The Better Leaders Paradox: Six shifts organizations can act on now

In a world of relentless complexity, disruption, and human exhaustion, organizations are asking a vital question: How do we create better leaders today? 

But when people ask for “better” – what do they really mean? 

New research at Hult Ashridge Executive Education – The Better Leaders Paradox – set out to answer this question. Drawing on the voices of 350 leaders and employees across global industries, their collective message is unmistakable. To be a “better” leader today is not about adding more competencies or rhetoric. It’s about making a shift in how leadership is practiced every day. 

“Better” leadership, as our data shows, goes beyond individual personality or performance. It points to a deeper, system-level opportunity – one that enables organizations to strengthen culture, improve performance, and sustain people’s energy in uncertain times. 

The research revealed another intriguing truth: to become “better” is to embrace imperfection alongside improvement. “Better” doesn’t mean perfect. It means continuous evolution, requiring the courage to unlearn, adapt, and stay human in the process. The moment we arrive at one horizon, another appears. This is the paradox at the heart of leadership today.  

The challenge now is: how do organizations create the conditions for these shifts to happen? 

From the analysis of more than 1,000 qualitative responses from 350 participants, six major shifts emerged, revealing what leaders need to do differently to thrive in today’s complex and uncertain environment. These shifts signal a move away from outdated habits of control, overwork, and busyness toward leadership practices rooted in trust, strategy, and care. 

Together, they paint a picture of leadership as a relational and systemic endeavor – one that depends as much on organizational culture and design as it does on individual intent. Each shift represents not just a behavioral adjustment, but a deeper reorientation of how leadership is understood, developed, and rewarded across the organization. 

Below, the six shifts are explored in detail – and what organizations can practically do now to make them real. 

Across all roles and regions, micromanagement was the single biggest frustration. Leaders recognize that over-control stifles growth, yet organizational systems often reinforce it through layers of approval, performance pressure, and the myth that control equals competence. 

The research revealed a shared fatigue with this pattern. Leaders want more freedom to think, experiment, and take ownership without fear of being second-guessed. One respondent summed it up simply: “Give me the space to do the job you hired me to do.” 

Trust emerged as the new currency of effectiveness, the foundation on which sustainable performance depends. It defines how decisions are made, how accountability is shared, and how teams learn from mistakes. When leaders create conditions where trust can thrive, they release both capability and energy. As one participant put it, employees want “leaders who give autonomy, not anxiety.”  

What organizations can do: 

• Redesign decision-rights so teams understand where they have autonomy and where they don’t. Make it visible and simple. 

• Develop leaders with “delegate-with-support” frameworks rather than “delegate-and-hope.” 

• Reward outcomes, not oversight – shift performance reviews to emphasize trust-based accountability. 

• Introduce mutual accountability tools (shared dashboards, learning reviews) to maintain clarity without control. 

Perhaps the most hopeful theme in the data was leaders’ own desire to coach, not correct. Many spoke about wanting to shift from “telling” to “developing”. It reflects a growing recognition that people thrive when they are supported to find their own answers rather than being told what to do. 

This shift marks a turning point in how leadership is understood. Coaching is no longer a remedial tool or the preserve of HR – it has become a defining practice of effective leadership. When done well, it builds confidence, strengthens relationships, and fosters accountability. 

Coaching has evolved from a specialist skill to an everyday mindset – a way of leading through curiosity, listening, and growth. It invites leaders to slow down just enough to ask better questions, notice strengths, and turn feedback into forward movement. The future of leadership is enabling, not directing. Coaching builds capacity, resilience and belonging – it’s how you scale trust. 

What organizations can do: 

• Embed coaching skills development for all people leaders – short, practical, and feedback-rich. 

• Replace annual appraisals with frequent micro-conversations that combine recognition and growth. 

• Offer coaching toolkits and scripts to support meaningful performance dialogues. 

• Recognize and reward developmental leadership (mentoring, talent building, team growth) in promotion criteria. 

Employees across every level said they wanted more clarity, more context, and more honesty from their leaders. They want leaders who explain the why, not just the what. As one participant said: “Stop withholding information. Start explaining decisions.” 

The research revealed that silence, whether intentional or unintentional, breeds uncertainty. When communication is inconsistent, people fill the gaps with assumptions – often negative ones. In complex, fast-moving environments, that lack of clarity erodes confidence, alignment, and trust faster than almost anything else. When leaders communicate with transparency and curiosity, they create a shared sense of purpose and build psychological safety. 

Employees aren’t asking for a stream of updates, presentations or perfectly crafted messages – they want genuine, two-way conversation with leaders who bring them into the story, share the reasoning behind their choices, and create spaces where questions are welcomed rather than feared.  

People can handle tough messages – what they can’t handle is silence. 

What organizations can do: 

• Set a “minimum viable communication standard” – frequency, format, and follow-up expectations for all leaders. 

• Develop leaders in high-impact, human communication – especially across hybrid and global teams. 

• Encourage two-way dialogue with regular listening spaces: pulse checks, feedback roundtables, and skip-level meetings between a direct report and their manager’s manager  

• Make communication quality a leadership metric, not an afterthought. 

Many participants felt “stuck in the weeds,” overwhelmed by meetings, emails, and short-term firefighting. They described days filled with activity but little time for reflection, of calendars that rewarded urgency over importance. What people want from leaders is the space to think strategically – to pause, prioritize, and look ahead. As one participant reflected, “We need less firefighting, more horizon scanning.” 

Our data showed this gap acutely. “Strategic thinking” ranked among the top three aspirations leaders had for themselves, and was also one of the most requested behaviors employees wanted from their own managers. So, leaders know strategic work is missing, but often feel trapped in systems that make it the first casualty of pressure.  

When leaders are given permission and structure to step back from constant delivery, something powerful happens. Clarity returns. Teams gain direction. Decisions become intentional rather than reactive. This shift isn’t about slowing down, it’s about directing energy where it matters most, so people and organizations can move with purpose instead of pace. 

What organizations can do: 

• Protect “strategy hours” in leaders’ diaries for deep thinking and reflection. 

• Reduce meeting overload and make agendas, outcomes, and attendance discipline a requirement. 

• Provide one-page strategy tools and horizon-scanning templates to simplify complex decisions. 

• Align KPIs to long-term impact, not just quarterly outputs, so strategic work is rewarded rather than squeezed out. 

The strongest signal in the entire dataset was a plea for balance. Across all demographics, well-being and morale were the most cited priorities (mentioned twice as often as any other theme).  

The message is clear: people are exhausted, and they want leaders who pay attention not only to outcomes but to the human energy that makes those outcomes possible. They want leaders who notice workload and emotional strain, who step in early when pressure becomes unsustainable, and who model what healthy performance looks like.  

As one respondent noted, “When my manager works through the night, it tells me I should too.” The reverse is also true: when leaders protect their own time and energy, they create space for others to do the same. When leaders show that they value rest as much as results, they normalize sustainable effort. When they manage their own boundaries visibly, they send a powerful signal that balance isn’t weakness, it’s wisdom. 

What organizations can do: 

• Integrate well-being checkpoints into one-to-ones (“How sustainable does this feel right now?”). 

• Establish recovery norms: quiet hours, meeting-free zones, and workload reviews. 

• Equip leaders to spot burnout signals through targeted awareness training. 

• Model calm, boundary-setting behavior at senior levels, making well-being visible, not invisible. 

In an era where visibility and performance pressure are high, many leaders find themselves caught between projecting confidence and staying real. Our research shows that what people respond to most isn’t polish or perfection, but authenticity and genuine humanity. 

Employees described a deep desire for leaders who show humility, admit mistakes, and lead with integrity. They want leaders who “walk the talk,” whose actions align with their words, and who treat others with fairness and respect. At its heart, authenticity means bringing the same self to every interaction, no matter who’s in the room. 

Humility, fairness, and integrity consistently surfaced as the foundations of trust. When leaders show up with openness rather than ego, they create the psychological safety and credibility that make real collaboration possible. 

What organizations can do: 

• Make values-based leadership visible through stories, not slogans. 

• Hold senior leaders to the same behavioral standards as everyone else. 

• Integrate 360° feedback so leaders hear how their behavior truly lands. 

• Embed integrity and fairness into leadership KPIs. 

Across all six shifts, one pattern is clear: leaders can’t do this alone. Building better leaders is a collective endeavor, one that relies on organizational design as much as individual intent. 

Most organizations still ask leaders to embody trust and empathy while rewarding them for control and efficiency. Until those systems align, “better” leadership remains an aspiration, not a reality. 

The findings from The Better Leaders Paradox highlight a clear truth: better leadership isn’t something we define in words, but something we build through design and intent. By embracing these six shifts, organizations can create the conditions where leaders, teams, and strategies not only perform, but thrive. 

Because when leadership becomes a living, learning system, better leaders don’t just build better teams. They build better organizations.