Leadership is full of real pressures.
In many of the organisations we work with, leaders describe long days spent in meetings, navigating regulatory complexity, responding to shifting priorities, managing the sheer volume of work that lands on their desk. The demands are real, and the system they’re operating in does often create genuine constraints.
And while recognising context is important, it’s not the same as surrendering to it. Over time, the line between the two can start to blur.
The drift into helplessness
This shift often happens gradually.
What starts as an honest reflection of complexity – “This is a difficult environment, and there are real challenges outside my control” – begins to harden into something else: “This is happening to me. There’s not much I can do.“
That subtle turn matters.
It allows capable leaders to position themselves as passive recipients of circumstance – victims of the system, simply doing their best to survive it. It can even feel virtuous as we feel we’re carrying the burden, absorbing the pressure. But it removes agency. And when that posture becomes embedded across leadership teams, it starts to erode ownership, slow decision-making, and create organisational drift.
It can feel safe in the moment; but over time, it leaves both individuals and teams increasingly stuck.
A broader cultural pattern
This dynamic doesn’t exist in isolation. It reflects a wider cultural pattern that’s become increasingly visible across sectors, institutions, and public discourse.
The emphasis on systemic factors – whether organisational, social, or political – has grown substantially over the past decade. While these factors clearly play a role, the risk is that we begin to frame every difficulty as primarily the product of external forces.
In this framing, the individual is largely acted upon by their environment. The language of trauma, burnout, and systemic oppression – all of which have real validity in many cases – can, when over-extended, become part of a cultural narrative that quietly displaces personal responsibility. The result is a loss of agency, where individuals and teams view themselves as trapped inside systems they cannot influence.
Jonathan Haidt and others have described elements of this as a form of “safetyism” – where the focus on external causes can, over time, undermine resilience, growth, and personal accountability.
For leaders, this narrative becomes particularly limiting. Because leadership, by definition, requires conscious choice inside complexity. When all responsibility is externalised, the work of leadership effectively stops.
Reclaiming agency
A significant part of our work with both individuals and leadership teams centres on exactly this point: reclaiming choice, agency, and accountability inside the system they’re in.
The system may well be imperfect. The regulator may be difficult. The market may be volatile. Internal politics may exist. But once these realities are acknowledged, the next step isn’t simply to endure them – it’s to decide what leadership looks like in the face of them.
- What is within my control?
- Where do I have influence?
- What decisions am I making, regardless of external conditions?
Leaders who can operate from this position – holding complexity without surrendering to it – are the ones who create movement. They make decisions, shape outcomes, and retain clarity on what they’re accountable for, rather than waiting for the system to change.
Leadership is choice(s)
The unaccountable victim who nobly survives a difficult system may sound sympathetic, but it’s not a helpful posture for leaders or organisations.
Leadership isn’t the absence of challenge. It’s the ability to navigate through it – to take ownership where ownership exists, and to act within the realities of the system, rather than waiting for those realities to change.