Horizon Point Consulting

Category: General

Horizon Point writes about dozens of leadership, career, workplace, and workforce topics. Sometimes we write whatever we want. Read this category for general blogs from the HPC team.

  • High Standards, Low Trust: Is Your Workplace Culture Working Against You?

    High Standards, Low Trust: Is Your Workplace Culture Working Against You?

    What happens when an organization changes the rules but not the culture?

    Nearly 20 years after The Devil Wears Prada introduced us to Miranda Priestly—a demanding, intimidating leader who made fear practically part of the office dress code—The Devil Wears Prada 2 gives us a glimpse of how workplace expectations have evolved.

    Miranda is finally hanging up her own coat. She’s more mindful of language that could be considered demeaning or exclusionary. Progress, right?

    But beneath those changes, some familiar leadership habits remain: limited transparency, tightly controlled information, and an expectation of unwavering commitment without always extending the same trust in return.

    Sound familiar?

    Most organizations don’t have a Miranda Priestly at the helm, but plenty struggle with the same disconnect between the culture they promote and the culture employees actually experience.

    A healthy workplace culture isn’t about lowering expectations. It’s about creating an environment where people are trusted, supported, and empowered to meet them.

    You Can’t Demand Ownership Without Building Trust

    We often encourage employees to take initiative, think strategically, and act like owners. But what happens when we don’t give them the information or autonomy to do so?

    In The Devil Wears Prada 2, Miranda’s response to Andy’s concerns about the magazine’s future is simple: “It’s not your problem.”

    It’s a familiar leadership contradiction. We want employees invested in organizational success, but sometimes shut them out of the very conversations that would allow them to contribute.

    Transparency doesn’t mean sharing every confidential detail or involving everyone in every decision. It means providing the context people need to understand their work, make informed decisions, and feel connected to the organization’s direction.

    When that context is missing, employees fill in the gaps themselves. Sometimes they disengage. Sometimes they make assumptions. And sometimes, like Andy, they take action without the full picture, creating unintended consequences.

    Belonging Is More Than Being Included

    In a recent workshop on Burnout, Belonging, and the Future of Work, Jillian explored how workplace environments influence employees’ sense of connection, engagement, and well-being.

    One important consideration for leaders is whether employees feel they have a voice.

    It’s possible to be part of a team, attend every meeting, and consistently deliver excellent work while still feeling disconnected from the organization.

    Belonging isn’t just about being included. It’s knowing your perspective is welcome and your contributions matter.

    And that requires psychological safety—the confidence to ask questions, raise concerns, challenge ideas, and acknowledge mistakes without fear of humiliation or retaliation.

    Even Miranda eventually acknowledges Andy’s value. But recognizing someone’s talent and creating an environment where they feel valued are two very different leadership skills.

    Burnout Isn’t Always About the Workload

    When employees are exhausted or disengaged, our first instinct may be to examine how much work they’re doing.

    But workload is only part of the equation.

    Unclear expectations, limited decision-making authority, inconsistent communication, and a lack of support can make even manageable workloads feel overwhelming.

    Consider the employee who is accountable for an outcome but has little influence over the decisions that affect it. Or the manager expected to solve problems without access to critical information. The frustration isn’t necessarily the amount of work—it’s the inability to do the work effectively.

    Over time, those experiences can erode trust, connection, and engagement.

    That’s why addressing burnout requires more than encouraging employees to take breaks or practice self-care. It requires examining the organizational practices that shape their everyday experience.

    Culture Is What Employees Experience

    Organizations can update policies, revise their language, and introduce new employee engagement initiatives. Those efforts matter, but they don’t automatically create connection.

    Culture is experienced in everyday interactions: how leaders respond to questions, how information is shared, how employees are recognized, and whether people feel supported when challenges arise.

    Miranda may have learned to hang up her own coat, but the more important question is whether the people around her feel any differently about coming to work.

    For leaders, that’s the question worth asking.

    Are we simply changing how leadership looks, or are we changing how employees experience it?

    Because the strongest workplace cultures don’t choose between high performance and employee well-being. They recognize that trust, belonging, and connection help make sustainable performance possible.

    As Miranda would say…That’s all.

    Take a closer look at your workplace culture.

    Our Sustainable Work and Belonging Scorecard offers a practical way to reflect on the organizational practices that support employee well-being, connection, and sustainable performance.

  • Beyond Grit: Getting Situated to Bring Out Your Best

    Beyond Grit: Getting Situated to Bring Out Your Best

    As I’ve grown older, I’ve become more aware of how much my situation impacts my wellbeing. The space I’m in. The place I call home. The people around me. All of it influences how I think, how I feel, and how I show up.

    I’ve also become more willing to ask whether something needs to change instead of assuming I just need to work harder.

    Angela Duckworth’s book, Situated: Find the People and Places That Bring Out Your Best, gave me language for this. The researcher who helped us understand grit now asks us to consider how our surroundings can help us put that grit to good use.

    One question from the book has stayed with me:

    “Can we learn to worship strategy as much as strength?”

    For those of us accustomed to pushing through, that is a question worth sitting with.

    1. Situational Awareness: Go Beyond Grit

    We’ve written quite a bit about grit at Horizon Point. In Leaders, Set Manageable Goals to Lead and Run Well, I shared how breaking marathon training into smaller pieces helped make a big goal manageable. In Open the Door to Growth, Grit and Yourself, Emily connected perseverance and self-awareness with a workplace that encourages people to grow.

    In Mommas Maintaining Grit?, I wrestled with what perseverance looked like while caring for a sick child and trying to meet work commitments. My husband, in-laws, and team helped make that week possible. I also questioned whether grit leaves enough room to reevaluate our goals and shift focus toward what matters in a particular season.

    Looking back, I can see situational awareness in that story. The demands changed, and so did the support and priorities I needed. Passion and perseverance were still there, even when they looked different from what a quiz might measure.

    Together, these pieces point toward the importance of the conditions surrounding our effort.

    Duckworth takes that idea further in Situated. We often focus on willpower at the point between a thought and a response: resist the distraction, choose the better behavior, make yourself do the hard thing.

    She encourages us to move to the left. Before the thought comes the situation. What could we change there to make the behavior we want easier to repeat?

    If you want to focus, where is your phone? If you want to exercise, how easy is it to get out the door? If you want your team to speak honestly, what happens when someone raises a concern?

    As Duckworth writes:

    “A little willpower goes a long way when you use it to get situated first.”

    For leaders, this means examining what surrounds the behavior we’re asking for. Our calendars, meeting practices, relationships, and responses to mistakes all shape what people do next.

    What in your situation is helping you become who you want to be? What is making it harder?

    2. Situational Agency: Do Something About It

    Awareness gives us a starting point. Agency asks us to act on it.

    Four ideas from the book stood out to me.

    Set Up Your Space

    Align where you are and what is around you with your goals.

    This can be as simple as putting the book you want to read within reach or finding a quiet place for work that requires concentration. At work, it might mean making the tools people need easier to access or protecting time to finish work between meetings.

    We ask people to manage their time while filling their calendars. We ask for collaboration without creating opportunities for connection. Getting situated means paying attention to whether the space and routines support the goal.

    Pick Your Peers

    One of my favorite examples is the commitment-card practice used by the De La Salle football team.

    Players write their goals on an index card and commit to a named teammate. They exchange cards, and that teammate observes their follow-through during the next week. At the following team gathering, the partner reports on whether the commitments were met.

    The card makes the goal visible. The relationship gives someone a reason to follow through.

    Think about what this could look like on your team. Each person identifies one specific commitment for the week and shares it with a peer. They check in, offer support, and have an honest conversation about what happened.

    That kind of accountability takes trust. It also gives us a practical way to help each other do what we said we would do.

    Make Mentorship the Mode

    Get one. Thank one.

    Who helps you see possibilities you might miss on your own? Who offers perspective when you’re too close to a situation to see it clearly?

    Seek out that person. Make time for the relationship. And thank the people who have already played that role in your life.

    Then consider who needs the same from you. Mentorship can happen in ordinary conversations when we ask a thoughtful question, share what we’ve learned, or help someone recognize a strength they haven’t yet seen.

    Champion Cultural Carriers

    Pay attention to the people who make a culture’s values visible through their everyday behavior. Who models curiosity? Who welcomes someone new? Who makes it safe to ask for help?

    Support those people, and examine the norms we accept simply because they are familiar. Status quo bias can keep us in situations long after we’ve stopped asking whether they fit.

    This year, my family made a significant change. We moved more than 300 miles from where my husband and I grew up and the only hometown our children had known.

    Being hometown kids raising kids in our hometown came with relationships and roots we value. It also came with expectations we had grown accustomed to following.

    Moving has given us more margin, more proximity to the things we value and enjoy, and less pressure to conform to what we’ve always conformed to. It has helped us choose more intentionally how we want to live.

    A move isn’t everyone’s answer. But questioning a familiar situation can help us see choices we didn’t realize we had.

    3. Situational Responsibility: Help Others Get Situated

    The book also prompted me to reconsider Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

    The familiar pyramid makes it easy to imagine we finish with one need and climb to the next. Duckworth revisits a more fluid understanding: Maslow did not draw that pyramid, and our needs don’t disappear as we grow. We continue to need safety, belonging, esteem, and opportunities to develop. Different needs come to the foreground at different times.

    That matters at work. Someone can be ambitious and still need rest. A capable leader can still need belonging. A person doing meaningful work can still be worried about paying the bills.

    Duckworth’s discussion of self-transcendence takes this further. Beyond developing our own potential is the opportunity to use it in service of something larger than ourselves.

    That is situational citizenship: helping create conditions in which others can thrive, too.

    We don’t all have the same freedom to change our circumstances. Leaders have a particular responsibility to consider the situations they create for other people. Can we offer clearer expectations, access to a mentor, room to learn, or a more sustainable workload?

    At Horizon Point, growing people means paying attention to both the person and the workplace around them. Getting situated can help us bring out our best. Leadership asks us to extend that opportunity to others.

    What lights you up? Go let it shine so others can see you—and do the same.

  • How Organizations Can Support Sustainable Performance

    How Organizations Can Support Sustainable Performance

    High performance matters. Sustainable performance matters more.

    Organizations need results, but those results shouldn’t depend on constant urgency, overwork, or a few high performers carrying the load.

    Sustainable performance is about creating an environment where people can do good work, continue to grow, and contribute over time. It combines clear expectations with strong leadership, meaningful development, and workplace practices that recognize people as more than simply a measure of productivity.

    At Horizon Point, this connects closely to one of our core values: People First. Putting people first doesn’t mean lowering expectations. It means recognizing that long-term organizational performance and the employee experience are closely connected.

    Here are 3 Ways to Support Sustainable Performance:

    1. Give People Clarity

    Employees need to know what matters most.

    Clear priorities, realistic expectations, good communication, and an understanding of how individual work connects to larger organizational goals can reduce unnecessary friction and help people focus their energy where it has the greatest impact.

    Leaders can regularly ask: Are we making it clear what success looks like—and what matters most right now?

    2. Develop Leaders Who Develop Others

    Managers have a significant influence on the everyday employee experience. Sustainable performance requires leaders who can do more than assign work and track results.

    Strong leaders communicate expectations, provide feedback, recognize contributions, coach through challenges, and help employees continue developing.

    This is especially important as organizations promote high performers into leadership roles. Technical expertise may earn someone a promotion, but leading people requires a different set of skills.

    For more on this, see The Leaders You Need Are Already Here and Horizon Point’s From Manager to Coach: Coaching Leadership That Builds Teams.

    3. Make Growth Part of the Work

    Development doesn’t always require a formal training program.

    Career conversations, mentoring, cross-training, stretch assignments, job shadowing, assessments, and opportunities to take on new responsibilities can help employees build skills while also strengthening organizational capacity.

    Recognition matters, too. When people know their contributions are seen and valued, it can strengthen connection and engagement. Horizon Point’s Recognition Is Not a Perk—It’s a Retention Strategy offers additional perspective on the relationship between recognition and retention.

    Here are a Few Helpful External Resources:

    Gallup Workplace — research and insights on employee engagement, managers, workplace culture, and performance.

    SHRM — practical tools and resources related to talent management, employee experience, leadership, retention, and workplace practices.

    The Energy Project — resources focused on energy, resilience, and sustainable performance at work.

    Start Small: Supporting sustainable performance doesn’t require launching another major initiative.

    Start with three questions:

    Do our people know what matters most?
    Are our leaders equipped to support and develop their people?
    Are we creating opportunities for people to learn, grow, and contribute?

    The answers can point to where small changes could have a meaningful impact.

    Sustainable performance isn’t about asking people to continually do more. It’s about creating the conditions that help people consistently do their best work—and continue growing along the way.

  • Employee Communication: Building Trust in Teams

    Employee Communication: Building Trust in Teams

    Recently, Jillian and I facilitated a series of employee focus groups for one of our clients. Leadership intentionally stepped out of the room to create space for open and honest conversation. Employees were invited to share their thoughts on the organization’s culture, leadership, training, communication, and anything else they felt was important.

    Although the focus groups were facilitated by Horizon Point and leadership was not present, many employees were still hesitant to participate. Their concerns weren’t about the questions being asked—they were about what would happen after they answered them. Would their feedback somehow make its way back to their manager? Would speaking honestly affect how they were viewed? Would anything actually change as a result of what they shared?

    Those concerns highlight an important reality: communication isn’t just about creating opportunities for employees to speak. It’s about creating an environment where they believe it’s safe to do so—and where they trust their voices will be heard.

    When employees don’t believe it’s safe—or worthwhile—to speak honestly, valuable insights remain hidden, small issues become larger ones, and organizations lose opportunities to improve.

    Communication Starts with Relationships

    Providing feedback isn’t just about the conversation—it’s about the relationship. Trust determines whether feedback is received as an opportunity for growth or as personal criticism. In Radical Candor, Kim Scott describes effective leadership as caring personally while challenging directly. Without trust, even the best-intentioned feedback can be met with skepticism or defensiveness.

    At Horizon Point, we often talk about Relationshipping—the intentional practice of building and nurturing relationships to better understand, support, and serve others. Relationshipping doesn’t begin when a difficult conversation is needed. It’s built over time through consistent actions: listening with curiosity, following through on commitments, treating people with respect, and demonstrating genuine care.

    Employees don’t communicate openly because they’ve been told their opinions matter. They communicate openly because their experiences have shown them they do. Trust isn’t built during annual surveys or focus groups—it is built in the hundreds of everyday interactions between leaders and employees.

    Psychological Safety Requires Humble Leaders

    Psychological safety isn’t about making everyone comfortable. It’s about creating an environment where employees feel safe asking questions, sharing ideas, admitting mistakes, respectfully disagreeing, and providing honest feedback without fear of embarrassment or retaliation.

    Google’s Project Aristotle identified psychological safety as the single most important characteristic of high-performing teams. The common thread wasn’t that these teams avoided difficult conversations—it was that people felt safe enough to have them.

    Creating that kind of environment requires humility from leaders.

    We often work with leaders who say they want honest feedback, and most genuinely do. The real test comes when that feedback challenges a decision, questions a process, or exposes a blind spot. Our natural instinct is often to explain our reasoning or defend our intentions instead of seeking to understand the employee’s experience.

    One of the things I often tell leaders when conducting job analyses is that no one understands a job better than the person doing it every day. The same is true when identifying problems or opportunities for improvement. The employees closest to the work often know where processes break down, what creates frustration, and where changes could have the greatest impact.

    Leadership isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about asking the right questions and creating an environment where employees feel comfortable sharing what they know.

    One of the most important lessons leaders can learn is that intent and impact are not always the same. A leader may have every intention of improving communication, efficiency, or morale, while employees experience the decision very differently. Rather than defending intentions, effective leaders become curious about the impact. They ask questions, listen without interrupting, and remain open to adjusting course when necessary.

    Listening Isn’t Enough

    Creating opportunities for employees to provide feedback is only the first step. Organizations invest significant time and resources into employee surveys, focus groups, suggestion boxes, stay interviews, and exit interviews. Simply asking for feedback creates an expectation that employees’ voices will be acknowledged.

    That doesn’t mean leaders need to implement every suggestion. Employees understand there are budget constraints, competing priorities, and operational realities. What they do expect is transparency.

    Close the communication loop.

    Tell employees what you heard. Share what actions will be taken, what won’t be implemented, and why. Provide realistic timelines when possible, and thank employees for their honesty and willingness to contribute.

    When feedback disappears into a “black hole,” employees begin to wonder why they were asked in the first place. Eventually, they stop offering ideas, raising concerns, or participating in future feedback opportunities—not because they don’t care, but because they’ve concluded it won’t make a difference.

    Employees don’t expect every idea to become reality, but they do expect their voices to matter.

    Final Thoughts

    As we wrapped up each focus group, one thing stood out. Employees cared deeply about their organization. They wanted to share ideas, solve problems, and help make their workplace better. Their hesitation wasn’t about having something to say—it was about wondering whether it was safe to say it and whether anyone would truly listen.

    Healthy workplace communication isn’t built through annual surveys or occasional focus groups. It’s built every day through relationships, psychological safety, humility, and consistent follow-through. Leaders who listen with curiosity, invite honest dialogue, and communicate transparently create cultures where employees feel heard, respected, and empowered to contribute.

    Because when employees stop talking, organizations stop learning.

  • The Leaders You Need Are Already Here

    The Leaders You Need Are Already Here

    Why Developing Emerging Leaders Matters Now

    The leaders you need may already be in your organization. They may not have a formal leadership title yet. They may be individual contributors, project leads, experienced team members, or newer employees who consistently show initiative, influence, curiosity, and trust. The challenge is not always finding leadership potential. Often, the challenge is recognizing it early and developing it with intention.

    Too often, organizations wait until there is a leadership gap before they start thinking about leadership development. Someone leaves. The business grows. A team needs a new supervisor. A high-performing employee gets promoted because they are great at the work. Then, almost overnight, the job changes. Success is no longer just about technical skill, individual productivity, or personal drive. Now, success depends on the ability to influence people, communicate clearly, coach performance, handle conflict, and make decisions that shape culture.

    That transition can be tough, especially when employees are expected to lead before they have been prepared to do so. Harvard Professional & Executive Development notes that emerging leaders need core management skills to drive organizational goals, foster innovation, build trust, and adapt to change. That is not just professional development. It is a business need.

    At Horizon Point, we believe leadership development starts by looking within. When organizations learn how to identify leadership potential and develop emerging leaders from within, they create continuity, strengthen culture, increase engagement, and prepare for future growth. They also send an important message to employees: we see your potential, and we are willing to invest in it.

    Leadership Development Should Be Customized

    In our work with organizations across industries, we see this over and over again: generic leadership programs rarely create lasting change. Organizations need leadership development that connects to their real business challenges, values, people, and future goals.

    For one organization, leadership development became a key part of succession planning. Horizon Point partnered with senior leaders to identify the competencies needed at different levels, clarify the talent pipeline, and equip current leaders to become more intentional career developers for others. The goal was not simply to “train managers.” The goal was to help leaders become active developers of talent throughout the organization.

    This aligns with guidance from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which describes succession planning as a systematic approach to building leadership pipelines, developing potential successors, and focusing resources on talent development. Leadership development is not separate from workforce planning. It is one of the ways organizations protect continuity, capability, and future performance.

    From Insight to Action

    We have also seen the impact of customized assessment and coaching work. In one engagement, Horizon Point helped design a customized 360 assessment aligned with organizational values and leadership competencies. The assessment data became the foundation for individual development action plans and succession planning decisions. Participants received coaching to understand their results, identify strengths and gaps, and create clear improvement plans.

    That is the power of a well-designed leadership development process. It provides both insight and action. Data without development can feel like a report card. Development without data can feel unclear. Together, they give organizations a practical way to grow people with purpose.

    The Center for Creative Leadership emphasizes that effective leadership development should connect to business strategy, include real-world application, and be reinforced over time. We see this in practice every day. The best programs give leaders space to practice, reflect, receive feedback, and apply what they are learning in real situations.

    What Environment Do You Create?

    One of the most thought-provoking questions we ask emerging leaders is simple: What environment do you create?

    Leaders may not be able to motivate people directly, but they can create the conditions where motivation, ownership, and growth are more likely to happen. They can clarify expectations. Build trust. Connect work to purpose. Give feedback in a way that develops instead of discourages. Manage different personalities, communication styles, and conflict responses. Make people feel seen, challenged, and supported.

    That is why leadership development must begin from within. It starts with self-awareness. Emerging leaders need to understand how their own habits, values, communication patterns, and assumptions affect others. From there, they can build awareness of the people they lead.

    Building Leaders from the Inside Out

    Every organization will face transitions: retirements, growth, restructuring, new markets, changing workforce expectations, and evolving customer needs. The question is not whether leadership gaps will appear. The question is whether the organization is preparing people now to step into them.

    At Horizon Point, we create and customize leadership development programs that help organizations grow leaders from the inside out. Sometimes that means designing a full leadership development or succession planning process. Sometimes it means facilitating existing curriculum locally with excellence and care. Sometimes it means assessment, coaching, train-the-trainer support, or workshops focused on the skills new leaders need most.

    Because when organizations develop emerging leaders with intention, they do more than fill future roles. They build stronger cultures, more capable teams, and workplaces where people and performance can grow together.

    To learn more about developing emerging leaders and building a strong leadership pipeline, explore these related blog posts:

    From Manager to Coach: Coaching Leadership That Builds Teams

    6 Steps for Choosing Leadership Training Content and 7 Recommended Frameworks

    Interested in developing emerging leaders within your organization? Explore our newly revised Leadership Development webpage to learn how Horizon Point helps organizations build leadership capacity, strengthen succession planning, and prepare leaders for future success.