The Hand Tied Behind His Back
Welcome to another Toolkit Tuesday! Every week, our goal is to give you a practical leadership tool to put in your toolkit.
So There I Was . . .
Meeting with a manager I'm coaching, he told me about a team member at one of his locations who had a problem with how he was handling things. Instead of talking to him directly, they skipped him entirely and took it straight to leadership above him. Leadership listened and sided with the employee, without ever asking the obvious first question: have you talked to your manager about this yet?
When he brought it up with me, he was clear about what actually bothered him. Not that someone disagreed with him. Not even that they went around him. What got him was that leadership had the chance to send the conversation back to where it belonged and chose not to.
This wasn't a one time thing. He was hired to drive real change at his location: higher sales, better client satisfaction. Leadership wanted someone who could cast vision, build strategy and move people into the right roles to make it happen. He was exactly that guy. But almost since day one, leadership has been working against him in exactly this way: overriding decisions he's made, going straight to his team with their own direction, letting people skip him and take issues straight to corporate.
He kept performing well anyway. And in side conversations, regular meetings, the message kept coming back the same: he needed to do more.
We're still in the middle of this one. But it raises a question worth sitting with: when someone is doing everything right and still can't break through, is it really their resistance to overcome, or is the resistance coming from somewhere else entirely?
The Challenge
Here's the part that's easy to miss. When leadership sided with that employee without sending them back to talk to him first, they weren't just settling one complaint. They were showing everyone watching that going around him works.
That's the same pattern playing out anywhere a leader is dissatisfied enough to act, has a real vision and knows the next step, but still can't break through. The problem isn't inside them. Something outside of them is actively working against the change they're trying to make.
That's not a ‘them’ problem. That's a resistance problem. And resistance doesn't always look the same, which is exactly why it gets misdiagnosed so often.
The Tool: Change Equation
This is where the Change Equation earns its keep. It's a simple way to look at whether change is actually possible in a given situation, or whether you're just hoping it is.
Think of it this way. You need to be dissatisfied enough with how things are to actually want change. You need a clear picture of what better looks like. And you need a real next step, not just a feeling, but something you could actually go do tomorrow. Stack those three together and they should be strong enough to push past whatever is standing in your way. If you've got all three and you're still stuck, that tells you something. The resistance is bigger than you've accounted for.
In his case, the equation isn't close. His dissatisfaction is real, his vision is sharp and his next steps were already in motion before leadership started pulling them apart. By every measure on his side, he should be winning. The resistance just happens to be bigger and more stubborn than anyone accounted for at the hiring table.
Here's the part most people skip. Resistance isn't one thing, and it doesn't get solved the same way every time. We'll break down exactly what you're up against next week. For now, just notice that something specific is in the way, not something vague.
Why This Matters Now
Most leaders never get this far in the diagnosis. They see stalled progress and assume it's a willpower issue, in themselves or in someone they're leading. That assumption costs good people their confidence and costs good leaders their best talent, because nobody stopped to ask what kind of resistance they were actually fighting.
The Result
When you run the equation honestly, the conversation changes. Instead of "why aren't you doing more," it becomes "what's actually standing between you and the next step." That's a completely different conversation to have with your team, and it's a completely different one to have with yourself.
Take Action
First, pick one place right now where you or someone on your team feels stuck, and run it through the equation: dissatisfaction, vision, next step.
Second, let's talk through this together. Grab time on our calendar and we'll work through it together:
Closing the Loop
I still don't have a clean ending for his story. He's still showing up, still performing, still running into the same wall every time leadership steps back in. But I've got a hunch about what kind of resistance he's actually fighting. Next week, I'll tell you exactly what it is, along with the other two kinds you're probably dealing with somewhere in your own leadership right now.
