of over-planning, and the practices that help leaders lead through learning rather than prediction.
Many leaders still describe culture as “soft stuff”, something intangible that sits alongside the real work of strategy, planning, and execution. Yet decades of organisational research show the opposite: culture is a powerful driver of behaviour, performance, and long term results. When leaders overlook it, they miss the hidden forces shaping how decisions are made, how people collaborate, and how strategy is interpreted. This article challenges the leadership myth that culture is soft, explores why the belief persists, and shows how culture functions as strategic infrastructure rather than atmosphere. It also offers reflective questions to help leaders bring culture back to the centre of their thinking.
The belief that people dislike change is one of leadership’s most persistent myths. In practice, people embrace change when it is meaningful, fair, and well supported. What they resist is loss, confusion, or inconsistency. This article unpacks the research, explores examples from organisations, and offers practical questions to help leaders design change that people can actually commit to.
A business case is more than a technical document. It is a moment of leadership that creates clarity, builds trust, and earns genuine commitment. This guide explores practical principles for shaping a compelling business case that people believe in and want to support.
Many leaders still inherit the idea that they must have all the answers. It is a belief shaped by the industrial age, reinforced by organisational culture, and sustained by our collective discomfort with uncertainty. Yet research from thinkers such as Heifetz, Senge, and Edmondson shows that knowing is not the work of leadership. The real task is to create the conditions where people can think, learn, and sense what the system needs next. This article explores why the myth endures, the cost of pretending to know, and the practices that help leaders move from answer giver to steward of shared insight.
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it” is one of the most persistent leadership myths. Often attributed to Peter Drucker, it distorts his thinking. This essay explores why measurement brings comfort but not always insight, and why true leadership begins where data ends.
“What gets measured gets managed” is one of leadership’s most quoted lines, often credited to Peter Drucker. Yet the phrase hides a deeper truth. Measurement can guide or distort, depending on intent. When leaders use data to learn rather than to control, numbers become tools for meaning. This article explores how to build a healthier relationship with metrics in complex organisations.
The phrase “people don’t leave jobs; they leave managers” feels true, but it tells only part of the story. This article unpacks the evidence behind the myth, revealing how turnover reflects not just bad bosses but broken systems, poor design, and misaligned purpose. Explore what really drives people to stay, to leave, and to lead better.
"Culture eats strategy for breakfast” is one of the most quoted, and misquoted, lines in business. Peter Drucker never said it, yet it endures because it feels true. This essay explores where the phrase came from, what research really shows about culture and strategy, and why effective leaders treat them not as rivals but as partners in shaping organisational success
In a world of volatility and uncertainty, traditional planning falls short. This article explores how pilots, probes, and experiments help leaders navigate complexity, build resilience, and foster curiosity. Learn practical ways to turn uncertainty into a learning advantage through small, safe-to-fail actions that reveal what truly works.
Most teams build charters to align around purpose and values, yet the document often fades after the workshop. This guide explains practical shifts that turn team charters into living agreements that strengthen trust, clarity and collaboration.
Five Questions That Change Everything by John Scherer offers a simple reflective practice for authentic leadership and personal growth. This practical summary explores the five questions and how to use them in everyday work and life.
Like the woodcutter who paused to sharpen his axe, effective leaders know progress requires renewal. The SHARP EDGE framework helps teams reflect, refocus, and stay sharp over time.
Leadership maturity begins where control ends. The Circle of Control reminds us that what defines us is not what happens, but how we meet what happens. This piece explores the mindset that turns reaction into responsibility.
Discover how great leaders use the E + R = O formula: Event plus Response equals Outcome, to stay composed, intentional, and effective under pressure. Learn practical ways to lead with awareness, shape outcomes through choice, and build a culture of conscious leadership grounded in self-awareness and reflection.
Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team is one of the most popular leadership models today. Its simplicity and storytelling make it appealing, yet it misses how real teams grow. This article explores why the model falls short and introduces a more human, sustainable alternative: the Living Cycle of Team Effectiveness, built around Safety, Dialogue, Clarity, Accountability, and Learning to create lasting team performance.
Discover how Nancy Kline’s Ten Components of a Thinking Environment help leaders practise stewardship, build trust, and create shared responsibility.
Every tough situation we face has hope, if we are capable of standing back and seeing the possibility. A short piece on finding and creating hope.
Stewardship by Peter Block is a foundational work on shifting leadership from control to service. This practical summary highlights the ideas that support trust-based partnership, shared accountability and long-term responsibility in organisations.
A practical summary of Peter Block’s Community: The Structure of Belonging, highlighting the key ideas that help leaders, facilitators and community builders create genuine belonging, trust and shared ownership.
The book in 3 sentences The Empowered Manager is a practical guide for managers who want to lead with integrity, not control. It shows how managers can choose partnership over hierarchy, service over self-interest, and accountability over compliance. By making these personal shifts, managers can foster trust, ownership, and meaningful change, regardless of the system they work in. Who should read [...]
Link to Medium post: https://benzweibelson.medium.com/the-semiotic-square-and-systemic-logic-a-technique-for-multiple-futures-206b996cf30f
This is a hub of resources around mentoring. Within it you will find a range of links and recommendations that may help you on your journey to become a mentor or being an even better one. If you have any additional resources you think I should share, please let me know. A short selection of books that are worth [...]
The authors have uncovered ways to build high psychological safety and trust cultures in workplace teams. The rewards? Higher purpose and performance. — Read on www.talent-quarterly.com/in-team-we-trust/
Research around whole brain thinking and a simple coaching tool to support right brain thinking.
LINK to an article on "How to Assess Uncertainty in an Unpredictable World"
link to article on boundary management
» The IPK Design Kit — Read on www.i-p-k.co.za/ipk-design-kit/
Book summary of Stewardship
Maturity Mapping overview and its connection to cynefin and Wardley mapping
Link to a stakeholder mapping process
A series of blogs developed as tools for leaders from the Wharton Business School: https://whartonleadership.wordpress.com/2010/08/26/nano-tools-for-leaders/#more-64 Visual by Mara C one of the Drawify Team.
Link to an interesting article on productivity.
Link to some nice visual templates on storytelling
Link to the issue on Sustainable Leadership from Developing Leaders Quarterly
Link to a MITSloan article on collaboration failure
Link to the free self assessment to support reflection on career
Article link that explores "Connection before content"
