Most senior leaders do not struggle to change because they lack insight. They often know exactly what is wrong: a difficult conversation is overdue; their reactions under pressure are affecting the team; or a familiar organisational pattern is weakening performance.

Yet the behaviour continues.

Across more than 35 years of working with leaders and organisations in 65 countries, I have found that persistent behaviour is rarely evidence of unwillingness or incapacity. More often, it is serving a function – and the surrounding context continues to reward, permit or protect it.

The behaviour may be costly, but it is rarely irrational.

The behaviour is doing a job

Avoidance may protect a relationship or reduce immediate political risk. Over-control may create a temporary sense of certainty. Silence may preserve status or belonging. Taking responsibility for everything may sustain an identity built around competence and indispensability.

This changes the diagnostic question. Instead of asking only, “Why is this person not changing?”, I ask: “What is this behaviour protecting, preventing or making possible?”

Until that function is understood, an intervention may address the visible symptom while leaving the pattern intact. A leader can learn a better communication technique and still abandon it when the emotional, relational or political cost feels too high.

Pressure reveals the real pattern

Experienced leaders usually know that they should listen before reacting, address problems early and give clear feedback. The difficulty is applying that knowledge when they are tired, threatened, frustrated or politically exposed.

Under pressure, people tend to return to what has been rehearsed most often. A leader who has spent years responding to challenge with explanation, defensiveness or withdrawal will not reliably become curious because curiosity was discussed in a workshop.

Research supports this distinction. Behaviour depends not only on motivation, but also on capability and opportunity. Specific “if-then” plans and repeated practice make intended behaviour more likely to occur. Insight can reveal the pattern; it does not build the new response.

The organisation may be sustaining the problem

Leadership behaviour never exists in isolation. An organisation may ask managers to hold people accountable while rewarding only short-term delivery. It may promote openness while penalising those who surface uncomfortable information. It may teach delegation while senior leaders continue to intervene in every consequential decision.

When the same difficulty appears across several leaders or teams, I stop asking only what is wrong with the individuals. I examine what the system is teaching, rewarding or making risky.

This matters particularly in multinational institutions. The meaning of directness, disagreement, hierarchy and accountability is shaped by professional culture, language, institutional history and the perceived consequences of challenging authority. Culture matters, but it should never become a stereotype or a substitute for diagnosis.

What sustainable change actually requires

Sustainable behavioural change is a disciplined process:

Diagnose the pattern. Identify the observable behaviour, its triggers, underlying assumptions and the conditions keeping it in place.

Connect it to performance. Make the consequences visible: delayed decisions, tolerated underperformance, weakened authority, loss of trust or avoidable escalation.

Define the alternative precisely. “Communicate better” is not an objective. “Address missed commitments promptly, describe their impact, clarify expectations and agree follow-up” is observable and practicable.

Practise in the real context. Prepare the actual conversation, rehearse likely responses, regulate emotional triggers and seek feedback.

Reinforce until it becomes reliable. Review, refine and repeat. The aim is greater capacity to handle similar situations with progressively less support.

A leadership example

In one senior leadership coaching assignment, a director was managing an experienced team member who repeatedly disregarded guidance, blurred role boundaries and undermined her authority. She already understood that the situation required action. Insight was not the missing ingredient.

We analysed the cultural and relational context, recognised the emotional triggers, reframed the issue around professional standards, clarified expected behaviour and rehearsed the bilateral discussion. Over three months, the focus remained on follow-through: clearer boundaries, constructive feedback and consistent managerial accountability.

The outcome was not simply one completed conversation. The director became better able to address similar behaviour earlier and with less external support – the difference between solving an immediate problem and strengthening leadership capability.

From insight to performance enablement

Too much leadership development stops at awareness. A workshop, assessment or coaching conversation creates insight; then the leader returns to the same incentives, relationships and pressures that produced the behaviour.

The bridge to sustainable performance is contextual application: precise diagnosis, real practice, constructive challenge, aligned organisational conditions and reinforcement over time.

This is where leadership coaching becomes performance enablement: helping leaders recognise the patterns affecting judgement, accountability and relationships – and change what happens when it matters most.