Co-Written by Brandon James Mergard & Laurent Hoeberigs — from the forthcoming book “Less Control, More Impact”
“My environment had outgrown the leadership model that once made me successful.”
I heard this in different words, from different leaders, across different industries. Yet, the recognition was always the same. Not failure, nor crisis. Just an unsettling truth: what got them here, was no longer enough.
Maybe you recognize it too.
Do any of these sound familiar?
You are working harder, but the leverage isn’t there.
You are delivering results, but the relationships feel transactional.
You are doing everything right, yet how you are leading feels borrowed rather than chosen.
You are telling people where to go, but they are not really following.
If you nodded at one of these, you are not failing. You are in transition. And you are not alone.
Over the past 12 months, I interviewed more than 25 senior leaders – from Bayer to LinkedIn, and from ASML to Schneider Electric – about the moment their leadership fundamentally shifted. Every conversation, regardless of industry or personality, pointed to the same shift:
- Early career impact comes from content: expertise, delivery and problem solving
- Senior level impact comes from context: shaping systems, cultures and relationships
This transition goes beyond behavior and into identity. And it is significant.
The future is no longer an extrapolation of the past
Markets are becoming more dynamic and more fragile, more promising and more unpredictable, all at the same time. In PwC’s 29th Global CEO Survey¹, only three in ten CEOs say they are confident about revenue growth over the next 12 months – down from 56% in 2022. Over 40% say their companies have started to compete in new sectors in the last five years. The boundaries of competition are dissolving faster than leaders can redraw them – and faster than most organizations can adapt.
At the same time, workforce expectations have fundamentally shifted. Millennials and Generation Z – projected to represent 74% the workforce by 2030² – are redefining what ‘good work’ means. These generations consistently prioritize purpose, well-being and learning over traditional markers of success. When the purpose is absent or unclear, they disengage quickly – not out of entitlement but out of incongruency with their values.
The environment changed. The leadership model, in most cases, did not.
Less Control, More Impact
To lead effectively at executive altitude, five fundamental shifts are required. Each one describes a real tension – a moment where old strengths stop scaling and a new way of leading is demanded.
- From Ladder to Terrain: How do I lead with direction when the path itself is no longer clear? The ladder takes you up to a predefined destination. Terrain is something you read, navigate and serve. It includes the people around you, the organization beneath you, and the context that surrounds you.
- From Content to Context: How do I drive better decisions when I’m no longer the smartest person in the room, nor should I be? Early career success rewards having the answer. The executive boardroom is full of people with answers. What’s scarce is the leader who can shape the environment where the right answers emerge.
- From Results to Relations: How do I achieve more through the organization, when I’m less and less at the controls? At executive altitude, performance at scale is no longer built through personal effort – it is built through the people, the systems and alliances around you.
- From Self to Stakeholders: How do I multiply impact when my own perspective is limited? The question shifts from ‘what works for me’ to ‘what creates value for those that I serve’. This is not selflessness for its own sake — it is the recognition that impact at scale requires a fundamentally outward orientation.
- From Direction to Design: How do I get others to step up and own solutions, rather than waiting for me to hand them down? Telling people where to go reaches its limits quickly, in particular at the executive level. Designing the system that gets them there – the culture, the structures, the conditions for good decisions – is what scales.
Every leader I interviewed described them not as abstract ideas but as lived tensions – the moments where their previous identity as a leader no longer served them. The question isn’t whether you need to make these shifts. It is where you are in each of them right now.
A Different Kind of Power
The next decade will reward leaders who amplify enterprise strength by stepping back: creating clarity amid chaos, trust amid tension and systems that outlast them. Leaders who scale impact without scaling control. Leaders who make the organization stronger by making themselves less central.
This is a different kind of power, not a loss of power. The question isn’t “How much control can I retain?” but “How much impact do I unleash by releasing it?”
It’s the transition every leader navigates, yet few articulate:
Less Control, More Impact.
