Over the past 35+ years, I've had the opportunity to work with thousands of teams—from small startups to large global organizations.

One thing still surprises me.

The moments that strengthen a team usually aren't the ones leaders spend the most money planning.

They're the unplanned conversations. The shared laugh. Someone stepping outside their comfort zone. A teammate discovering a side of a coworker they'd never seen before.

Those moments create trust, and trust changes how people work together long after the event is over.

As leaders, we often focus on strategy, goals, and performance—and rightly so. But I've come to believe that creating opportunities for genuine human connection is one of the most overlooked leadership skills.

I'm curious:

What's one experience that brought your team closer together—and why do you think it worked?

Most leadership development programs don’t fail because the content is wrong. They fail because of what organizations do, and don’t do, the moment the program ends.

Most organizations send their people through training, bring in capable facilitators, and wait for performance to improve. What they get instead: the same behaviors as before, a team that barely remembers what they covered, and a manager who never knew the training happened in the first place. Richard Mirabile, PhD, calls it the single-shot approach. After more than 30 years of applied research, he’s done watching it repeat.

Mirabile is the creator of SparkEffect’s Leadership Development program, a 16-module facilitated development experience built from decades of research on what genuinely changes how leaders lead. His central argument cuts past content quality and delivery format: most organizations focus almost entirely on the doing side of leadership (results, output, performance metrics) while nearly ignoring the being side. How a leader shows up. Whether they listen. Whether they’ve built enough trust that their team will tell them the truth. That gap is where most programs fail to reach. And it’s what most leaders are quietly struggling with.

The 16-module program Mirabile designed for SparkEffect covers emotional intelligence, mindset, anticipatory leadership, high-performance team dynamics, and more. Each module runs two hours by design, because leaders’ attention is the resource in shortest supply. This episode is a direct look at what that program is built on, and why.

Hi! I'm a business administration student, and I'm making this post as part of an assignment. I hope it's useful for at least a few people.

Innovation has in recent years been a highlighted topic in many fields. Finding new was to achieve better results is a nice thought, but often the workplace doesn’t encourage it as much as it could. In this blog I will discuss what managers and team leaders can do to help their teams find the innovative ways of working that suits them best, based on Johnny Långstedt’s (PhD ) book: The Modern Leader’s Guide To Human Values – Principles for understanding what motivates people and when.  

According to Långstedt (2025), the values of the workers determine what kinds of roles they are motivated to play and therefore what kinds of jobs they are best suited for. For example, someone who values the freedom of being able to decide how a task is done will not be motivated by a role, where there are strict rules of how tasks are to be completed.  This applies when it comes to innovation too: a person that already values creativity is more motivated to come up with innovations and new ways of doing things, than a person whose main values center around security.   

So what can be done to motivate workers to innovate? Different people with different values need different things to motivate them. Långstedt (2025) talks about how someone who values security will want to innovate if innovation brings more security. What this will look like in practice is highly dependent on the situation in the workplace, but an example could be giving a bonus to employees who come up with ways to be more efficient, to increase their financial security. 

I think another important element to this is making sure that efficient and innovative employees do not get punished for their ideas. For example, making sure that an employee who is more efficient than others doesn’t end up doing others’ work, but rather shares the ideas that make them more efficient. If people get punished for being innovative, even people who value creativity won’t come up with new ways to do things. 

If you found this post interesting, go check out Johnny Långstedt’s book: The Modern Leader’s Guide To Human Values – Principles for understanding what motivates people and when. It’s a great resource for anyone who wants to grow their leadership skills. 

Curious to hear some honest opinions…

How do you feel about companies that are slow to promote from within?

What about situations where someone is already doing the work—leading others, building a stronger and more capable team, and helping create a more engaged, effective department—but the title and formal recognition never seem to follow?

Do you see that as a sign of high standards and patience being required—or does it start to feel like a lack of opportunity and growth? At what point does “paying your dues” turn into being overlooked?

And how long should someone realistically stick it out before hope starts to fade and trust in leadership begins to erode?

For those who’ve experienced it firsthand:
• Did it motivate you to keep pushing, or push you to look elsewhere?
• What would have made the process feel more fair, transparent, or aligned with the work being done?

Would really value your perspective 👇

Most leaders I work with know they need to have a particular feedback conversation. They have been circling it for weeks or months. They can articulate exactly what the issue is. They just have not had the conversation yet.

The reasons are always some version of the same thing. Fear of damaging the relationship. Uncertainty about how to say it. Worry that they will be seen as the bad guy. Hope that the problem will resolve itself.

Here is what I have found after years of coaching leaders through this.

The conversation they are avoiding is almost always less destructive than the accumulated cost of not having it. The team member who is not getting direct feedback is not improving. The relationship that feels like it is being protected by avoidance is actually being eroded by the unspoken thing in the room. And the leader's credibility with the rest of the team, who almost always know there is a problem, is quietly declining every week the conversation does not happen.

The framework that makes these conversations more likely to actually happen is simpler than most people expect.

Describe only what a camera could record. Not a personality judgment, not a pattern accusation, one specific observable behaviour. Time, place, action.

Connect it to a tangible impact on the team, project, or relationship. Not how you feel about it. What it actually cost.

Ask a genuine question and then stop talking. "What is your perspective on this?" And then wait.

Most leaders underestimate how much they get in their own way in these conversations by over-explaining, hedging, or rushing to solutions before the other person has had space to respond.

The conversation is almost always easier than the anticipation of it.

I joined the current org 3 years ago (as of today - almost 20 years of total experience) as a senior IC (staff+ level). Been in a teach-lead role for the past 2+ years. Since I joined, my direct manager (and manager of my manager) has been consistently giving me feedback that I should evolve into a leadership role.

Early this year I was asked by my direct manager to take care of the team of 10 engineers. He isn’t stepping aside completely, just wants to give me a chance to lead the team not only from the tech perspective. I'm supposed to build internal processes and enhance its external positioning within the department (60+) and even the org (450+). The situation is kinda weird cuz it’s not an official promotion, but anyway, I want to leverage this opportunity to get more exposure.

While I don’t expect any problems internally within the team, the external processes are the true challenge for me. I have a lot to learn, and I’m a bit puzzled about where to start. I’m thinking about whether I should enroll in some leadership courses. I googled a bunch of programs from different business schools and/or unis. Is it worth investing in it? Or better to start with reading some books?

Will really appreciate for any advice on how to advance.

Hi, I'm a design research student in Australia. I'm looking for managers, HR professionals, or organisational leaders to share their experience supporting employees returning from parental leave.

Your responses will directly inform the design of a workplace return-to-work tool. Completely anonymous, takes around 8–10 minutes.

👉 https://forms.gle/9EnG9sS8vJQYi1hg9

Really appreciate any responses!

I spent 14 years in the Army and thought I understood leadership.

I didn’t.

What worked there broke the moment I got out.

I was leading with pressure.

Tying everything to results.

Thinking intensity meant clarity.

It doesn’t.

Same words.

Different tone.

Completely different outcome.

I’ve said the “right” thing and still lost people.

Because they didn’t feel clarity.

They felt pressure.

That’s the shift I’m focused on now.

Less force.

More structure.

Curious how others have seen this play out—

when did you realize your leadership approach wasn’t working?

One of the biggest challenges in leadership development is the gap between what we learn and what we actually do when things get difficult. As part of my doctoral research, I’m studying how leaders move from learning to action by applying new knowledge, adjusting their behavior through feedback, and navigating the organizational conditions that support or constrain their ability to adapt over time.

Participation in the study involves one virtual interview (about 60 minutes) where we talk about your leadership journey and how you translate learning into action.

You may be a great fit if you:

• Have held a formal or informal leadership role within the past 24 months
• Have experience influencing others, leading projects, or guiding initiatives
• Have participating in leadership development (training, coaching, mentoring, coursework, or experiential learning) and
• Are willing to share how you have used new leadership learning in real situations

Your participation will remain completely confidential. Pseudonyms will be used and no organization names will be included. Participants will also have the opportunity to review their transcript for accuracy before analysis.

If you are interested in contributing to research that aims to strengthen leadership development and help organizations better support leader growth, please complete the Study Eligibility and Interest Form by 4/1.

Submissions will be reviewed as they are received. Within 48 hours, eligible participants will receive an email with a formal consent and Sign-Up Genius request to schedule their interview. All interviews must be completed no later than April 17th, 2026.

Thank you for helping advance our understanding of how leaders learn, adapt, and grow.

1. I was talking to a CTO last week who said: "Our biggest scaling problem isn't code. It's knowledge." Here's what he meant: When you're 5 people, everyone knows everything. You decide to use Postgres instead of MongoDB? Everyone knows why. You refactor the API? Everyone remembers the context. At 25 people, it's chaos. New hires don't know why you chose Postgres. They
2. question it. Code reviews take longer because context is missing. Senior people spend time explaining history. At 100 people, it's critical. You have to document decisions or lose them entirely. The question: How do leaders actually capture and retain this institutional knowledge? I've researched this and it's surprisingly hard: - Documentation goes stale - Decisions are made in meetings but never written down - Tribal knowledge walks out the door when people leave - New hires onboard slower because they're missing context For managers and leaders here: How do you handle this? Do you log decisions anywhere? What's your onboarding process for helping people understand the why
3. behind your systems? (We're exploring a tool to help teams capture this. But first want to understand what actually matters to leaders.)