Leaders Create the Conditions for People to Succeed
How the leaders we work for shape who we become and what we're capable of achieving.
Early in my career, I had two completely different experiences working for two leaders at the same company.
When I lived in Arizona, I worked for a leader who made me feel like I mattered as a person, not just as an employee. My apartment was broken into more than once, and after the break-ins, I decided I wanted to move back home to Wisconsin. Her first concern was whether I was okay, and when I told her I wanted to move, she helped me figure out how to make that happen within the company. She supported the transfer, helped connect me with the right people, and genuinely wanted me to be successful, even though my success meant leaving her team.
I thrived working for her, and when I moved back to Wisconsin, I assumed that experience would continue. After all, I was staying with the same company. I was the same employee with the same work ethic and the same desire to do good work. What changed was the leader I worked for, and the difference was significant.
My new leader managed through control. I was micromanaged in ways I hadn’t experienced before, and even personal situations became things I was expected to report in detail. I remember getting a call that my dad was being taken to the hospital by ambulance, and instead of simply being able to leave and focus on my family, I was expected to tell my leader where I was going, how long I expected to be gone, and when I would be back.
Looking back now, what stands out to me is how differently I showed up under those two leaders. With one, I felt trusted. I had confidence. I wanted to contribute, stretch myself, and do more. With the other, I became much more cautious. I second-guessed myself and spent energy worrying about whether I was doing something wrong instead of putting that energy into the work.
That experience taught me something I’ve carried throughout the rest of my career: leaders create the conditions for people to succeed or struggle.
That doesn’t mean leaders are responsible for every employee’s performance. People still have accountability for their own work, behavior, and growth. But leaders have an enormous amount of influence over the environment in which that performance happens, and I’ve seen that play out many times since.
A talented employee can thrive under one leader and seem almost unrecognizable under another. Someone who used to bring ideas forward becomes quiet. Someone who was confident starts asking for approval on every decision. Someone who was willing to take a risk becomes afraid to make a mistake. When that happens, it’s easy to look at the employee and ask what changed in them. I think leaders also need to ask what changed around them.
Trust is one of the biggest factors. Leaders can say, “My door is always open,” but what really matters is what happens when someone walks through it. How do you respond when an employee tells you they made a mistake? What happens when they disagree with you? What do you do when someone says, “I don’t know”? People learn very quickly whether honesty is actually welcome.
The same is true when we tell people we want them to speak up. I’ve watched leaders ask for candid feedback and then become defensive when they receive it. I’ve seen leaders encourage people to challenge them and then immediately explain why the person doing the challenging is wrong. Employees notice those moments, and they adjust accordingly.
That’s part of how culture gets created. It isn’t only built through company values, leadership competencies, or what gets said at a town hall. It’s built through hundreds of small interactions that teach people what is actually safe, what really matters, and what happens when they get something wrong.
Clarity matters too. Sometimes we label something a performance problem when we haven’t been particularly clear about what success looks like in the first place. People shouldn’t have to guess what their leader expects. They need to know what matters most, what good looks like, where they have room to make decisions, and when they need to ask for help. When priorities change—and they always do—we have to communicate that too.
Feedback is another part of creating the right environment. I don’t believe caring about people means avoiding hard conversations. Quite the opposite. If I care about someone’s success, I owe them honesty when something isn’t working. But feedback should help someone move forward. It shouldn’t be saved for months and delivered as a surprise, and it shouldn’t be used to prove a point or remind someone who has the authority. People deserve to know where they stand, and they deserve the opportunity to do something with that information.
Development is probably the part of leadership I’m most passionate about. We tend to think of development as a course, a program, or a formal career plan. Those things matter, but some of the biggest development opportunities happen in much smaller moments. It can be inviting someone into a meeting they normally wouldn’t attend because you think they’re ready for more exposure. It can be giving them a stretch assignment and resisting the urge to take it back the minute they struggle. It can be making an introduction or asking what they want to learn next and then actually remembering the answer.
Some of the biggest opportunities in my own career happened because someone saw something in me I hadn’t necessarily seen in myself yet, gave me the chance to do something I hadn’t done before, or opened a door I didn’t even know was available to me. I remember those people, and I think when someone has done that for us, we have a responsibility to turn around and do it for someone else when we’re in a position to do so.
None of this means people will always succeed. There are times when expectations are clear, support is there, feedback has been given, and performance still isn’t where it needs to be. Leaders have a responsibility to address that too. Creating the conditions for success isn’t the same thing as guaranteeing the outcome. It means being able to look at the environment you’ve created and know that people had a fair opportunity to contribute, learn, grow, and understand what was expected of them.
Today, I spend a lot of my time working with leaders on trust, feedback, accountability, coaching, psychological safety, and the everyday moments that shape what it actually feels like to work for someone. I’m sure part of the reason I care so much about that work is because I experienced both sides of leadership so early in my own career. I know what it feels like to work for someone who makes you want to stretch and contribute more, and I also know how quickly the opposite environment can change the way you show up.
Most leaders can’t control everything happening around them. Organizations change. Priorities shift. Decisions get made above us. There will always be things outside our control. But we have a tremendous amount of influence over what it feels like to work with us.
I think about whether people know where they stand, whether they trust their leader enough to admit when something has gone wrong, whether they can bring forward an idea that isn’t completely formed yet, whether they receive honest feedback, and whether they believe their leader genuinely wants them to succeed.
Years ago, I experienced firsthand what it felt like to be the same person in the same company and have two completely different experiences because of the leaders around me. I’ve carried that lesson with me ever since.
Leadership is about much more than managing the work. We create the conditions in which people do that work, and those conditions matter.
