What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: Why Leaders Stall and How to Change Course

Jessica Brown Ph. D
Dec 22, 2025
3 min read

Every December brings a pause. Calendars slow. Meetings thin out. And leaders finally have the space to look up from execution and ask a harder question:

Did we actually accomplish what we set out to do?

For many organizations, the answer is complicated.

Progress was made but not at the level expected. Big goals were discussed, but selectively achieved. The ambition was there, but the results didn’t fully follow.

This isn’t a failure of effort. It’s a failure of evolution.

The Reality Leaders Don’t Like to Admit

What created success in the past often becomes outdated faster than leaders expect.

Markets shift. Talent expectations change. Complexity increases. But leadership behaviors, decision patterns, and performance systems tend to stay the same.

This gap explains why so many executives feel like they’re running faster, yet gaining less ground.

According to McKinsey, 70% of transformation initiatives fail, not because of flawed strategy, but due to execution breakdowns tied to leadership alignment, capability, and behavior change.

In other words: organizations don’t stall because they aim too low, they stall because they lead the same way in a different reality.

Why Leaders Don’t Accomplish What They Intended

Across industries, several consistent patterns emerge.

1. Strategy Outpaces Behavior

Harvard Business Review reports that only 5% of employees fully understand their organization’s strategy.

When leaders assume clarity without verification, teams execute based on interpretation, not alignment. The result is motion without momentum.

2. Success Masks Weaknesses

Past wins create confidence, but they can also hide systemic issues.

A global manufacturing firm with had strong financials, yet struggles with missed deadlines and inconsistent quality. Leaders assumed the issues were isolated. In reality, success had allowed unclear expectations and inconsistent accountability to persist, until growth exposed the cracks.

3. Leadership Habits Lag Behind Complexity

As organizations scale, leadership must shift from doing to enabling, from directing to diagnosing.

Yet Gallup research shows that only 1 in 10 managers naturally possess the skills needed to manage effectively.

Without intentional development, leaders rely on habits that worked earlier, but fail at the next level.

4. Reflection Is Replaced by Urgency

End-of-year insight often fades by February.

Why? Because urgency crowds out intentional change. Without structured reflection and reinforcement, leaders default to familiar patterns under pressure.

The Cost of Not Changing

When organizations carry old behaviors into a new year, they pay for it in subtle but serious ways:

Plateauing performance despite increased effort
High-potential talent disengaging or leaving
Managers overwhelmed by complexity
Strategy becoming aspirational instead of operational

Deloitte research shows that organizations with strong leadership alignment are 2.3 times more likely to outperform peers financially.

Alignment isn’t a nice-to-have—it’s a growth lever.

How Leaders Shift from “Here” to “There” in the New Year

High-performing organizations don’t just set new goals, they change how leadership shows up.

Here’s what that shift looks like.

1. Replace Assumptions with Clarity

Clear expectations are defined by observable outcomes, not intentions.

Tip: Ask leaders to answer one question consistently:

“What does success look like, and how will we know we’re there?”

If answers vary, alignment doesn’t exist yet.

2. Diagnose Before You Drive

When performance stalls, pressure is the instinctive response.

Effective leaders diagnose first:

Is this a skill issue?
A clarity issue?
A motivation or confidence gap?

Case in point: A healthcare organization reduced manager burnout by 18% after shifting from directive leadership to diagnostic performance conversations.