Do You Recognize When Something Feels Off?

Most leadership development is taught as strategy, communication, and decision-making. But long before any of that comes online, something else determines the quality of a leader:

• Do they recognize when something feels off?
• Do they have the language and courage to name it?

Because the moment a person overrides their internal alarm system in order to be polite, agreeable, or to avoid losing status, they begin to abandon judgment.

And leadership without judgment is performance.

I watch this everywhere in executive life. Brilliant people. Extraordinary resumes. Ignoring what they know in their bones.

– A meeting that shouldn’t be happening.
– A hire that doesn’t feel right.
– A partnership that looks perfect, on paper.
– A culture issue everyone is pretending not to see.

Awareness precedes action.

Learning to recognize when something feels off — and having language for it — is leadership development in disguise.

If we taught this earlier and reinforced it more often, we would prevent an enormous amount of damage inside organizations.

We would also grow braver, healthier, and more effective humans.

For more: susannebiro.com/book