Excuse #8: I Don't Need to Change, They Do

Perhaps the most telling excuse I hear is when leaders say “I don’t need to change, my team does.” Although many leaders don't say it that plainly.

The Real Challenge This belief protects leaders from vulnerability, but culture is shaped from the top down. If leaders resist change, the organization will too. The culture inside the leaders shapes the culture in the organization.

 If we are unwilling to consider that we as leaders should be the first to model change and growth, then our people aren’t the culture problem. We are.

The Consequence According to McLean & Company’s Future of Work Report 2025, 73% of leaders believe their skill sets will need to change completely or almost completely by 2030. Yet despite this awareness, only 32% of organizations report being highly effective at developing their leaders (HR Trends 2025, McLean & Company). The acknowledgment is there, but the follow-through is missing. This gap happens when we prioritize products over people or work over development. We as leaders are easily guilty of this for ourselves. We would rather do tasks than face the discomfort of facing our gaps and building new skills. 

This avoidance of growth in our own life, reinforces a cultural expectation in our organizations that people should "just do their job."

When we commit to our own development, we can bring our organizations with us and together we can become a flourishing team.

The Reframe Shift to: “I’ll grow alongside my team and lead by example.”

Culture work begins with personal change; listening better, communicating clearly, or showing humility. When we create the opportunity for feedback and learning on how our team is experiencing our leadership we can begin to shift our team to be more open to meaningful development too. 

Our bottom line, our products, and our capacity to adapt to industry changes, all improve when we grow together.

A Practical Step Ask your team for clear and kind feedback on one behaviour you would like to improve. Take the time to understand the impact this behaviour has on your team members, gain insight on what shifts would be valuable to your team. Commit to one change and ask for accountability. It can be small, for example:

I commit to: When I lead a meeting, instead of approaching from a place of giving updates and directions, I will ask for and listen to input before making final decisions.

What is one commitment you would dare to make?