When Leaders Pull in Different Directions: Insights from the Build a Vibrant Culture Podcast

Presence Is Defined by Others, Not Intentions

One of the sharpest exchanges in the episode centered on a simple but uncomfortable idea: intentions don't define how a leader comes across. The way people experience a leader's actions is what actually matters. A leader might feel confident and land as arrogant. A leader might think they're joking and land as dismissive.

Pete described this as one of the hardest gaps for leaders to see on their own — closing it requires people around you willing to say, plainly, that something didn't land the way you meant it to. He credited much of his own growth to colleagues who had the courage to point out exactly that.

Leadership Without a Title

Pete shared a story from closer to home: after a wildfire tore through his neighborhood outside Boulder, Colorado, it was a neighbor with no formal role and no assignment who organized the community's response — coordinating support for first responders, walking surviving neighbors through the recovery, and holding the group together through months of aftermath.

What struck Pete wasn't just that she stepped up. It was the *kind* of leadership it was — relational and quiet rather than decisive and out front. "I started to see my strength as softness, and her softness as strength," he said. He extended the idea further, describing how power in an organization works like currency, and how the leaders he respects most give it to the people who need it rather than protecting it for themselves.

Alignment Is the Part Everyone Nods At — and Everyone Gets Wrong

Toward the end of the conversation, Nicole raised a problem every leadership team recognizes at a glance: a leader at the top sets direction, and somewhere below, another leader quietly decides not to follow it. "You can't have two leaders in the C-suite taking the business this way, and they're taking the business that way," she said. "That's gonna split our efforts."

Pete's response points to where most organizations go wrong when they try to fix this. Leaders tend to chase alignment on the wrong things — a specific project goal, a technique, a tool — when those specifics are exactly what should flex as circumstances change. What actually holds an organization together is alignment on something more stable: shared values and principles, translated into the policies and metrics that shape day-to-day behavior. It's a distinction Pete has seen play out across organizations as different as GE Healthcare, Salesforce, and Google.

He also offered a sharp definition of what a leader is *not*: someone who simply passes vision down and problems up. "If all you're doing is passing down vision and passing up problems, you're not a leader — you're just a pipe." For the middle managers navigating exactly this tension every day, it's the kind of line that reframes the whole job.

Catch the Full Episode

Listen to the full episode for more of Pete and Nicole's conversation.

The alignment problem Pete and Nicole discussed — leaders at different levels quietly pulling in different directions — is one of the most common reasons leadership teams bring Pete in. If your own team recognizes that tension, reach out to Pete to talk about what a keynote, offsite, or working session with your leadership team could look like.