The state you lead from is the strategy

Executive leaders have been taught to lead change as an external exercise. Change often centers on refining strategy, redesigning structures, implementing new systems, and driving execution. These elements matter, but they aren’t where change succeeds and fails. Because despite decades of effort, the data hasn’t meaningfully shifted. Famous research from McKinsey & Company shows that roughly 70% of change initiatives fail. What’s more interesting is what differentiates the 30% that do succeed. It isn’t strategy, it’s a deeper focus on the mindsets and behaviors of the people experiencing the change.

Leaders don’t lead plans, they lead people. Which means the real variable in any transformation isn’t the strategy itself, it’s the internal state of the person leading it and the impact that state has on the people inside the organization. This is the part of leadership that is rarely named, and even more rarely developed. Leaders are trained to think strategically, make decisions, solve problems, and communicate clearly. But they are almost never trained in how to lead themselves in moments of pressure, uncertainty, and change. And yet, that internal state is constantly shaping the environment around them.

A leader’s presence, their relationship to control, their ability to tolerate ambiguity, and their capacity to stay open under pressure are not personal traits that stay internall. They are systemic and culture shaping forces. Leaders set the tone for how others think, feel, and behave. When a leader comes to me with a “culture problem” , especially during change, we start by looking inside the leader. The internal state of the leader directly impacts the organization and culture. What’s missing is not more effort. It’s a different relationship to presence.

Pressure will likely never be eliminated from leadership. It’s just the nature of it. We can, however, transform how we relate to it. When we relate to leadership from a place of presence, it creates significant change. Presence means you’re able to stay with what’s happening without immediately bringing urgency or reactivity. You can tolerate not knowing, not having the answer, and listening without rushing to fix.

And that shift begins with a moment of awareness: Where am I leading from right now?

Because the moment a leader notices they are in pressure, they gain access to something most leadership models don’t account for…choice. The ability to pause, to open, to get curious, and to shift. From there, everything downstream changes. People think more clearly, dialogue becomes more honest, ownership increases, and resistance becomes something to understand rather than something to push through. Change stops feeling like something being imposed and starts becoming something people participate in.

This is not about technique. It’s about presence. And presence is not neutral, it’s contagious. But so is pressure. Which means whether you realize it or not, you are always shaping the system around you. At the end of the day, people don’t align to the plan, they align to the state of the person leading it. And in moments of change, every leader is faced with the same choice: lead from pressure, and the system will contract; lead from presence, and the system can open.

The results will tell you which one you chose.